wales
Track: Bandicoot have the ‘Worried Blues’: another excessively brilliant single from the entertaining Welsh band.
Bandicoot have an attitude and an impeccable sense of theatre and drama that make their releases utterly cathartic and completely mesmerising. We premiered the video for their last single ‘Fuzzy’ – seductive with all the delicacy of a velvet coated sledgehammer – and the band has released a follow up single ‘Worried Blues’: another blast …
Premiere: Welsh psych-rock exponents BOI release visually mesmerising video for the slinky track ‘Ribidires’ and announce debut album.
‘Ribidires’ is a slinky smooth and effervescent track from Welsh band BOI with a gorgeous pace and delivery: all plonking pianos, razor-sharp guitars and layers of vocals and harmonies. With doo-wop backing vocals and a transfixing and memorable melody, it really stands out in a crowded field with its gentle ambulatory motion and shimmering tones. …
Premiere: Climbing Trees exclusively reveal their dynamic and shimmering new single Troubling Times.
Welsh indie giants Climbing Trees will be releasing their much anticipated new single ‘Troubling Times’ on 30 April 2021, and we here at Backseat Mafia are very excited to bring to you an exclusive first listen of the single. And it is an absolute delight. The band says: We’re chuffed to share ‘Troubling Times’ with …
Premiere: Bandicoot exclusively reveals demonic hyperactive video for the effervescent and effortlessly cool track ‘FUZZY’
There is a wild untrammeled madness to the new single ‘Fuzzy’ by Welsh band Bandicoot that is utterly mesmerising and incandescent. There are no brakes on this particular vehicle – a doo-wop singing style infused with a gritty attitude, reverb-soaked vocals and an arched eyebrow or two: stylistic, cool and unhinged. It’s just brilliant. The …
TRACK: Tacsidermi – ‘Gwlr’: a glide of blurry Welsh psych
GWENLLIAN ANTHONY, bassist, keys wizard and more with Carmarthen’s award-winning indie outfit Adwaith has, on and off, over the past few years, been jamming and writing with Matthew Kilgariff, who’s been touring member of Gwenllian’s home band, a little creative side gig; but as 2020 stuck out its viral tongue and thumbed its nose at …
TRACK: HMS Morris – ‘Myfyrwyr Rhyngwladol’: intelligent artpop asks we all look outwards
HMS MORRIS are a rather fine art-rock collective operating out of the Welsh capital; the project of former Emmy the Great bassist Heledd Watkins, they’ve since developed a whole ethos, aesthetic, sweetly harmonious life of their own. Following the release of two pre-covid era singles, “Babanod” and “Poetry”, they’ve dusted off the rime of lockdown and …
Soundtrack of our Lives: Pixy Jones of El Goodo
YOU MAY not have taken a dive into an El Goodo album; that, I’m afraid, may be a flaw entirely laid at your own door. OK, they don’t work to a Tin Pan Alley rhythm – there’s only been three albums since their eponymous debut for Super Furries’ Placid Casual imprint in 2005, the most …
ALBUM REVIEW: Keys – ‘Home Schooling’: lo-fi Welsh powerpop gems
COMING at you out of the Welsh capital Cardiff, Keys are a quintet who, we can glean from their photograph, love a pair of shades. A listen to their new digital-only release Home Schooling, which is out on August 21st, will also show that behind those tinted lenses there are ten eyes with an absolute …
TRACK: Kelly Lee Owens feat John Cale – ‘Corner Of My Sky’: Welsh wizardry combined in genre-blurring techno
TAKE one absolute legend of experimental pop music, Carmarthenshire-born John Cale, who needs no introduction in these pages, a career of absolute wonder and collaboration under his belt, never content to rest on his admittedly fine laurels; then add his creative perceptivity to that of Flintshire’s Kelly Lee Owens who, like no one else with …
SEE: El Goodo’s ‘The Grey Tower’ psychs like The Seeds
QUIETLY working to their own, slower calendar in the Vale of Neath since the 20th flipped to the 21st, Wales’s El Goodo offer up pebbles of psych-folk-country goodness for anyone who steps through their door. We should trust their hospitality. Take that name. Yes, of course it namechecks Big Star. How can we not be …