video
SEE: Emma Miller – ‘Set Me Down’: piano-led lusciousness from Elgin
EMMA MILLER is a folk singer-songwriter with a very delicate and potent touch to her tunesmithery who, as so many of us do, left for the bright lights of London – but who also had the perspicacity and vision to shut that door again and leave for another, better way. She’s been releasing music entirely …
SEE: Satoshi Kanno – ‘Elastic’: morphing IDM with enveloping visuals
A MULTI-media artist based in Tokyo, Satoshi Kanno has been splicing delicate skeins of noise with with tough beats since 2013. He’s appeared on a number of compilations, including Nenormalizm’s Various – Nenormalizm Birthday Gathering in 2015 and 樹海 Sea Of Trees; following that with a brace of EPs which you can still revel in …
SEE: The trippy visuals for Lost Horizons’ ‘One For Regret’; London date announced
LOST HORIZONS, the project of Cocteau Twins’ Simon Raymonde and Richie Thomas, of former 4AD labelmates Dif Juz, are set to release their new ultra-collaborative double album, In Quiet Moments, on which every track features guest vocalists, in instalments across this winter; and they’ve just dropped the green-screen video for a track taken from part the …
SEE: Firestations – ‘Small Island’
IN AN attempt to maintain focus on their bands in a time when gigs are not possible, Lost Map is launching the Automatic Tendencies initiative, a periodic release of EP collections of alternative versions of previously released tracks, as well as remixes by other artists in their roster. There will be three releases of this …
SEE: Andy Bell – ‘Cherry Cola (Pye Corner Audio remix)’
AS his GLOK side-project shows, Andy Bell is a shoegazing legend who really isn’t afraid to embrace the tronica; in the spirit of which, the latest single he’s released from his superb solo album, The View From Halfway Down (read our review of the album here), comes subtly rerubbed through the prisms of Pye Corner Audio. …
SEE: Alex Jayne – ‘Pictures’: grand introspection about letting go
LONDON songstress Alex Jayne, who’s released a triptych of potent, observational pop nuggets this year, is drawing down the curtain on 2020 with one final single, “Pictures”, again penned from the heart. Watch the Laurie Barraclough-directed video below. It’s a slow burn with a grand vocal performance: fragile, yet still soaring, you can really feel …
PREMIERE: Farmer Dave & The Wizards of the West – ‘Right Vibration’: Beachwood Sparks man right back in the psych saddle
FARMER DAVE SCHER may be better known to you from the string of excellent bands he’s both been in and collaborated with down the years. He was a member of brilliant West Coast country-psych outfit Beachwood Sparks, who took on Sade’s “By Your Side” and completely won (and actually chaps, while we’re here, could we …
Track: Thomas Keating – Cold Night
Sydney singer Thomas Keating has just released an absolutely gorgeous track ‘Cold Night’ and a dazzling accompanying video for the song. Inspired by time spent in Melbourne, the song is imperial and statuesque – crisp, sparkling instrumentation flow under Keating’s melancholic and expressive vocals. Keating says: A few years ago, I moved to Melbourne for …
SEE: Grandbrothers – ‘All The Unknown’: prepared piano meets techno in widescreen
PIANIST Erol Sarp and producer-cum-electronic engineer Lukas Vogel first began to collaborate under the warped familial relationship concept of Grandbrothers eight years ago, looking to investigate the possibilities open to them in the prepared piano; that is, a piano with various insertions, be it purely analogue (the insertion of objects between the strings – under the bonnet, …
SEE: Francis of Delirium – ‘Lakes’: sweet-edged punk pop explores our emotional reservoirs
TAKE a Canadian and an American, base them in Luxembourg; fill their bellies with garage-punk-pop fire; give ’em a gentle shake. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Francis of Delirium. Over here at Backseat Mafia we last encountered 19-year-old singer Jana Bachrich and her partner in musical crime Chris Hewett in early September when they …