singer-songwriter
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 …
Track: Polly Paulusma revives the folk classic with sublime ‘ Barbary Allen ‘
Folk Singer, composer of English Literature Professor, Polly Paulusma is a force to be reckoned with. Already a highly established folk singer , Paulusma recorded her latest album ‘Invisible Man Music ‘ , a collection of traditional folk songs that influenced novelist Angela Carter, gracefully re-told by Polly Paulusma. The album is a sonic portrait readings …
Album Review: Jackie Leven – Straight Outta Caledonia…The Songs of Jackie Leven
I remember vividly the first time that I heard ‘The Sexual Loneliness of Jesus Christ’ by outsider, Scottish troubadour Jackie Leven. It was 2001 and I was totally unprepared for and utterly mesmerised by the sheer audacity of Leven’s artistic reach and the epic sweep of his lyrics and music on that track. I couldn’t …