track
Bleach Lab announce EP for March – hear the blissful glide of ‘Old Ways’
FORMED up in the wooded hills of Buckinghamshire, since relocated south of the Thames, Bleach Lab have an appreciation of the good things; think the Cocteau Twins, think Mazzy Star, think glimmer and shimmer, languid vocals spreading loving and lovelorn vocals over guitar chime. All the good things. Despite 2020 sending a viral tornado through …
Track: The Electorate release the single ‘Skeleton’ from their impressive debut album ‘You Don’t Have Time to Stay Lost’
‘You Don’t Have Time to Stay Lost’ is the outstanding debut album from Sydney outfit The Electorate – appearing in my list of favourite antipodean albums for 2020. I described the album as perfectly capturing the ennui of modern middle-aged life and wrapping it into beautiful melodies and wistful observations that manage to express the …
ALBUM REVIEW: Jim Ghedi – ‘In The Furrows Of Common Place’: a bold, proud album of working class folk
In The Furrows Of Common Place is a bold and proud album of working class folk. It bears witness with an unflinching melodious anger – it’s the first essential album of 2021
ALBUM REVIEW: John Dwyer, Nick Murray, Brad Caulkins, Tom Dolas and Greg Coates – ‘Witch Egg’
There’s so many ideas in Witch Egg, from so many genres and eras: mod, krautrock, free jazz, even acid jazz; they’re arrived at, explored at once, captured, moved on from. It speaks much of the restless creativity at the heart of this, John Dwyer. It’s quite a journey for a fringe music head
Track: Bryan Estepa: Trick of the Light
Sydney musician Bryan Estepa has impressive song-writing style that is certainly Beatlesesque in delivery, while maintaining his own distinctive delivery and style. His new single ‘Trick of the Light’ showcases his smooth vocals with an extraordinary range as well as the lush and sparkling instrumentation. ‘Trick of the Light’ is infused with a deep melancholia …
TRACK: Graywave – ‘Before’: shoegaze nocturne teases for EP
JUST before Christmas, Backseat Mafia had the absolute privilege of premiering “Like Heaven”, a brilliant surge of dream pop haze and melody from Graywave, the musical project of the West Midlands’ Jess Webberley. We’ll let you into a little secret: she’s a bit ace. Jess is shaping for the release of Graywave’s debut EP, Planetary …
TRACK: The Damn Straights – ‘Blow It Up’: one minute fifty-eight of lyrical fire
THE DAMN STRAIGHTS: who they? I hear you say. Well, as if proving gestalt theory – if you’ll allow me to don my professor specs a sec, that a transactional whole is indeed more than the sum of its parts – it’s a two-handed, transatlantic collaboration between Exeter’s Adam Gibbons, aka the connoisseur’s modern soul …
TRACK: Renée Reed – ‘Fast One’: potent, dreamlike alt.folk from Louisiana
HAILING from Lafayette, Louisiana, Renée Reed has signed for Austin label Keeled Scales and released a single, the impressionistic, delightfully dreamy alt.folk of “Fast One”. Listen below. It’s a many-faceted thing for something as apparently simple as a one-woman-with-guitar folk tune; it has, by turns, a sleepy blurriness, a pillowside intimacy, the sort of mantric guitar …
Lizzie Reid – ‘Been Thinking About You’: jazzy swing with real heart, soul and devil-may-care
LIZZIE REID, the young Glaswegian songwriter who is a massive, massive new talent – no dissent now at the back, this is just how it is – has been melting hearts at Backseat Mafia over the past few months as she’s hashed out a little trail of candid and heartfelt tunesmithery en route to her …
Home Counties – ‘Modern Yuppies’: angular punk-funk takes on the consumerist dream
HOME COUNTIES who, despite the name, are a five-piece happy to gaze askance at all the weird doings of modernity from the safety of Bristol, release their third, three-minute dose of angular commentary, “Modern Yuppies”, today. Us humble folks at Backseat Mafia feel embracing their particular wonky vision of the truth is a necessary step. …