Music at Elsewhere

Betsy and the Reckless: Salty (digital outlets)

12 Jan 2024 | <1 min read

They may not live up the rock'n'roll/rockabilly suggestion of their name but Taranaki's Betsy Knox and her band do a very appealing line in originals on this debut album which draws on soul, nightclub cabaret, not too much default reggae and a little jazzy swing. Released late last year and therefore lost in that “best of the year” mopping up period, Salty is damn fine calling... > Read more

Ghost

Tales from the Box: Ciel (digital outlets)

8 Jan 2024 | <1 min read

Tales from the Box are cellist Stella Tempreli and accordion player Thanos Stavridis who across 11 tracks on this debut album – with some augmentation from guests on bass, drums, vibes and percussion in places – cover a wide swathe of original music by Stavridis (jaunty pastoral music, a lullaby, bossa nova, a jazzy spin off from My Favourite Things) to Ave Maria at the end.... > Read more

Um Tom Para Jobim

Sprints: Letter to Self (digital outlets)

6 Jan 2024 | 1 min read

This debut album from a hotly tipped Dublin four-piece taps directly into the spirit of intellectual, fist-tight post-punk and – in the delivery and claustrophobic lyrical repetition of Karla Chubb – has something in common with Deborah Iyall of Romeo Void as much as Siouxsie Sioux and more recently Savages. There's high drama here too (the desperation of Heavy with the cries of... > Read more

Heavy

Van Morrison: Accentuate the Positive (digital outlets)

4 Jan 2024 | 1 min read | 1

As we hinted at in the Editor's Picks of best albums of 2023, it was a strange year which saw attention-getting releases by the Beatles (the new single and the Red and Blue collections) and Rolling Stones, not to mention reissues of albums by Golden Harvest, the Proud compilation and many more from past decades. And we didn't even mention Cliff Richard's album Cliff With Strings; My Kinda... > Read more

Lonesome Train

Various Artists/Grayson Gilmour: Holding Patterns, Remixes (Flying Nun/digital outlets)

22 Dec 2023 | 1 min read

Grayson Gilmour's recent album Holding Patterns was – for the most part – very well received Elsewhere but as with many contemporary artists (Unknown Mortal Orchestra's recent V a prime example) there was a tendency to shift ground frequently so promising ideas weren't always sustained or explored more. On Holding Patterns there was also the instrumental title track which we... > Read more

Adam Hattaway and the Haunters: Anthology 2018-2023

17 Dec 2023 | <1 min read

Christchurch's Adam Hattaway and the Haunters have released six albums (one a double) of country rock and country-influenced rock'n'roll shaped into memorable originals. So they have fully earned this 16-song compilation. They explore country-soul, Seventies Rolling Stones, and much more, and over the years we have reviewed a number of their albums and consider their 2021 Woolston,... > Read more

Laut Fragen: Age of Angst (digital outlets)

16 Dec 2023 | 1 min read

Laut Fragen? They made polite contact but about whom we know little except this: they are the electro-postpunk duo of Maren Rahmann (vocals) and Didi Disko (electronics, guitar, voice) from Vienna. We conclude: they are very much in the manner of early Eighties post-punk experimentation with synths and discord/noise; create intelligently short sonic, downbeat punk landscapes (the cinematic... > Read more

Ausgang

ONE WE MISSED: Sampha: Lahai (Young/digital outlets)

11 Dec 2023 | 1 min read

Elsewhere was a bit underwhelmed by the 2017 debut album Process from Britain's rap-soul singer Sampha Sisay. But clearly we were out of step. It went on to win Britain's Mercury Prize. This follow-up which came out a few weeks ago seems to be have been a long time coming but we need to factor in Covid and the birth of his daughter Auri who he credits for the creation of this.... > Read more

RECOMMENDED RECORD: Paul McLaney: As the North Attracts the Needle (AAA/digital outlets)

10 Dec 2023 | 1 min read | 1

From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this album originally released in October but now on record with an insert lyric sheet and a classy cover. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . In an understated but relevant cover of his own design, this album finds Paul McLaney returning to his... > Read more

Go Well

Riot 111: 1981! (Leather Jacket Records/bandcamp)

8 Dec 2023 | 4 min read

With a season of discontent looming it's understandable if many reflect back on the 1981 Springbok tour which divided the nation and families. It was as much a cynical political ploy by prime minster Robert Muldoon as it was about racism in South Africa (and by implication in this country). Marches were held, riots ensued and posters were printed. Decent law-abiding citizens who... > Read more

1981!

Erny Belle: Not Your Cupid (digital outlets)

8 Dec 2023 | 1 min read

It would be fair to say that, unless you were listening carefully or following the fine print, Erny Belle Aimee Renata (Ngāpuhi from Maungatūroto) would be a new name. Or just someone who snuck up on you. But her debut album Venus is Home saw her nominated for Taite Prizes in the best independent album and best independent debut album categories. That's not a bad way to start a... > Read more

The Coral: Sea of Mirrors (digital outlets)

6 Dec 2023 | 1 min read

The previous album by Britain's Coral was Coral Island of 2021 which was one of our Recommended Records and also in our best of the year list. It is a wonderful concept album based around a seaside town and a band which plays there. We said of it, “wistful UK pop-rock nostalgia about a lost time and place, the band's history and with brief spoken word interludes. Like an... > Read more

Oceans Apart

Lou Reed: Hudson River Wind Meditations (vinyl release, CD)

4 Dec 2023 | 1 min read | 1

The title of the latest Lou Reed biography probably confirms how many see him. It is The King of New York (by Will Hermes) and immediately we picture Lou in leather on the dirty boulevard, being aggressive and cantankerous as he strides out sneering at lesser intellects, goes on about the poet Delmore Schwartz and somewhere in the background Waiting for the Man is playing as an image of Andy... > Read more

Hudson River Wind (Blend the Ambience)

Cat Power: Sings Dylan; The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert (digital outlets)

4 Dec 2023 | 1 min read

Reports from Bob Dylan's sold out North American tour are almost unanimous in their acclaim: at 82 Dylan is in good form, sometimes speaks to the audience (rare), mixes up older songs or deep cuts with his last studio album Rough and Rowdy Ways and in many places pays tribute to a local hero by singing one of their songs: Leonard Cohen's Dance Me to The End of Love in Montreal where he is... > Read more

Bob Dylan: The Complete Budokan 1978 Live (digital outlets)

30 Nov 2023 | 2 min read | 1

There's plenty of evidence to support the view that when Bob Dylan considers “popular music” (as opposed to pop music) he thinks of the songs before Elvis. And his idea of rock music is formed by the notion of electric country music more than Led Zeppelin. It's also noticeable that after he retreats into the past to find inspiration he re-emerges with somethings special and... > Read more

Chris Stapleton: Higher

27 Nov 2023 | 1 min read

When Elsewhere profiled singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton back in mid 2016 he was already an enormously successful artist and we noted he was in the lineage of crossover country artists like Garth Brooks in the Nineties. In many ways Brooks prepared the ground for a dozen “hat act” artists and Taylor Swift to move from country into the mainstream. Stapleton had fronted the... > Read more

Glen Hansard: All That Was East Is West Of Me Now

27 Nov 2023 | 1 min read

For those who haven't followed the extensive solo career of Ireland's Glen Hansard, he was the barely memorable guitarist in The Commitments but better known as the one of the two central characters in the 2007 film Once where he played the aspiring singer-songwriter/busker in a rather charming love story. However he was also in bands, the Frames and Swell Season but here again appears... > Read more

Grayson Gilmour: Holding Patterns (Flying Nun/digital outlets)

25 Nov 2023 | 2 min read

For much of its lifespan the of Flying Nun could best be described as spluttering. In the first decade it outgrew itself within a couple of years – too many artists, too much music and not enough business smarts, organisation and forward planning. As the label's great helmsman Roger Shepherd observed in his book In Love With These Times, "In the ten years from 1981 to the end... > Read more

A Crude Mechanical: Discourse (Public Witness/digital outlets)

24 Nov 2023 | 1 min read

Now this is interesting: the solo, multi-tracked guitar, instrumental debut by Shane Warbrooke which is billed as “experimental”. But that's a word which will have some hiding under the bedsheets. So let's quickly sidestep that – and his “accumulated noise” description – to pin down a couple of more appealing and appeasing touchstones: Phil Manzanera... > Read more

And We Bleed Metrics

Ebony Lamb: Ebony Lamb (Slow Time/digital outlets)

20 Nov 2023 | <1 min read

Elsewhere readers will be familiar with the name: Ebony Lamb was formerly of the long-running indie.folk/alt.country outfit Eb and Sparrow whose albums we have reviewed (and she answered an Elsewhere Questionnaire some while back). She was a recent long-list finalist in the Silver Scrolls – for last year’s Take My Hands at Night –and has developed into a... > Read more