Music at Elsewhere

These pages - sometimes with sample tracks and videos posted - introduce and review music which may otherwise go unheard and unnoticed. Subscribers to Elsewhere (free, here) receive a weekly e-newsletter with updates on what's new at the ever-expanding site.  Elsewhere: an equal opportunity enjoyer. So enjoy.

Subscribe to my newsletter for weekly updates.

Dandy Warhols: Rockmaker (digital outlets)

18 Mar 2024  |  1 min read

Despite their seemingly ramshackle career, Portland's Dandy Warhols have survived line-up changes, being seduced by the major label Capitol, being dropped, making poor business choices and albums which changed their direction from ragged indie rock to psychedelia, synth-pop, New Wave influences and shoegaze. They often seemed casually dismissive of any career releasing singles like Not If... > Read more

The Summer of Hate

Ted Brown: Solstice Canyon Loop (digital outlets)

18 Mar 2024  |  <1 min read

It has probably been many years, if not decades, since most in New Zealand heard of Ted Brown, most commonly known as the longtime guitarist in Greg Johnson's band. Like Johnson, Brown has lived in Los Angeles for more the 20 years now and just as Johnson moved into the refined, singer-songwriter territory, Brown moved more toward alt.country. This highly accomplished third solo album... > Read more

Stops

Black Crowes: Happiness Bastards (digital outlets)

15 Mar 2024  |  1 min read

The 30 year story of the Black Crowes, the sibling rivalry between singer/guitarist Chris and his guitarist brother Rich, the side projects, line-up changes, drugs, break-ups and reunions makes for complex and sometimes hilarious reading. For a while they seemed the Band Most Likely on the back of their debut Shake Your Money Maker and its sprawling follow-up The Southern Harmony and... > Read more

Bleed It Dry

Omni: Souvenir (digital outlets)

11 Mar 2024  |  <1 min read

The sharp-edged, snappy and staccato pop-rock from this taut three-piece out of Atlanta taps into the spirit and sound of Wire, the very early Cure, the Feelies and the young Talking Heads. These 11 songs are almost skeletal but that suits their compact, nervous energy which bristle with small ideas rendered large and don't waste a second. Only three songs break the three minute mark,... > Read more

Granite Kiss

Yosef Gutman Levitt: The World And Its People (digital outlets)

4 Mar 2024  |  1 min read

At a time when – despite easy access to reliable information – most people can't or won't make the distinction between Islam, Palestine and Hamas, or Judaism, Israel and Zionism, we need a bridge between peoples. Aside from those political propagandists who deal in diatribes, certainties and polemic, most musicians see and feel a middle-ground where understanding and compromise... > Read more

The Shepherd

Sean Lennon: Asterisms (Tzadik/digital outlets)

29 Feb 2024  |  1 min read

The title of this album is telling and clue to contents: it refers to constellations and shapes in the sky. Which is entirely in keeping with the five instrumentals which take an astral trip somewhere between space rock and sky-scaling prog on the opener Starwater, but later comes with a large helping of Bitches Brew/Jack Johnson-era Miles Davis. It was recorded when the musicians could... > Read more

Thinking of M

Paul McCartney and Wings: Band on the Run, Underdubbed (digital outlets)

19 Feb 2024  |  1 min read

Band on the Run is widely accepted as McCartney best post-Beatles album, but it was born our of adversity. The ground had been prepared by the excellent if underrated Ram (a longtime Essential Elsewhere album which has grown in stature over time) and the lesser Red Rose Speedway, but on the eve of recording his next album two band members quit just before they were due to leave for sessions... > Read more

No Words

Ravenhall: Brother (digital outlets)

17 Feb 2024  |  <1 min read

The folk-rock duo of Joe Ravenhall and Chris Brebner appeared at Elsewhere previously with their Live at Breb's Bar last year. Impressive songwriters, expressive singers – we'd put them in the Don Walker/Jimmy Barnes axis but Bob Seger also comes to mind on the more assertive material – and storytellers, Ravenhall deserve more attention from mainstream radio than maybe they will... > Read more

The River

Idles: Tangk (digital outlets)

17 Feb 2024  |  1 min read

If the British five-piece Idles haven't previously crashed onto your pathway you might need a little warning: singer-writer Joe Talbot has been a troubled man so sings a troubled song. Sometimes he has roared them out as he has grappled with addiction, being a carer for his stroke-affected mother, living through Brexit and all the pressures of the 21st century which roll like a scroll of... > Read more

Grace

Future Islands: People Who Aren't There Anymore (digital outlets)

17 Feb 2024  |  <1 min read

On this, their seventh album, Future Islands' frontman/writer Samuel T. Herring – also an actor – delivers every emotion as if it's on the surface of his skin as he immerses himself (and his audience) in the emotional fallout of a recent break-up. “I am waiting, I’m not breaking I lie, tell myself, 'it’s okay', when it's not quite” on The Tower;... > Read more

The Smile: Wall of Eyes (digital outlets)

12 Feb 2024  |  2 min read

Some bands are the vehicle for the songwriter: the Kinks, Jam, Pretenders, the Chills, Verlaines, Wilco, the Veils . . . A few are greater than the sum of their parts – Split Enz, Beatles, U2, Blondie, boygenius, Fat Freddy's Drop, Phoenix Foundation . . . The test of that is to see how well the members do as solo artists, like the Stones. Mick Jagger's solo albums always... > Read more

Melati ESP: adaptations (digital outlets)

5 Feb 2024  |  <1 min read

Well, you don't come to Elsewhere for Beyonce and J-Lo, do you? So here's something closer to our mandate: a series of remixes of tracks from the Indonesian-born, New York-based electronica experimentalist Melati Malay's debut album of last year, hipernatural. She was part of the Asa Tone trio but her debut album (all in Indonesian) launched her as a solo artist. She's collaborated with... > Read more

Kupu Kupu Electronik (Kasimyn remix)

Sleater-Kinney: Little Rope (digital outlets)

5 Feb 2024  |  2 min read

Sleater-Kinney's album titles have always been interesting: 2019's The Center Won't Hold came from Yeats' The Second Coming and – given the album's background – the “little rope” here may refer to a rope of rescue, the gallows' rope, the rope that binds, constrains and tethers, or the one you might be at the end of? The one given to hang yourself? Since their... > Read more

Don't Feel Right

J Mascis: What Do We Do Now (digital outlets)

4 Feb 2024  |  1 min read

In 2002, J Mascis – of Dinosaur Jr – played an unforgettable solo show at Auckland's Galatos. Looking like “a slacker physics graduate” (our words in the review) he began with his melodic alt.pop and then suddenly hit a foot-pedal to unleash a howling gale of guitar squall in the manner of Neil Young with Crazy Horse. Young has been a key touchstone for Mascis'... > Read more

Set Me Down

Folly Group: Down There! (digital outlets)

4 Feb 2024  |  1 min read

As we noted many years ago when discussing in great detail The Strokes when they emerged -- and being rather cynical in the face of seeming unanimous acclaim -- sometimes we need to be cautious about why we fall for certain artists. As we observed, we suspected it was because the Strokes played right into the familiar for many older rock writers (rock'n'roll attitude, New York,... > Read more

Big Ground

Rosina and the Weavers: Hitching the Starlight Highway (digital outlets)

4 Feb 2024  |  1 min read

Out of Pukekohe, this five-piece might nominally be a rock band but with Rosina's flexible and often soulful vocals they have considerable reach and range beyond the genre, showcased on the slow opening title track. It's a decent enough song, but as an opening statement for a debut album it lacks lapel-grabbing attention on a collection which has more immediately compelling material later,... > Read more

Walking Song

Admiral Drowsy: Industrial Consistency (Melted Ice Cream/digital outlets)

26 Jan 2024  |  2 min read

With this second album following the much recommended The Gutter Boy Speculates of 2021, the project of Admiral Drowsy – Luke Scott with assistance from co-producer, drummer, bassist Ryan Chin – becomes even more clear. And it is rather special in a very unprepossessing way. First let's note that within what we call “rock” there are many artists and genres who... > Read more

Pinnacle

The Afro-Semitic Experience: Our Feet Began to Pray (digital outlets)

19 Jan 2024  |  1 min read

Released to coincide with the birthday of Dr Martin Luther King, January 15, this musical project of unity began in the Nineties when pianist Warren Byrd and bassist David Chevan hooked up to play in each other's bands. And from that the idea of exploring Jewish and African American traditions grew. Hence the Afro-Semitic Experience and a series of albums since which bring together soul,... > Read more

Eretz Zavat Chalav

Shed Seven: A Matter of Time (digital outlets)

19 Jan 2024  |  2 min read  |  1

It's been almost 30 years since Shed Seven arrived in the mainframe of Britpop with their energetic debut album Change Giver. Although it was their 1996 follow-up A Maximum High which was their most successful and accomplished outing, better capturing the zeitgeist and them as spiritual followers of both widescreen, uplifting Oasis and a powered-up Smiths. As we've mentioned previously,... > Read more

Throwaway ft Pete Doherty

Sundae Painters, Sundae Painters (digital outlets)

17 Jan 2024  |  2 min read

It's possible that in 2023 we reached peak Flying Nun & Associates. Flying Nun never really went away: witness Roger Shepherd's memoir In Love With These Times and the many young acts citing the Clean, Chills, Bats and so on as influences. But Matthew Goody's excellent Needles and Plastic's detailed look at Nun records from 1981-1989 (the bands, characters and the scene by... > Read more

Serious Eye