Music at Elsewhere
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Bob Dylan: In Concert, Brandeis University 1963 (Sony)
26 Apr 2011 | <1 min read
As has been noted here, there is a lot more of Bob Dylan's past out there in the world than there ever was -- and of course he has quite some past. This from the very distant days in May '63 was recorded at the peak of his politicised folk period (the anthems Blowing in the Wind and Masters of War, the former not here, would be on his album released a fortnight later). So while... > Read more
Bob Dylan: Masters of War
Princess Chelsea: Lil' Golden Book (Lil' Chief)
26 Apr 2011 | 1 min read
Cleverly packaged to replicate a Little Golden Book (but with appropriately dark illustrations), this album by Chelsea Nikkel (with Jonathan Bree formerly of the Brunettes co-producing) walks a narrow line between twee sounding childlike pop and those more menacing undertones found in children's stories like the Grimms' fairytales. So here you have Ice Reign which warns that people can... > Read more
Princess Chelsea: Cigarette Duet
Emmylou Harris: Hard Bargain (Nonesuch)
26 Apr 2011 | 1 min read
Emmylou Harris is now 64 but her voice sounds as beautiful as it always was, although it seems a little lower these days, but no less affecting. On this album the woman known for her interpretations of songs by others writes three and co-pens eight others with Will Jennings, which brings a more autobiographical quality to some. The opener The Road for example refers to her former... > Read more
Emmylou Harris: Darlin' Kate
Fergus and Geronimo: Unlearn (Hardly Art)
26 Apr 2011 | 1 min read
Andrew Savage (Fergus) and Jason Kelly (Geronimo) from Texas have consciously adopted that deliberately quirky approach which allows them to be labeled as "experimental", although if you suggest they might be slightly ADHD in their approach you'd probably be accused of not "getting it". It is actually easy to get. They quite like early Zappa/Mothers of Invention in... > Read more
Fergus and Geronimo: Powerful Lovin'
Occult Detective Club: Crimes (Alive/Southbound)
26 Apr 2011 | <1 min read
This can perhaps be very brief. If you haven't heard a decent punky rock album since the Jam's In the City and All Mod Cons then this Dallas four-piece has an album for you. In fact you might say they pretty much have In the City and All Mod Cons rejigged and redelivered for you. (Up from the Underground, the sample track posted, is a Jam join-the-dots, right?) Good band, just... > Read more
Occult Detective Club: Up From the Underground
Andrew Keoghan: Arctic Tales Divide (Brave Beluga/Border)
25 Apr 2011 | <1 min read
With Dudley Benson's recent Forest existing between a cappella choral singing and waiata, and classical composer John Psathas using loops, sequencing and having pieces played by jazz musicians, interesting niches are being prized open in local music. Classically trained violinist and singer-songwriter Keoghan's debut finds another, somewhere between brightly memorable pop and cleverly... > Read more
Andrew Keoghan: Wheels Keep Turning
The Blind Boys of Alabama: Take the High Road (Stem/Southbound)
24 Apr 2011 | <1 min read
The on-going career of the Blind Boys -- now well past the half century mark -- takes an interesting turn away from the bluesy and soulful sounds they embraced in the past decade. Here they team up producer Jamey Johnson for an album which pulls in country artists to sing and testify on material which has the overt religious commentary but also digs deep into very human problems. So here... > Read more
The Blind Boys of Alabama: Jesus Hold My Hand
Various Artists: She Sings And Plays (Jayrem)
21 Apr 2011 | 1 min read
This 20-track collection of women artists on the Jayrem label -- a loosely chronological run from Naked Spots Dance in '83 to Donna Muir of last year -- is released as one of package of seven albums to coincide with the 35th anniversary of this interesting and diverse New Zealand indie label. It is not just a useful retrospective but also allows us to hear the synth-heavy post-punk Eighties... > Read more
Turiiya: Thread of Gold
The Mountain Goats: The Eternal's Deck (Merge)
20 Apr 2011 | 1 min read
The dramatic, almost declamatory, voice of John Darnielle (aka The Mountain Goats) is as distinctive as it is well enunciated. You get every word he sings, which means you are dragged from one poetic line to another where images tumble over one another (think Dylan '65-'66) and if there is a story it comes from an accumulation of ideas and impressions rather than from any narrative. A... > Read more
The Mountain Goats: For Charles Bronson
Gruff Rhys: Hotel Shampoo (Ovni)
20 Apr 2011 | <1 min read | 1
The singer for Wales' Super Furry Animals here delivers his third album and the reference points are pure Sixties melodic pop (the Vogues, Buckinghams, early Lennon-McCartney, the Beach Boys) and the LA singer-songwriters of the early Seventies (all those various Taylors, Dan Fogelberg etc). And a little mariachi trumpet. This makes for a light and breezy pop confection guaranteed to bring... > Read more
Gruff Rhys: Honey All Over
Various Artists: Power of Soul; A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix (Sony)
18 Apr 2011 | 3 min read
This chock-full 17-track tribute to Jimi Hendrix arrives on no significant Hendrix anniversary: his short career in the headlines was bookended by his arrival in London in late '66 and he died there in September '70. And although this isn't the first (nor will it be the last) tribute to his particular genius, there is always a place to remind a new generation of just how towering his... > Read more
Bootsy Collins, George Clinton and P-Funk: Power of Soul
Bill Callahan: Apocalypse (Drag City)
18 Apr 2011 | 1 min read
After his last exceptional album Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle (a Best of Elsewhere 2009 album) it was hard to imagine how this Americana singer-songwriter -- who previously recorded as Smog -- could remain on the margins of mainstream acceptance. That the album demanded, but also commanded, attention might just have put him once more into the too hard category for most. This time... > Read more
Bill Callahan: Baby's Breath
Ghost Wave: Ghost Wave (Arch Hill)
18 Apr 2011 | <1 min read
With some of the momentum of their labelmates the Clean, urgent droning vocals and pure psychedelic guitar jangle, this debut EP by the Auckland-based three-piece touches a lot of familiar places – you could add JPSE and some of the Manchester guitar bands to those reference points – but they do it with such economy and style it comes off as joyous . . . and the sound of a band... > Read more
Ghost Wave: On a Breeze
Obits: "Moody, Standard and Poor" (Sub Pop)
18 Apr 2011 | <1 min read
Following their derivative but enjoyable I Blame You debut, former Drive Like Jehu's Rick Froberg and pals again deliver post-punk garageband trash-rock (Ramones, Dead Moon, Stooges, the Animals and other Sixties r'n'b-based pop-rockers) on 12 short, sharp and urgent grit-guitar songs which only loses points when it gets too poppy (Shift Operator) or errs towards a pop-metal sound (Killer,... > Read more
Obits: I Want Results
Hoquets: Belgotronics (Crammed Discs)
18 Apr 2011 | 1 min read
This quirky trio from Belgium who sing in English, French and Flemish take their name from the form of interlocking musical patterns or “hockets” (From Scratch had an album Global Hockets in the late 90s) which in French rhymes with “okay”. The album title refers to the Congotronics albums out of Kinshasa (also on Crammed Discs) where musicians use... > Read more
Hoquets: Stoemp
Joan Baez: Play Me Backwards (Proper)
18 Apr 2011 | 1 min read
Joan Baez has never had her rediscovery by a new generation, but this reissue of her excellent folk-rock album of ' 92 – with an extra disc of demos including Dylan's early Seven Curses which only appeared on his recent Witmark Demos 1962-64 – is a smart starting place as it found her back in Nashville after a 20 year absence and at the top of her game. With cracking session... > Read more
Joan Baez: Steal Across the Border
Aaron Neville: I Know I've Been Changed (Tell It)
14 Apr 2011 | <1 min read
Aaron Neville saying he's been changed is hardly news, and nor is his soulful, vibrating falsetto which is given a florid showcase in the long intro to the gospel-cum-r'n'b opener here Stand By Me. This sounds like an American Idol exaggeration of his quivering sound, but when the band kicks in (Greg Leisz on dobro, Allen Toussaint on piano, a gospel chorus) he reins himself in and... > Read more
Aaron Neville: Don't Let Him Ride
Manos Achalinotopoulos: Flight on Light (Rattle)
14 Apr 2011 | 1 min read
In the rather fruity liner notes here -- admittedly in translation -- the Greek clarinet player Achalinotopoulos speaks of the ocean of his childhood and how he imagined horizons from above, of here flying into uncharted territories of the unconscious, and of "one clarinet narrating seven stories, each in a continuous stream". And of not being limited by "the barriers of pattern,... > Read more
Manos Achalinotopoulos and Tim Prebble: Dragonlake
Meat Puppets: Lollipop (Megaforce)
12 Apr 2011 | 1 min read
The very great Meat Puppets out of Arizona delivered exciting, desert-baked psychedelic rock with an edge of country and hard rock in the Eighties. If the collected lyrics of Curt Kirkwood would stump even the most dedicated thesis writer with an interest in surrealism, it hardly mattered. The guitars would sear off into the wide open spaces driven by a tight rhythm section of brother Cris... > Read more
Meat Puppets: Damn Thing
The Tin Syndrome: Artefacts Which Reason Ate 1980-83 (Jayrem)
12 Apr 2011 | 1 min read
The Tin Syndrome were very much a Wellington band in a number of ways. Their reputation didn't translate much into the rest of New Zealand in the early Eighties, but more than that they also had what we might call "Wellington" concerns to the fore. If you live in the capital city of any Western country you are bound to see a lot of men in grey suits (politicians, bureaucrats,... > Read more