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.
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People of the Sun: People of the Sun (digital outlets)
27 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
Out of New Plymouth, this heavyweight trio of Joseph Anderson, Djordje Nikolic and Tom Scrase don't want for ambition with this debut album which opens with a slow heartbeat and taonga puoro then moves into the relentless, steadily building acid rock on the eight minute Lisurgen. These announce an album of real substance from accomplished musicians who ride the line between punishing metal... > Read more
Elders
Leigh: Empathy for my Future Self (digital outlets)
26 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
This confident and mature debut album by an Auckland-based singer and multi-instrumentalist embraces electro-noise (She's Back), thrusting electro-pop (He's Giving, March of the Cucks), disruptive pop (Purple Pals, the skittering Comfortable?) and classy, swooning pop (Twenty-Two). The album's backstory here is in Comfortable?: “Take another name, 'Ca-me-ron' don’t feel right .... > Read more
I Still Love the Moon
The Bajanaires: The Last Cowboy (digital outlets)
23 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
From the cover to the contents this is damn fine album of Americana (with some local inflections) from musicians with real road miles behind them: multi-instrumentalist Rob Sinclair, writer/singer Ann Frances Woolliams and writer/ multi-instrumentalist Bevan Revell. The Bajanaires – like Gary Harvey who takes a more tough Texas blues approach – are grounded in America because... > Read more
Country Road
Phoebe Rings: Aseurai (digital outlets)
23 Jun 2025 | 1 min read | 1
We come at this in reverse because when we went to see the American band Japanese Breakfast we were delighted to find that the opening act was Auckland's Phoebe Rings . . . and we had been listening to this new album (launched on the night) all day in anticipation of writing a review. It's a damn good album as you may read, but on the night they were a little disappointing: they were... > Read more
Drifting
King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard: Phantom Island (digital outlets)
19 Jun 2025 | <1 min read
On their 27th album since 2012, Melbourne's psychedelic jam-band flatly refuse to be categorised easily with this beefy, orchestrated collision of horn-driven rock'n'soul (Deadstick), rocking left-field folk with flute and strings (Lonely Cosmos) and something like a heavily medicated ELO pulled towards funky space-rock (Eternal Return). There's a fair bit of cosmic prog-rock here too on... > Read more
Deadstick
19-Twenty: Call It What You Want (digital outlets)
19 Jun 2025 | 1 min read | 1
This Australian blues-soul band have played at an alphabet of festivals (more than 70!) across their homeland and for two years running were the people's choice winners at the Bridgetown Blues Festival in Western Australia. The three-piece – Kane Dennelly (vocals/guitar), Jeremy Berg (drums), and John Gwilliam (double bass) – can be a take-no-prisoners band and their 2019 album... > Read more
Havin' a Good Time
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Mary Chapin Carpenter: Personal History (Thirty Tigers/digital outlets)
17 Jun 2025 | 2 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes with full credits, lyrics and is "pressed on D2 Ultra Premium vinyl for superior audio quality". We'll confirm that. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . At 67 Mary Chapin Carpenter has long since moved beyond categories... > Read more
New Religion
Van Morrison: Remembering Now (digital outlets)
16 Jun 2025 | 2 min read | 1
It's likely that the vast majority of people who were there for Van Morrison in his first couple of decades have long since parted company: too many album, quite a number a bit indifferent then in recent times his unpopular political statements about Covid mandates, government oppression . . . At least he had new targets because his constant complains about record companies (which dated... > Read more
Memories and Visions
Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts: Talkin to the Trees (digital outlets)
16 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
So it turns out the answer to the question, “Is there enough Neil Young in the world or exactly the right amount?” is “Not enough”. With Talkin to the Trees, his 48th studio album, Young adds to the pile of previously unreleased live albums, box sets and track-shuffling reissues. Young is heading towards his 80s as one of the most prolific recording artists of... > Read more
Let's Roll Again
Broad Oak: Broad Oak (digital outlets)
16 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
Berlin-based expat Nigel Braddock -- who founded Monkey Records -- wasn't in a rush to get out this debut album as Broad Oak: it has been 23 years since he first started recording for it. So no surprise then to hear it as a compendium of ideas and guest artists (from bands he recorded) which spans the decades. However it is bound together by a couple of overriding approaches: a... > Read more
You Can Make It
Pulp: More (digital outlets)
16 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
Sometimes you can feel you are living in a previous time. It happened a couple of years back when the Beatles' new single Now and Then was released and Bob Dylan was back with the Shadow Kingdom album. That same year, 2023, Iggy Pop, Uriah Heep, Genesis, the Zombies, Jethro Tull and others whose time seemed long ago also had albums out. And of course so did Willie Nelson and Neil Young... > Read more
Farmers Market
Robert Forster: Strawberries (digital outlets)
16 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
Brisbane on Australia's sunny central east coast has hardly been a hotbed of musical creativity although it did give us the protopunk band the Saints lead by the late, whippet-smart Chris Bailey, the rock band Powderfinger, the alt.pop of the Veronicas and the mainstream Savage Garden. Of course there have been others but the city's great musical export were the Go-Betweens which had a rare... > Read more
Such a Shame
Jenny Mitchell: Forest House (digital outlets)
9 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
As we noted recently when writing about the rise of certain genres, in that instance dream pop-cum-shoegaze, “Anyone who steps back and observes the changing tides of popular music would have seen the success of country music coming a little while ago. “And the reasons were simple: country music tells stories, has some stock imagery and metaphors, familiar melodic patterns and... > Read more
Little Less Lonely
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Fly My Pretties: Elemental (Loop/digital outlets)
8 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes with full credits, photos and background notes about the concept on the inner sleeve. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . There are some highly successful business models in New Zealand music, among them the Phoenix Foundation, Six60 and... > Read more
See Me Flying
Marc Ribot: Map of a Blue City
6 Jun 2025 | <1 min read
As a session guitarist (Waits, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Costello, John Zorn, Jeff Bridges and others), Marc Ribot brings an evocative angularity. But left to his own devices he can be challenging, playing with jazz musicians and left-field avant-types like himself. His 2023 Connection album with Ceramic Dog was close to Hüsker Dü and Sonic Youth. This new album had its origins... > Read more
For Celia
Bub: Can't Even (digital outlets)
6 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
Singer, songwriter and guitarist Priya Sami made a brief, high profile appearance with siblings Madeline and Anji as Sami Sisters with their Happy Heartbreak! album over a decade ago. (Not to be confused with the fictional Katene Sisters of Annie Crummer, the late Nancy Brunning and Lisa Crittenden created for a Shortland Street episode and who went top 5 with their sole single... > Read more
Bored
Arjuna Oakes: While I'm Distracted (digital outlets)
6 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
Singer/writer/producer Arjuna Oakes – who seems to divide his time between Britain and Aotearoa New Zealand – has appeared a few times at Elsewhere, but always in association with others. He collaborated with his mentor, the classical composer John Psathas, on the It's Already Tomorrow project, played and sang on albums with Serebii, Nathan Haines (on his recent Notes) and... > Read more
Catch Me
Throw: Dreambaby Goodbye (Failsafe/digital outlets)
2 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
Anyone who steps back and observes the changing tides of popular music would have seen the success of country music coming a little while ago. And the reasons were simple: country music tells stories, has some stock imagery and metaphors, familiar melodic patterns and allows the writer to insert their own narrative. Those stepping back to look at that bigger picture might also have observed... > Read more
Freefall
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RECOMMENDED RECORD: Sparks: Mad! (digital outlets)
30 May 2025 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes with all the lyrics (necessary with Sparks) and credits. And is available on white vinyl. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . Sparks brothers Ron and Russell Mael (aged 79 and 76 respectively) open their 28th studio album with Do Things... > Read more
Lord Have Mercy
Voom: Something Good is Happening (Flying Nun/digital outlets)
26 May 2025 | 1 min read
For those outside his immediate orbit, Buzz Moller is something of an enigma. His intermittent project Voom – debut album Now I Am Me arrived in 1998, the follow-up Hello, Are You There? eight years later and given vinyl pressing in 2021 – have enjoyed great affection for their heartfelt, sometimes raw and always melodic alt.pop-rock which roams freely between ragged rock and... > Read more