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Album, Review: Mammatus – Sparkling Waters
Since 2005 the Santa Cruz, California trio Mammatus have been churning out some seriously mind-melting psych and stoner rock. From the Holy Mountain-released Mammatus in 2006 and The Coast Explodes in 2007, to the Spiritual Pajamas-released Heady Mental in 2013, Nicholas Emmert, Chris Freels, and Aaron Emmert have explored everything from expansive, dreamy realms, to psych freakouts, and serious guitar shredding. While …
Album Review: Martin Courtney : Many Moons
There’s something about Martin Courtney’s voice that just gets me. He has one of those voices that no matter what he’s singing he always just sounds like him. There’s no grandiose accenting or histrionics when he sings songs like “It’s Real” or “Talking Backwards” with his main gig Real Estate. You get the impression when …
Film Review: M.A. Littler – ‘Lost Coast’
We have just spent an escapist, week long family holiday at Corcreggan Mill in Dunfanaghy, courtesy of the ubiquitous host and raconteur, Brendan Rohan. There are few better antidotes for “civilisation”, Corcreggan is a magical destination, one which Brendan describes in his local walking guide as follows, “The hollow in which Corcreggan Mill is situated is said …
Album Review: Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear
Bella Union have been on a massive – and I mean massive – roll this year. In 2015 they’ve released the long overdue return albums by B.C. Camplight, Mercury Rev and John Grant and Ezra Furman’s breakthrough album. In among all these was Father John Misty’s second album, I Love You, Honeybear, which saw J. …
See: The Lonely Together release video for Congregation
Maybe it’s The Lonely Togethers Scottish roots, but there’s something of both the Biffy Clyro and Snow Patrol about them. A mixture of the anthemic and the emotional, if you like. It wrapped up in swathes of guitars and atmospheric backing vocals, aiming to, according to the band themselves “carve(ing) a mysterious path through love …
Album Review: Beach House – Thank Your Lucky Stars
While I consider Beach House to be a special sort of band, I’d never consider then to be particularly prolific. This is a band that takes a good couple years in between albums in order to cultivate and organically grow a Beach House record. That sort of melancholy and malaise doesn’t just grow on trees(unless …
Premiere: Stutter Steps release video for Fog
Stutter Steps, the Pittsburgh indie pop six piece outfit, are today premiering their debut video Fog right here on Backseat Mafia. Taken from their forthcoming self titled debut album, it features Dean Wareham from Galaxie 500/Luna on slide guitar. Singer/Guitarist Ben Harrison met the indie luminary through his job at the Warhol Museum, where he …
Track: Unalaska – Unalaska
What started of as a fictional band in the cult vampire film ‘Afflicted’ has now turned into a real EP releasing duo. Comprising of musicians Edo Van Breemen and Zachary Grayth the now real Unalaska join ‘Light Organ Records’ to bring us their first self-titled EP. Working through cross-continental correspondence from their separate studios in Brooklyn …
News: Weird World to reissue Richard Dawsons albums The Magic Bridge and Glass Trunk
Already on his way to becoming a national treasure and oft the recipient of patronage from the likes of Marc Riley, Newcastle singer-songwriter Richard Dawson’s record label Weird World are re-releasing his first albums The Magic Bridge (2011) and 2012’s The Glass Trunk, as a follow up to last years acclaimed Nothing Important. Both albums …
Psych Insight: Live, Kandodo5, Liverpool PsychFest, 26.09.15
Kandodo3 is a project founded by Simon Price, along with fellow Heads Wayne Maskell and Hugo Morgan. Considerably less raw and brusque than their former band, Kandodo3 is more about expansive soundscapes and aural topology that the full on sonic assault that marked The Heads oeuvre. Having heard the k2o album, and especially the live …