indie tracks
Track: Laura Marling – False Hope
Knowing very little, in fact nothing at all about Laura Marling, I did what any normal muso with OCD would do and checked my collection. The closest I could get was the miseducation of Lauryn Hill before the alphabetisation leapt to Led Zep, Leftfield, The LemonHeads and the Levellers so I lowered the cherry-picker, washed …
Track: Wire – Split Your Ends, plus tour dates
Hot on the heels of announcing their new album, the self-titled ‘Wire’, out via their own pinkflag label on April 13th, the legendary post punk group, now approaching their fortieth year, have shared a new track ‘Split your Ends’. It’s indicative of the lyrical content on the new record that it passes through love, crypic …
Track: Soft Cat release the bewitching ‘Diana’
The way it usually works is that people send me stuff, you know PR’s and the like. Hundreds and hundreds of emails per day, that I trawl though and have the unenviable task of picking what to write about, or to ask other people to write about. What’s not usual is that I accidentally hear …
Track: Jenny Hval releases That Battle Is Over, ahead of her new album Apocalypse, Girl
Already the veteran of albums under her own name and her guise of Rockettothesky, as well as being the singer of gothic metal band Shellyz Raven in her younger days, Norwegian singer songwriter is preparing to release her third studio album ‘Apocalypse, Girl’ on June 8th via Sacred Bones. Ahead of it, she’s released a …
Track: Crocodiles – Crybaby Demon
“Who needs the future when the past tastes so good?” is something you might hear Brandon Welchez shout over to his band mate, Charles Rowell, as they hurtle down a pot-holed freeway in a rusty Cadillac, its beige mammalian body adorned with mysterious stains. Every inch the speed-addled aquatic reptiles that their hallucinatory music suggests, …
Track: The Dead Ships – Big Quiet
Here at Backseat Mafia, we can never get enough of the kind if Garage Rock that made something of the Strokes, and continues today in the shape of The Black Keys, Alabama Shakes and the like. So step forward LA-based trio The Dead Ships, who’s new EP, EP1 contains, certainly on the evidence of ‘Big …
Track: Happyness – ‘A Whole New Shape’ and ‘Weird Little Birthday’ Reissue news
If you were lucky enough to have caught South London trio Happyness in one of their support slots for Slow Club in February or JAWS at the start of March then you’ll know what a great band they are. I managed to catch them at their gig at Queen’s Social Club in Sheffield and they looked …
Track: Cannibal Animal release carnal new single, ‘Followed’
Sirens call out the new song from Hull trio Cannibal Animal until rhythmic drumming and a fraught, frantic utterly filthy bass line start off proceedings. Previous track ‘Pavement Jungle’ set out their intentions early on, as chainsaw guitars ripped through a sleazy rhythm section it redefined New Wave sensibilities marking them out as ones to …
Track: Lisbon – “I Don’t Know”
Lisbon are Matthew, Joe, Alex and Gaz, hailing from the North East and are on the verge of breaking through into the big leagues. Their music is infectious, euphoric and fits neatly into the current trend of upbeat, melodic, synth-driven pop alongside Two Door Cinema Club, the 1975 and Foals. I caught them as support …
Track: Furs – I Wanna Know
If you’ve been out to see Gaz Coombes on tour recently, the likelihood is you’ll have seen London quartet Furs as well. Certainly Coombes has been lavishing praise upon them as they go. Ahead of the release of their debut album later in the year, the band are back with a new single, I Wanna …