Music at Elsewhere
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Myele Manzanza: OnePointOne (First Word)
21 Nov 2016 | 1 min read
Knowing only that drummer Manzanza was formerly in New Zealand's electronica-soul outfit Electric Wire Hustle doesn't prepare you for this vigorous and out-there second album under his own name. Recorded live at the Blue Whale in LA with keyboard player Mark de Clive-Lowe, bassist Ben Shepherd and singers Nia Andrews and Charlie K (plus the exceptional Quartetto Fantastico string... > Read more
Absent Fade
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Free; Live! (Universal)
21 Nov 2016 | 1 min read | 1
By the time this album was released in late '71 the original band had broken up. But theirs had been a remarkable run with four studio albums in two years, an appearance at the Isle of Wight Festival and relentless touring which ensured the reputations of singer Paul Rodgers (still frontman for Bad Company) and guitarist Paul Kossof, the inspired blues-rock player who died in '76. Their... > Read more
The Hunter
Ultimate Painting: Dusk (TIM/Southbound)
14 Nov 2016 | 1 min read
A little bit of a stretch here but let's get into reference points for this British duo of Jack Cooper and James Hoare, the former sporting a perfect mid Sixties comb-forward fringe. This is mostly measured, mesmerisingly melodic and quiet jangle-pop . . . with less of the jangle. Music for dusk, perhaps? Think folksy Stills and Nash who'd only heard McCartney and not... > Read more
A Portrait of Jason
IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases
14 Nov 2016 | 3 min read
With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column which scoops up releases by international artists, in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks up New Zealand artists. Comments will be brief. Agnes Obel: Citizen of Glass (PIAS) This Berlin-based Danish singer-songwriter came to Elsewhere's attention two years ago when... > Read more
SHORT CUTS: A round-up of recent New Zealand releases
8 Nov 2016 | 5 min read
Facing down an avalanche of releases, requests for coverage, the occasional demand that we be interested in their new album (sometimes with that absurd comment "but don't write about it if you don't like it") and so on, Elsewhere will every now and again do a quick sweep like this, in the same way it does IN BRIEF about international releases. Comments will be brief.... > Read more
Troy Kingi and the Electric Haka Boogie; Guitar Party at Uncle's Bach (Lyttelton/Southbound)
7 Nov 2016 | 1 min read | 1
Despite the underselling expectations of this unpromising title, this isn't some beers-for-da-boys acoustic summer-reggae vibe at the beach . . . Thank God, because we are already ears-deep in Maori/dreadlock Pakeha good-groove bbq-reggae. Okay, Troy and band from Northland default a bit to that, but here Kingi – who appeared in the Mt Zion film – pushes the parameters... > Read more
OIl Spill
IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases
7 Nov 2016 | 4 min read
With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column which scoops up releases by international artists, in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks up New Zealand artists. Comments will be brief. Leonard Cohen: You Want It Darker (Sony) Much has been made about the lack of a question mark on this album title. And rightly... > Read more
Miles Calder and the Rumours; Miles Calder and the Rumours (Southbound)
7 Nov 2016 | 1 min read | 1
Singer-songwriter Miles Calder and his fellow travellers down these alt.country byways (where “the creek's gonna rise”) have considerable prior form in advance of this debut album. Their Crossing Over EP was nominated for the 2014 Taite Music award and in the NZ Music Awards' country category. Calder has had favourable shortlist mentions in international songwriting... > Read more
Sad Songs
The Lemon Twigs: Do Hollywood (4AD)
31 Oct 2016 | <1 min read
In the world of New York brothers Brian and Michael D'Addario -- who are the core of the Lemon Twigs – it is forever 1966-68. And mostly British. On this debut album they indulge in eccentrically Brit-psychedelia which has its reference points in Lennon's tripped-out acid-pop, the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, something of the Monkees in their later days when the reins were... > Read more
I Wanna Prove To You
IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases
31 Oct 2016 | 3 min read | 1
With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column which scoops up releases by international artists, in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks up New Zealand artists. Comments will be brief. Matt Butler: Reckless Son (mattbutlerofficial.com) Music as personal therapy can be treacherous territory: Oversharing comes off as... > Read more
Various Artists; Let It Be; Black America Sings Lennon, McCartney and Harrison (Ace/Border)
31 Oct 2016 | 2 min read | 1
Given just how much black music – Motown, girl groups, Chuck Berry, Little Richard etc – influenced the early Beatles, it's no surprise black Americans would find Beatle songs to adopt and adapt. A few years ago the James Hunter Six (white band out of Britain, of course) took the Beatles' It Won't Be Long of '64 and -- with barely a flick of the wrist -- turned it into a sassy... > Read more
It's Only Love, by Gary US Bonds
SHORT CUTS: A round-up of recent New Zealand releases
28 Oct 2016 | 3 min read
Facing down an avalanche of releases, requests for coverage, the occasional demand that we be interested in their new album (sometimes with that absurd comment "but don't write about it if you don't like it") and so on, Elsewhere will every now and again do a quick sweep like this, in the same way it does IN BRIEF about international releases. Comments will be brief.... > Read more
Richard Walters: AM (pilotlights)
28 Oct 2016 | 1 min read
This emotion-driven English singer-songwriter who works in the world of electronica-cum-balladry delivered one of Elsewhere's favourite albums in 2010, The Animal. His milieu is an area which has been opened up increasingly over the past few years, but Walters was there early in the game and although there's a smidgen more self-pity here ("lovers are meant to lose"/"truth... > Read more
Where Were You?
Greg Fleming and the Working Poor: To Hell With These Streets (bandcamp)
25 Oct 2016 | 2 min read
Constructed like a song-cycle about the urban struggle and real world in New Zealand's emotional and physically assaulting 21st century, this is a short but finely focused collection by Auckland singer-songwriter Greg Fleming. It is just 10 songs in fewer than 40 minutes . . . and it opens with the already weary-sounding City's Waking Up. This isn't some golden dawn in the... > Read more
Sick of This Shit
Anna Coddington: Luck/Time (Loop)
25 Oct 2016 | 1 min read
If the Volume exhibition at the museum in Auckland shows us nothing else it is that – from Fifties rock'n'roll to contemporary r'n'b – New Zealand musicians have been adept at adopting and adapting imported genres. So it is with post-r'n'b electro-pop. But where Electric Wire Hustle, for example, get by on Mara TK's soulful vocals and ethereal synth-psychedelic sonic... > Read more
Too Far Gone
ONE WE MISSED: Electric Wire Hustle; The 11th Sky (Loop)
24 Oct 2016 | <1 min read
This new installment of Electric Wire Hustle's ethereal, neo-psychedelic electronica-soul arrived when we were diverted by pressing (and thankfully) paying work some weeks back . . . but it provided a useful soundtrack in the background. Closer attention reveals its many intricate details where faux-strings swell and race like clouds over the looped beats and aching soul vocals of Mara TK.... > Read more
I Light a Candle
Norah Jones: Day Breaks (Blue Note)
21 Oct 2016 | 1 min read | 1
Although some suggest Jones has been making variants of her Come Away With Me debut for some time, little could be further from the truth. No, she is not going to suddenly turn into Kate Bush, Yoko Ono or LeAnn Rimes but within her idiom of crafted jazz with discreet country influences she gently pushes sideways. Check out Elsewhere's user guide to her back-catalogue. However much... > Read more
And Then There Was You
Graveyard Love: The Sentiment of Escape (bandcamp)
17 Oct 2016 | 1 min read
Graveyard Love is New Zealand synth-pop artist Hamish Black and we single this album out for a couple of reasons: first of all he works an interesting area which takes as its starting point the Eighties when bands like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, the early Cure and various British gloom-rock bands were exploring the sonic textures and invented landscapes of synths and darkly... > Read more
Encore to the Absurd
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Public Image Ltd: Metal Box Super Deluxe (Universal)
17 Oct 2016 | <1 min read
When the Sex Pistols imploded, John Lydon with bassist Jah Wobble and guitarist Keith Levine emerged as Public Image Ltd (PiL). Their '78 debut First Edition announced a new direction but the following year they delivered Metal Box (three records tightly packed into a film canister). Once you finally prised them out you were treated to – challenged by – sprawling,... > Read more
Graveyard
THE BARGAIN BUY: The Pogues; Original Album Series
17 Oct 2016 | 1 min read
Odd isn't it, how artists who were once so important and perhaps even defined their era – Talking Heads, REM and Oasis come to mind – quietly disappeared and barely make it into a conversation these days. So seems the fate of the Pogues also whose boozy, sentimental, political and often moving songs and poetry spanned the Eighties. The lyrics of Shane MacGowan and the... > Read more