News: P.J Harvey announces reissue of classic album ‘To Bring You My Love’
The iconic P.J. Harvey has announced the reissue of her brilliant third album ‘To Bring You My Love’ on vinyl on 11 September 2020. Produced by PJ Harvey with Flood and John Parish, and originally released in February 1995, ‘To Bring You My Love’ features the singles ‘Down By The Water’, ‘C’mon Billy’ and ‘Send …
Track: Astral Swans – Bird Songs
Inspired by some sort of wildlife-induced paranoia in an Amsterdam park, Astral Swans have released a fabulous piece of whimsy entitled ‘Bird Songs’. There is a sweet doleful sound to ‘Bird Songs’, infused as it is with a sense of melancholia and a slight self-deprecatory air. I’m reminded of The Eels and The Lightning Seeds: …
Track: San Cisco – Messages plus album news
Western Australia’s eternally stylistic San Cisco have just released another highly effervescent track – ‘Messages’ – and announced details of a new album entitled ‘Between You and Me’ due out on 4 September 2020. ‘Messages’ has a sixties Burt Bacharach vibe, and the sun-filtered bleached-out video matches the vibe with its yellow bright tones. It …
Track: The Goa Express – Be My Friend
‘Be My Friend’, the new single from The Goa Express, emerges from the starting gates with such an abandoned joie de vivre that it’s exhilarating and heady. It’s a shouty, slightly snotty and utterly endearing post-punk blast of energy. It takes me back to the urgency and vitality of bands like The Buzzcocks and The …
Track: Future Islands – For Sure
Future Islands first gained world attention for their stunningly intense and committed performance of the single ‘Seasons (Waiting on You)’ on the Letterman Show way back in 2014. This somewhat overshadowed the fact that the band wrote and continues to write fantastic synth pop anthems. After a gap of three years, they are back with …
Track: Vast Asteroid – Champagne Ambassadors
There has been an increasing number of references to the genre of spacegaze – a highly volatile concoction of shoegaze, psychedelia and dream pop. Vast Asteroid so describe themselves, and it is most appropriate. Their new single, ‘Champaign Ambassadors’, is a shimmering, glittering wall of noise – all reverb and chorus layered over guitars and …
See: The Institutes release video for ‘Heal In Time’
If it wasn’t enough that The Institutes released one of the singles of the year so far – a jingle jangly hyper-delight of of a tune – they have added a suitably effervescent video for it. ‘Heal In Time’ (reviewed by me earlier this month) gets me feeling all nostalgic for a certain guitar-based buzz …
Album Review: DMA’s – The Glow plus tour news
DMA’s have forged their own unique and exhilarating path ever since they first came to the world’s attention with their single ‘Delete’. I remember when they appeared, apparently out of nowhere in Sydney, and were dismissed by some reports as a sort of Oasis tribute band. Anyone who actually listens to their music soon realises …
Track: Doves – Prisoners plus album news
Last month Backseat Mafia welcomed back the ever brilliant Doves upon the release of their first material in eleven years – the single ‘Carousels’. And to add fuel to the fire, Doves are back with another fantastic new single, ‘Prisoners’, as well as exciting news of a new album, entitled ‘The Universal Want’, due out …
Premiere: We Are Waves – SELVA
Backseat Mafia is honoured to premiere the new video from Italian post-punk/synthwave band We Are Waves for their blistering new track ‘SELVA’. Brewed and percolated in lockdown conditions, the wave of innovative and very exciting music from Italy continues unabated in this track: a hybrid of electronic industrial drive and straight out indie rock. The …