Album Review: James Leonard Hewitson – Only The Noise Will Save Me
There’s a golden thread that runs through indie music stretching from at least as early as The Kinks and winding through to the Sex Pistols, Ian Dury, The Undertones, Wreckless Eric through to The Libertines, Pulp, Supergrass and more recently The Arctic Monkeys. There’s many I’ve left out in that list but I’m sure you …
Track: The National – Never Tear Us Apart (INXS Cover)
A compilation album of songs to raise money for the impact of the recent cataclysmic fires in Australia – ‘Songs For Australia’ – will be released digitally in March and an undoubted highlight is The National‘s cover of prime Australian export INXS’s sublime ballad ‘Never Tear Us Apart’. It is a brilliant rendition of a …
Track: Costume – Dream Palace
Backseat Mafia was blown away by a performance by Hobart’s Renaissance man Costume (the moniker of Adam Ouston) at last year’s Dark Mofo Festival. Dramatic, postured, confident and highly entertaining, Costume perfectly captures an eighties zeitgeist for the contemporary era with a Bowiesque meets Dead or Alive buzz. One the eve of an Australian tour, …
Interview: EWAH & The Vision of Paradise plus track ‘Play Hard’
Hobart, the city at the edge of the world, is a unique and fascinating place. I have written about the weird and wonderful Dark Mofo Festival over the last few years, where I had the good luck to catch EWAH & the Vision of Paradise (EVoP) live at the iconic Brisbane Hotel back in 2017. …
Video: Scratch – Soak
A while back we wrote about a terrific cross ocean collaboration between Perth musician Ruz Irani and New Yorker Avinash Lalwani under the name Scratch. Scratch are back with a video of the song ‘Soak’ – a song we described as sounding like Radiohead meeting Feeder – delicate guitars, synth, and vocals in between thunderous walls of guitar and …
Premiere: Cloud Tangle – Romance Me
It is with great pleasure that Backseat Mafia premiere’s the latest single from Brisbane’s highly talented musician/producer Amber Ramsay, working under the name Cloud Tangle. ‘Romance Me’ is a dreamy, floaty masterpiece with Ramsay’s gorgeous, distant, disconnected voice sweeping through the synth layers – sensual, enveloping and yet antithetically cold. There is a beautiful fragility …
Premiere: Alyrah – Twin Flame Portal EP plus single The Empress
Backseat Mafia is very proud to premiere the single ‘The Empress’ from Australian artist Alyrah, as well as her forthcoming EP ‘Twin Flame Portal’, due out on 28 February 2020. Hailing from Sydney, Alyrah is an indie-electronic artist and producer with, based on this release, an enormous amount of talent and a very distinct and …
Album Review: Steve Kilbey and Gareth Koch – Chryse Planitia
Living legend Steve Kilbey, the powerhouse behind one of Australia’s greatest exports – The Church – has just released an intriguing and delightful collaboration with Viennese-trained classical musician Gareth Koch called ‘Chryse Planitia’. The result is a beautiful set of 10 tracks that mix Kilbey’s deep sonorous vocals and his mystical lyrics with delicate and …
Track: The Proper Ornaments – Purple Hearts plus album news
The Proper Ornaments are an unashamedly guitar-driven band and the low-fi single ‘Purple Hearts’ is an absolute delight: a melancholic ramble infused with a sleepy bohemian rhythmic quality: There’s a sparseness and a majesty in this song – simple yet loaded with feeling. The song is off The Proper Ornament’s forthcoming album ‘Mission Bells’ due …
Album Review: Courtney Barnett – MTV Unplugged Live in Melbourne plus tour news
Australia’s iconic balladeer Courtney Barnett has just released an MTV Unplugged Live in Melbourne on the eve of an announcement that she will be supporting fellow Melburnian Nick Cave with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds UK and Ireland tour. Bringing together a host of music luminaries, with some covers, some golden oldies and a …