ep review
EP REVIEW: The Illness – ‘Descending’/’Phrases Redacted’: alt rock gets the tronica feels on cassette
HERE at Backseat Mafia, we’re really quite fond of The Illness. No, god, not that one – not the year-destroying one; we’re talking the Transpennine band who’ve been something of an in-house Wrecking Crew for York’s Sea Records, and who finally got their name up on their own 12”, “Descending”/”Phrases Redacted” back in July. We …
EP Review: Semisonic Release Their New EP – You’re Not Alone
After 2 decades away Semisonic have returned with a five track EP entitled ‘You’re Not Alone’ via Pleasuresonic Recordings/Megaforce Records. Due September 18th, the EP was recorded on and off over the last few years at Grammy-winning singer, songwriter and producer Dan Wilson’s Los Angeles studio with his co-founding bandmates John Munson and Jacob Slichter. From the opening jangling …
EP REVIEW: Max Cooper – ‘Earth’: cutting-edge IDM for our life on it
IN FORMER times, he’s what you would call a renaissance man, a polymath, Max Cooper: active and proficient in so many fields of creativity and science; jack of all trades, oh; master of them, too. A childhood dalliance with the violin proved a false dawn; instead he pursued biology and was awarded a PhD in …
EP: Johnny Hunter – Early Trauma plus tour news
‘Early Trauma’, the new EP from Sydney’s Johnny Hunter is quite simply brilliant. It is a sweeping, cinematic and statuesque release filled with five close to perfect pop songs that have theatricality and pomp and an elegance, leavened by a satisfying post-punk gothic darkness. Bowie-esque vocals swerve into a Joy Division sombreness and Bryan Ferry …
EP REVIEW: Wye Oak – ‘No Horizon’: boundless folk-rock choral vistas
WYE OAK have never been a band to stand still; to let the silt of being typecast, the ploughing of the same groove, hem them in. Debuting for Merge back in 2008 with If Children, they brought a real US alt.guitar edge to folk. Or was it a folksy edge to the alternative guitar sound? …
EP REVIEW: Hanya – ‘Sea Shoes’
BRIGHTON’S small but perfectedly formed indie label Austerity Records, the brainchild of industry gentlemen and label co-owners Garry Saunders and Jamie Windless, has gone all chromium oxide on us with the launch of its C60 Club. A reel-to-reel move across from the singles club, Austerity launches its new venture thus: “A lot of us grew …
EP Review: Moscow Apartment – Better Daughter
The delicate fragility of the music and the achingly beautiful melodies that permeate ‘Better Daughter’ by Toronto duo Moscow Apartment plays a fundamental part in why this EP is so good. It is not, however, all that there is. Lyrically and in attitude, the band, despite its youth, is far deeper and more complex than …
EP: BARBE ROUSSE – FACTORY SETTINGS
DESCRIBING themselves as “psychedelic slop-pop”, Edinburgh’s Barbe Rousse (it’s French for ‘ginger beard’) are to these ears, conversely, a rather neat proposition. Their digitally released five-tracker, the Factory Settings EP, is the brainchild of Leith home recording magician Alasdair Kelly, and is a paisley treat. Following on from a full-length debut for Double A-Side Records …