Indie
Track: LENU – ‘Vulnerable’: an emotional synthpop rush from Come Play With Me’s singles club
COME PLAY WITH ME, the excellent grassroots label, magazine, festival organiser and all-round good eggs doing the right work in keeping the Yorkshire music scene vibrant, runs a singles club, CPWM. Its first release of the year is a split 7″ featuring Sunflower Thieves, whose side of the vinyl “Don’t Mind The Weather” we looked …
See: Molly Burman reveals the sardonic indie pop of Fool Me With Flattery
North London singer songwriter Molly Burman has just released her debut single, ‘Fool Me With Flattery’, out now on Prolifica Inc. Growing up in a musical household, her mother singing with Shane Macgowan of The Pogues and her father performing in bands alongside members of Bow Wow Wow and Sex Pistols. She says of the single “I wrote the song after a …
Scratch the Surface: The Passmore Sisters – First Love, Last Rites (Sharp Records, 1988)
Scratch the Surface is a pretty new development in the Backseat cannon, providing long reads of forgotten, under-appreciated or just classic albums from the outskirts of pop music. Bradford’s The Passmore Sisters are a case in point. Formed by Howard Taylor, Martin Sadofski, Peter Richardson and Adrian Lee, they clearly weren’t sisters, but through a …
Meet: Academy of Sun’s Nick Hudson has a chat with us about his haunting and atmospheric solo single ‘Come Back When There’s Nothing Left (ft Toby Driver)’ plus album news
Nick Hudson is a prolific figure on the UK underground music scene and is perhaps best known as frontman of art-rock band The Academy Of Sun, who released their dystopian epic ‘The Quiet Earth’ last year to critical acclaim. Apart from music, Nick’s vast output also encompasses painting, film, and he has just completed his …
Album review: Lake Street Dive delight with ‘Obviously’
HYPOTHETICALLY speaking, we were all waiting for this album to drop. Well, I was at least. Ever since I heard the now-viral acoustic cover of Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back’ on YouTube , I’ve been following Lake Street Dive (along with their side projects, such as Rachael and Vilray) with great admiration. They are …
Premiere: Paola House reveals the emotive ‘Searching For You’
Out today (16th March) is the new track from Paola House, titled ‘Searching For You’, via Fed By Music. It’s the second release from a five-song EP released over the forthcoming months, and we’re delighted to be able to premiere it on Backseat Mafia today. Of the track, Paola House says: “The writing of the …
Album Review: Black Honey – ‘Written & Directed’: a masterclass in vintage nostalgia
Written & Directed is an absolute masterclass in vintage nostalgia without it being cheesy. Black Honey are leading the way for bands to experiment beyond their typecast genre and just find a niche sound and execute it to the nth degree
Track: Home Counties – ‘White Shirt / Clean Shirt’: another punk-funk capitalist critique from brilliant Bristolians
FRESHLY pressed and starched, collars buttoned just so, Home Counties are back pursuing an ever more addictive, spasming line in capitalist critique encapsulated in wiry, fractured punk-funk. It’s like The Fire Engines were back among us, and hell we needed this. “White Shirt / Clean Shirt” continues their Beckettian lyrical railing against the rat race, …
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’ …
Track: Cedarsmoke deliver a chiming elegy to life in their yearning track ‘Being Young Is Getting Old’
Australian band Cedarsmoke have delivered an imposing and heartfelt single in ‘Being Young Is Getting Old’, a sobering and vivid elegy for the world in which our youth are growing up in. Frontman Jon Cloumassis, whose whiskey-soaked gravelly vocals sets a yearning and poignant tone, says: The song is about the downside of youth and …