chicago
Track: Ryley Walker’s ‘Axis Bent’ is a baroque and complex glory; his new album’s out soon
TROUBADOUR genius touched by the hand of the Tim Buckley, collaborator on some very fine albums, sole architect of yet other records that fall very much in that same category, and one of the funniest tweeters in music, Ryley Walker has just dropped a new track, “Axis Bent”, from his early April album Course In …
SEE: The Twilite Tone – ‘Do It Properly’: dancing through the Windy City with future breaks
CHICAGO’S enlightened future breaks producer The Twilite Tone has just unveiled the video for “Do It Properly”, one of the standout tracks from his diaristic debut album for Stones Throw, The Clearing. Delight in it below. The video is something of a paean to Chicago and the life Tone lives; you can see him popping …
SEE: Slow Pulp – ‘At It Again’: a Chicago fuzzpop cracker
SLOW PULP are a band who’ve been around the block – in a really, dreadfully short space of time. Don’t wish for the kinda year singer Emily Massey’s had. No, really: don’t. Things were very much on the upward curve for the young band, outta Wisconsin and Chicago-based – on tour with Alex G, gaining …
SEE: the pristine ‘tronica of Sam Prekop’s ‘Above Our Heads’
SAM PREKOP has been building beguiling melodies with the lightest of touches for decades now; firstly with Chicago’s The Sea and Cake, and then as a solo artist. If you don’t know his self-titled debut for Thrill Jockey, you really ought; it’s masterful, light, sun-drenched, jazzy. Of recent times he’s moved further and further into …
SEE: Ganser – ‘Projector’: a post-punk despatch from our dystopia
IT CHARGES at you on wiry guitar and rumbling tom-toms, a shadowy simmer. We’re in a lecture theatre, with vocalist and keyboard player Nadia Garafalo demure in a sweater: our college lecturer on hand to guide us through the lyric video for “Projector”, the latest slice of portent-filled post-punk from Chicago’s Ganser. It serves notice …
SEE: Slow Pulp – ‘Idaho’: graceful and languid guitar pop
I MEAN, as if the depredations of the coronavirus weren’t enough; try having the year that Emily Massey, singer-guitarist of Wisconsin-formed, Chicago-based, languid guitar venturers Slow Pulp has just lived through. Off the back of their Big Day EP – their fifth release, but their first venture into the physical format, they began work on …
Droppin’ Knowledge: Behind The Boards With Spectacular Diagnostics
Producer and creator of instrumental hip hop, Spectacular Diagnostics, just dropped his latest instrumental LP, thebeautifulmusic. Backseat Mafia is fortunate to host him for this week’s episode of Behind the Boards. The Chicago-based artist mixes and mashes a variety of sounds for the new record, to create a jazzy and dusty collection of songs that …
SEE: Ganser’s ‘Emergency Equipment & Exits’ explores just walking away
ILLINOIS quartet Ganser have just released their second single of 2020, “Emergency Equipment & Exits”, an exploration of that universal human experience, the sudden, instinctual urge to just up and leave; and what would happen if you gave into that urge? The video to the song, beautifully self-directed by the band, finds the quartet in …
See: Dehd release new single/video – ‘Loner’
Chicago trio Dehd – aka Emily Kemp on vocals and bass, Jason Ball on vocals and guitar and drummer Eric McGrady have announced their new album ‘Flower of Devotion’ is out on July 17th via Fire Talk, and ahead of it they’ve released a new track/video for lead single ‘Loner’. “It’s okay to be lighthearted …
See: NIIKA shares new video for The Cage
Chicago art-pop artist NIIKA has shared a new video for her single The Cage, at the time news is out that her album ‘Close But Not Too Close’ has been put back until May 15th. It’s a kick back and relax sort of a tune, the hypnotising accompaniments in the verses constasting with NIIKA’s intoxicating …