singer-songwriter
Album review: Ben Howard – ‘Collections From The Whiteout’: engrossing, tragic stories on his best yet
WHAT a day it is for Ben Howard as he returns with Collections From The Whiteout – an album rich in engrossing stories and full-bodied instrumentals. Critically acclaimed English singer-songwriter Ben has created his fourth studio album in a run beginning with 2011’s Every Kingdom. It’s a 14-track album that appears simple to the naked …
News: Chloe Foy announces her long-awaited debut album; let her hush you with ‘Shining Star’
CHLOE FOY, the Gloucestershire singer-songwriter with a knack for a soul-baring lyric all wrapped in a sweet melodic glide, has announced that her debut album, Where Shall We Begin, will be with us just before midsummer; and in celebration of which bottle smashing against the hull, she’s dropped a new single, the hushed depths of …
Album review: Renee Reed – ‘Renee Reed’: an excellent, ethereal debut from Louisiana folk chanteuse
Renée Reed’s debut is spun from very clever finery; a flow of tracks, folky and so American and yet so European, psychedelic in the way Devendra is, spectral in the way Marissa Nadler so is; Espers, but less mushroomy. Renée: she’s such a talent. I’m not sure if I want to wake from this particular spell.
See: The lyric video for the tumbling odd-folk of Yves Jarvis’ ‘Body Of Work’
YVES JARVIS is the artist and autodidact Jean-Sébastien Audet who, in a pseudo-Bill Callahanesque move, came out from behind his Un Blonde facemask after 2016’s excellent Good Will Come To You (according to his personal colour palette, it was bathed in yellow, for optimism), reborn with a new name. Over here at Backseat Mafia we adored his …
Track: Gallery 47 – Angel Follows Me Out
Ultra prolific Nottingham singer-songwriter, Gallery 47, releases “Angel Follows Me Out”, the first single from his 12th album release “Saturation”. It was one of four (that’s right!) albums released in 2020 by Gallery 47 (the pseudonym of Jack Peachey). Since receiving support from ‘BBC Introducing’ and Nottingham’s legendary ‘LeftLion Magazine’ in 2010, Peachey has quietly …
Premiere: Ted Barnes feat. Kristin McClement – ‘Metal Man’: a dusky tale of yearning from Clayhill’s quiet genius
WE’VE been quietly adoring the erm, quietly very adorable work which Ted Barnes, the one-time Clayhill singer, who literally did run away and join the circus after that band broke up a decade and half ago now, has been dropping over past weeks in the run-up to the release of his first album in too …
Not Forgotten: Warren Zevon
FOR FAR too many music fans here in the UK, the name Warren Zevon merely equates to the American singer-songwriter’s one and only hit in the late 70s, “Werewolves Of London”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as it’s a great song and Zevon deserved his pop-star moment. Things is there was more to …
Rising: We meet Sara Wolff, talk about her journey from Norway to the Mersey and see the video for her lush new track, ‘Hands’
SARA WOLFF is a rising acoustic singer-songwriting talent who hails from Bergen, Norway, but who left those surrounds to study on Merseyside; liked what she saw and it how it was, decided to stick around; soon found that songs were flowing. It’s been quite the journey from university to rising alt.folk talent whose first single …
Album review: Chad VanGaalen – ‘The World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener’: an excellent, multifaceted curio of psych and fun
YOU’VE gotta love Chad VanGaalen, the Albertan singer-songwriter who completely follows his own muse, sees the world his own goddam way, thank you very much; and who’s been delighting those of us in the know for a decade and a half now. He first emerged blinking into the musical sunlight with his Infiniheart album for …
Track and EP News: Tommy Ashby and Lydia Clowes – Happy Just to Know
Scottish singer-songwriter, Tommy Ashby has released his duet with Lydia Clowes, ‘Happy Just To Know’. It’s out via Wow & Flutter Records and is the first single from his new EP, ‘Lay Low’, which is out on 14th May. It’s an absolutely brilliant slice of life-affirming joy from start to finish and is that song …