Folk
Premiere: Three Day Monk releases the serene melancholy indie folk of ‘Osaka’
Released this coming Friday (19th March) is the new single Osaka from Bedfordshire multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Tristan Nelson, aka Three Day Monk. Recorded with Matty Moon (Lonely the Brave, False Heads) at Half-ton Studios in Cambridgeshire, UK, it’s his third single in his ‘Seasonal EP project’ the follow up to ‘I wish you were dead’ …
See: Sarah McQuaid – ‘The Day Of Wrath, That Day (The St Buryan Sessions)’: six strings resonate from the Penwith granite
AFTER a life’s journey so far that’s taken her from her birthplace, Madrid, over to the States and on to Ireland, folk singer-songwriter Sarah McQuaid has put down roots in the vibey, windswept, granite-hard Penwith peninsula at the end of Cornwall. With all the constraints of the lockdown purdah, she’s been busy recording a series …
Track and EP News: Tommy Ashby and Lydia Clowes – Happy Just to Know
Scottish singer-songwriter, Tommy Ashby has released his duet with Lydia Clowes, ‘Happy Just To Know’. It’s out via Wow & Flutter Records and is the first single from his new EP, ‘Lay Low’, which is out on 14th May. It’s an absolutely brilliant slice of life-affirming joy from start to finish and is that song …
Album Review: The Paper Kites’ ‘Roses’, featuring stunning collaborations with global female guest singers, is a delicate and beautiful album
The Australian folk/indie pop band The Paper Kites are musical icons and in ‘Roses’, their fifth album, they have crafted a breathtakingly beautiful album that has an indelible sheen and stature. This is a band that is simply getting better every release, and in this release the boundaries have been further extended by a coterie …
News: Skullcrusher announces new EP ‘Storm in Summer’ and releases title track and video
If you were one of those who, like me, was totally mesmerised and enraptured by Helen Ballentine’s (aka Skullcrusher) gorgeous eponymous debut EP of last summer, then you will have been yearning for more ever since. Well, good news then, that the singer-songwriter has announced her next EP, entitled “Storm in Summer” and released its …
Premiere: Laurence Murray Project releases new video for the blue eyed soul of ‘Providence’
The Laurence Murray Project, headed (rather unsurprisingly) by Edinburgh singer songwriter Laurence Murray, have just released a new video of their single ‘Providence’, and we’re delighted to be able to premiere it right here on Backseat Mafia this morning. Mixing up Laurel Canyon folk, with a good spoonful of soul, and a touch of Real …
ALBUM REVIEW: Snowpoet – Wait for Me; Chamber folk-jazz duo return with absorbing album
Third album for the London-based chamber-jazz pair
See: the video for the supernatural psych-folk of Nainnoh’s ‘Colors’
NEW YORK-based Nainnoh has a particularly supernatural way with psychedelic folk, perhaps casting herself in a lineage that casts back to Dr. John, Buffy Saint-Marie, Espers and others. There’s something about her vocals, precise, husky, but somwhow shadowy and speaking of other worlds, cast against a landscape of dramatic Americana; Nancy Sinatra gone fully darkside. …
ALBUM REVIEW: Cameron Knowler & Eli Winter – ‘Anticipation’: excellent studies in twin guitar primitivism
We don’t get to hear quite enough of the modern fingerpicking style this side of the Atlantic, so if you’ve drifted off from the form somewhat since Jack Rose passed, or wish to explore beyond William Tyler; then hell; start right here. A grand tour of two instruments and two musical minds woven together so tightly and also unravelling like fronds of a fern, seeking all the multiplicity of new directions in folk. An excellent record
News: New Model Army’s Justin Sullivan announces May solo set; hear the stark storytelling of ‘Amundsen’
NEWS which will delight members of the Militia worldwide: Justin Sullivan, founder of Bradford post-punk legends New Model Army, fierce social advocate and commentator, has announced he’ll be releasing only his second solo album come early May, 18 years on from the previous, Navigating By The Stars. It’s entitled Surrounded, will comprise sixteen new songs …