Indie
News: Joanna Newsom announces new live dates
American singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom has added a load of new dates to her already much acclaimed tour. In a recent press release, her label, Drag City, proclaimed: With greater velocity than a meteorite-straddlin’ Kris Kringle, Joanna Newsom keeps dropping gifts on a grateful world-pop! While she’s in the midst of her first USA tour in …
See: Quiet Hollers release video for Mont Blanc
Louisville five piece Quiet Hollers song Mont Blanc was one of the stand out tracks on their recent self-titled album, which dropped back in October. It’s classic indie/americana, built on aching violins, twinkling guitar lines, this almost static piano and this shuffle, meaning it floats somewhere between heart-breaking and drop dead gorgeous. The new video, …
Track: Hey Sholay – Ribcage
Hey Sholay are a curious band, disappearing for months on end before returning with a song and show to remind us, with a gentle nudge and a peck on the cheek, that they’re still here. The mysterious five-piece have just released their second single of 2015, titled ‘Ribcage’, to accompany their one-off shows in London …
News: Fatherson announce headline UK Tour – February 2016
Following the release of their latest indie-rock hit, Fatherson have just announced a headline tour for early next year; a 13 date excursion across Scotland, England and Wales. The trio plan to start their adventure in Dundee, before heading out to Edinburgh, Birmingham, and London; finishing the tour in Newcastle at Cluny 2. If you’re looking for …
Live Reivew: Courtney Barnett – Kentish Town Forum, London 26.11.2015, plus Gallery
With her award-winning album ‘Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit’ appearing in most album of the year lists (including ours), Courtney Barnett’s appearance before a sold out Forum was obviously highly anticipated. For someone with so much momentum behind her, Barnett is refreshingly unassuming. When I first listened to the album …
Album Review: Antlered Aunt Lord – Ostensibly Formerly Stunted (and on fire)
Sometime Tunabunny drummer Jesse Stinnard has recently released his first record under his Antlered Aunt Lord moniker. Titled Ostensibly Formerly Stunted and released on the HHBTM label, it’s a mixture of his own lo-fi and very much DIY recordings that Stinnard culled from a bank of almost 200. His reputation (locally) as something of eccentric …
Album Review: MONEY – Suicide Songs
With Christmas just around the corner, the music on our radios is about joy, happiness and having a good time. But come January we are all fed up of the bells and the sparkle. The festive season behind us and the nights are dark and long. Nights out and Christmas parties turn to cheap nights …
Feature: Top 20 albums of the year – Backseat Mafia staff pick
How do you judge what were the best albums of the year? Well, here at Backseat Mafia its a collaborative affair, where everyone that writes for us has as much of a say as everyone else (how did I let that happen?). Happily, in line with the widely and wildly varied nature of our ethos …
Tracks: Escapists – Pyramid Scheme
Out on December 11th, and accompanied by a headline show at Birthdays in Dalston is the new single, Pyramid Scheme, from London quartet Escapists. The track has this almost dour shoegazeiness about it, brightened by Simon Glancy’s vocal, where he reaches for the stars, and with his almost ethereal falsetto accompanied by these guitar swirls …
Not Forgotten: Big Star – Radio City
If Big Star’s #1 Record was an album that charmed me from the moment I heard it, Radio City is an album with which my relationship has evolved incrementally over time. When I first heard it, I have to admit, I was disappointed. Sure, “September Gurls” is a great song, to the point where it …