singer-songwriter
Track: Jake Whiskin wraps us up in the delicate whisper of ‘Cold Morning’ – a song of loss and dawn rising
LEEDS singer-songwriter Jake Whiskin, a man of considerable and empathetic talent, knows not only the horrible cold of a dank mid-December morning, but the terrible soul-deep chill of awaking into loss from that respite, sleep; count one, two, three and plunge from your dreamworld into a waking, aching nightmare. Out today, is the tender, sparse …
See: Alyssa Gengos shapes up for her 2022 album as a pretty awesome ‘Cheerleader Of The Universe’
LOS ANGELINO bedroom pop genius Alyssa Gengos is basically someone to completely watch in 2022. We’ve already nailed our colours to that mast on the back of her last single, the effortlessly excellent “Gothenburg English” – see our swooning coverage of that, here; and making us feel a whole lot more like we haven’t made …
Track: Josephine Sillars – ‘I’ll See You When I See You’: heartfelt songwriting from a rising Highlands talent
THE LATEST instalment in the singles club run by Leeds grassroots organisation Come Play With Me – the label, zine, promoter and all round caring body active on the West Yorkshire scene – comes from a fine female singer-songwriter, now resident in the capital of God’s Own Country, but who came south from the Highlands …
Track: Billie Flynn shares ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’: brandy warmth from the Cornish coast on a seasonal classic
THE SEASON, ’tis almost upon us, friends; and in celebration and expectation of that, chanteuse Billie Flynn, who’s based on Cornwall’s rugged granite coast, has revisited that holiday season classic “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” in her breathy, lovely style accompanied by a guitar of brandy warmth and, dare I say it? An almost …
See: Howdy, pardner; Novelty Island takes a breezy, bluegrass psych-pop trip in ‘Cowboy On A Bicycle’, with three shows next month
YEP. Yep. You’ve swooned for the baroque-pop, early-Seventies’ auteur styles of Strawberry Guy. Of course you have. Why ever not? The minute you walked in the joint I could tell you were a being of consummate taste. You’ve got a taste for one-man pop visionaries from the north-west, haven’t you? Hungering to explore more? This …
Track: As Oldham’s TikTok sensation Seb Lowe releases his debut mini-album, delight in the rollicking Pennine lyricism of ‘iPhone’
WITH something like a hundred thousand-plus followers over on shortform video app TikTok, bard of the Oldham streets Seb Lowe is working from the ground up with a fascinating and absolutely necessary line in acerbic socio-political commentary on the state we’re in, AD 2021 – and one in which he leaves us less tech-compliant old …
News: elkyn announces his debut album and accompanying tour; hear a first single, the intimate whisper of ‘everything looks darker now’
WHERE his EP from last year, beech, got aficionados of a certain stripe of nocturnal, confessional singer-songwriters talking about great potential and one to watch, it looks like Joey Donnelly, the artist in his early twenties who appears with a guitar, a hushed voice and a bag of beautiful tunesmithery as elkyn, is set to …
See: Alyssa Gengos drops the lighter-than-air, bedroom pop caress of ‘Gothenburg English’ – the world may well already be at her feet
SHE’S already being touted in certain quarters of the music press as the first big thing of 2022. which seems quite an epithet to carry given we’re not even there yet; but on the strength of LA bedroom pop songwriter Alyssa Gengos’ second single “Gothenburg English”, out now, you’d be a foolish man to bet …
EP review: Lindsay Munroe’s ‘Softest Edge’ packs so much into four tracks; she can sing literally anything the human soul can feel
MANCHESTER’S Lindsay Munroe is, it’s fair to say, someone whose voice you can fall for on first encounter. I speak from personal experience here; I’d been writing for Backseat Mafia for what? … days, really, when I got offered the chance to pick up a lead single from last year’s Our Heaviness EP; I went …
Exclusive: Swedish singer-songwriter Bonanda records ‘Backseat’ live in session for Backseat Mafia
Swedish singer songwriter Bonander, aka Ellinor Sterner Bonander, recently released her brilliant debut album ‘Things We Don’t Talk About’, following on from singles Martha Gone in the Wind and Backseat – and she has done a exclusive live session from us here at Backseat Mafia of the latter. Stripped down to just the piano and …