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Tift Merritt: See You on The Moon (Concord)

To be honest, despite very much liking most of Merritt's '02 album Bramble Rose -- and concluding the review, "a name to remember, Tift" -- I lost touch with her augmented alt.country which came with a little sensuality and suggestions of Petty-like country-rock. That said, of course I remembered the name so this came qucikly to the top of the pile -- but I have to say fell away... more >>

Added: 11 Jul 10

Various Artists: Next Stop Soweto Vol 2 (Strut)

Following on from the recent and pretty cool Next Stop Soweto (volume one, obviously) comes this even better collection, this subtitled "soul, funk and organ grooves from the townships 1969-76". This is a steamy collection of 22 tracks -- many of them with some real guitar sting as much as funky grooves. In fact when the Monks kick in with Blockhead (the sample track here)... more >>

Added: 6 Jul 10

Damien Jurado: Saint Bartlett (Secretly Canadian/Rhythmethod)

With a lovely, sympathetic production by Richard Swift -- sort of budget-priced Phil Spector -- and melodies which swell with Fifties and Sixties pop-romanticism, this is one of those album (like Swift's) which will be taken to heart with a passion by those who discover it. Previously Jurado out of Seattle came at you from the indie/alt.folk singer-songwriter territory, and none of... more >>

Added: 6 Jul 10

Phosphorescent: Here's to Taking It Easy (Dead Oceans)

The last album by this band -- the vehicle for Matthew Houck -- was their tribute to Willie Nelson, but this time out it is all original material and the energy levels are kicked up, notably on the Band/Black Crowes/E Street opener It's Hard to be Humble (When You're From Alabama). Rolling steel guitars and a country-rock mood propel Nothing Was Stolen and the mood here is that you might... more >>

Added: 6 Jul 10

The Gaslight Anthem: American Slang (Shock)

Normallly an amalgam of early Springsteen/E Street Band energy, Bob Seger committment, the Replacements' punky thrash and Tom Petty's way with a lyric and melody would have been right up my street -- but while Brian Fallon writes good, appropriately "mythic" songs and sings them with throat-aching passion there is something just little calculated about this outing which --- I... more >>

Added: 5 Jul 10

Tim Guy: Big World (Monkey)

Back in the late Sixties and early Seventies there were a number of great but ignored bands and artists (Left Banke, Dwight Twilley Band, Merry-Go-Round and their singer-songwriter Emitt Rhodes who had a solo career, Sagittarius, the Millennium) who shaved off the best of the mid-period Beatles melodies, added it to some Beach Boys warmth and Association harmonies and created a sublime pop.... more >>

Added: 28 Jun 10

Christian Scott: Yesterday You Said Tomorrow (Concord)

From the opening bars - a slightly discordant guitar and unsettling drums and knocks -- this album announces itself as something delivering the unexpected by a young jazz trumpeter out of New Orleans. Scott, 27, and his smart young band here probe the edges of the avant-garde and free playing but always remain thoroughly grounded in the long tradition that reaches from Louis Armstrong and... more >>

Added: 28 Jun 10

Greg Fleming: Taken (LucaDiscs/Rhythmethod)

The excellent liner notes by New Zealand's Greg Fleming (with lyrics and reflections on the genesis of these songs) tell their own story about why Taken never appeared in '95 after the excellent Ghosts Are White album (remastered and added here as a bonus disc). But we should be very glad it has come out because after the alt.rock blast of California Fishing the moods slip and slide... more >>

Added: 28 Jun 10

Various Artists: Afro-Rock Volume One (Strut)

This 12-song compilation pulls together rare and unreleased Afro-beat from the likes of the pre-Fela star Geraldo Pino from Sierra Leone (with Heavy Heavy Heavy) to the 12-minute rolling, organ-driven groove of Yuda from Dackin Dackino and the explosive, dirty funk of Das Yahoos (Booker T taking a trip) and the Booker Band (with slippery harmonica). This is Afro-beat meets American... more >>

Added: 27 Jun 10

Etoile De Dakar: Once Upon a Time in Senegal (Sterns/Southbound)

There is not exactly a shortage of collections of African music from the Sixties and Seventies these days: Fela is well covered so are the rumba scene out of Zaire, the Rail Band from Mali, the Syliphone label from Guinea, Tabu Ley Rochereau, Geraldo Pino, Congotronics from Kinshasa, Soweto township jive, high-life . . . If you can't afford the 10 CD set of Etoile De Dakar (through Sterns),... more >>

Added: 27 Jun 10

Various Artists: Do You Dream? (Angel Air/Southbound)

A few years ago I was invited too write the lner essays in a series of collections of New Zealand Psychedelic Music (A Day in My Mind's Mind, here). What became clear was that from our end of the world where the relevant drugs arrived a bit later, musicians and producers invented their own idea of what psychedelic music was. Mostly it was bent, often heavily phased, pop-rock with a... more >>

Added: 27 Jun 10

Kris Kristofferson: Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends (Light in the Attic/Rhythmethod)

Elsewhere agrees with itself that Willie Nelson makes too many albums these days (although the last one Country Music was excellent). But the collection to return to repeatedly is Classic and Unreleased, a '95 Rhino box set of Willie's early years. In it you can hear the gifted songwriter that everyone recognised, and the utterly personal style and delivery he brought to originals and... more >>

Added: 27 Jun 10

Dub Spencer and Trance Hill: Riding Strange Horses (Echo Beach/Yellow)

Those who know their spaghetti westerns and love a bit of dubbery will welcome this new installment from the Swiss band Spencer/Hill (aka bassist Marcel Stalder, guitarist Markus Meier, keyboard player Philipp Greter and drummer Julian Dillier). Opening with Ennio Morricone's harmonica theme (from For a Few Dollars More, I think?) and then a deep dub version of the Clash's London Calling,... more >>

Added: 27 Jun 10

Mountain Man: Made the Harbor (Spunk)

Here's an unusual and interesting one: Mountain Man are actually three young women Molly Erin Sarle, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Amelia Randall Meath from various parts of the great USA who met at Bennington College in Vermont. Inspired by a mutual love of a kind of alt.folk and old time country -- and a cappella singing -- they formed this trio and, accompanied only by gentle acoustic... more >>

Added: 27 Jun 10

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Mojo (Reprise)

My take on Tom Petty -- most of whose albums in the first decade or more I cherished with a passion, but had misfortunes with the man -- is that when he hooked up with the Traveling Wilburys he became prematurely geriatric and he lost his rock edge. This is a theory which doesn't bear much serious scrutiny perhaps (I was "wrong" about the Wilburys as I have conceded), but after... more >>

Added: 21 Jun 10

The Ipanemas: Que Beleza (Far Out/Southbound)

The wonderful old Ipanemas (Wilson Das Neves and guitarist Neco) last appeared at Elsewhere two years ago with their Call of the Gods album, and at that time I wondered why they hadn't taken off in the manner of Cuba's famous Buena Vista Social Club because so many elements were the same: seasoned old musicians playing from the heart; wonderfully warm and exotic music; slippery rhythms and... more >>

Added: 21 Jun 10 1 Comment

Little Axe: Bought for a Dollar, Sold for a Dime (Real World/Southbound)

The previous album by guitarist Skip McDonald as Little Axe, Stone Cold Ohio, was a Best of Elsewhere 2006 album so interest was high for this one which also sees the whole Tackhead crew (bassist Doug Wimbush, drummer Keith Le Blanc) together again after 17 years, and with producer Adrian Sherwood. Guests include vocalists Bernard Fowler and Ken Boothe, and a brass section. There are... more >>

Added: 21 Jun 10

The National: High Violet (4AD)

Frankly, I want to like the National more, but their almost willfully/arty obscurantism is often off-putting. The DVD which came with their extended EP A Skin/A Night, The Virginia EP seemed like an attempt at creating depth in something which was inherently ordinary. And I feel a little the same about this album: the all-in production attempts to carry the weaker material and the... more >>

Added: 21 Jun 10 2 Comments

Devo: Something for Everybody (Warners)

Although I don't get the point of Blondie or the Pretenders in the 21st century, there seems to me a place for Devo: after all, they were always looking to that devolved future when things got worse and worse (like having Blondie and Chrissie still out on the traps?) And of course here they clear the ground for themselves with the two opening tracks: the chipper Fresh jokes about finding... more >>

Added: 21 Jun 10

Sarazino: Ya Foy! (Cumbancha)

Singer, songwriter and producer Lamine Fellah (aka Sarazino) is a true child of the global village: born in Algeria, the son of a diplomat he lived with his family in Spain, Switzerland, Burundi and Burkina Faso; later studied in Montreal where he made music in various bands; and in '96 moved to Quito in Ecuador. Lucky him, you might say. And for this melange of styles –... more >>

Added: 20 Jun 10