Sydney
Album Review: DMA’s bottle their indie pop magic into the spectacular ‘Live At Brixton’ Album
DMA’s‘ concert at Brixton this time last year marked the launch into the precipice that was the COVID lockdown. As such, it has achieved a certain iconic status as one of the last big gigs of 2020, and it is now hard to remember the feeling of bouncing cheek by jowl in a heaving hall …
Track: A pop punk blast from Sydney’s SoSo delivers the ultimate laconic message: ‘Yeah, Nah’
SoSo aren’t very happy and you can’t really blame them. The News South Wales Government shut down an entire night time subculture in Sydney’s erstwhile good time suburb Kings Cross by banning clubs and pubs from opening late following some random acts of drunken violence. This ultimately lead to a number of iconic music venues …
Track: Dominic Breen’s honey-gold vocals adorn the beautiful, shimmering track ‘James Street Tonight’
‘James Street Tonight’ by Sydney musician Dominic Breen is an absolutely exquisite delight, draped in chiming guitars and melancholia and lifted skywards by Breen’s gorgeous vocals. This immediately takes its place amongst the great Australian tradition of poetic troubadours stretching back to The Go-Betweens and The Apartments – cloaking lyrical beauty in shimmering melodies. There …
Album Review: Jessica’s ‘The Space Between’ is an immersive masterpiece of haunting dream pop
Backseat Mafia had the pleasure of premiering the track ‘Silence’ from Sydney artist Jessica last week which lead inexorably to listening to the source album ‘The Space Between’. And what a completely immersive and enthralling journey this album is. ‘The Space Between’ as a whole is impossibly beautiful – quiet, reflecting vignettes filled with a …
Premiere: Jessica releases the ethereal and ghostly single ‘Silence’
We are very pleased to premiere the video for Sydney musician Jessica‘s new track ‘Silence’ on Backseat Mafia. Jessica’s voice is as majestic and ethereal as Kate Bush’s and ‘Silence’ is a brief but so very haunting and evocative song. Deep strings underpin the gorgeous floating vocals and create a hypnotic drone. There is a …
Track: Polish Club unveils poppy new dance floor filler with a dark heart – ‘Stop For A Minute’
Sydney duo Polish Club have released a unabashedly dance floor filler of a single in ‘Stop For A Minute’, one that, despite the apparent gloss, deals with some not so savoury themes. The instrumentation is fast and pacy with an insistent rhythm section, and sustained guitars. The high impact vocals add a funky soul touch. …
Track: Marveline returns with ‘Our Parade’ – another smashing power pop track
Last year, Marveline, the solo work of Sydney artist Pete Marley, released the debut album ‘Savoury-toothed Tiger’, premiered on Backseat Mafia. It was a pop powered package of good humour and mountainous melodies that really shone during the midst of the bleak pandemic year. Marveline is back with new material, and what a delight it …
EP Review: Nick Ward’s deeply personal treatise on identity in ‘Everything I Wish I Told You’ is beautiful, empowering pop.
Sydney’s Nick Ward is only nineteen but the maturity and stature of his new EP, ‘Everything I Wish I Told You’ is phenomenal. In instrumentation, vocals and lyrical themes, this is a fully formed piece of indie pop that sparkles with melody and rhythms. The themes are very personal and born from the strictures of …
Track: Cousin Betty pays tribute to the glories of the mixtape in the romping single ‘Tape Hiss’
There is a very specific audience which will recognise the many obscure references to names like Peter Russell Clark, TDK cassette advertisements and Countdown in the new single, ‘Tape Hiss’ from Australian band Cousin Betty. Namely, Australians growing up in the eighties when the music show Countdown ruled the airwaves and provided a musical education …
Track: Buddy Glass paints a poignant tale of family and loss in ‘The Spirit of a Small Town’
In my review of Buddy Glass’s album ‘Wow and Flutter’ last year, I said the album was absolute delight: an immersive journey into the poetic and expressive world of Buddy Glass. Glass has just released a poignant video for the track ‘The Spirit of a Small Town’ – a song dealing with memories of his …