Music at Elsewhere

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BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: Loudon Wainwright: Strange Weirdos (Universal)

Longtime cynic, straight-shooter and occasionally misanthropic singer-songwriter Wainwright shows no sign of losing his touch even though he is now in his 60s. His subjects will always provide plenty of material: they are life in general, himself, his family, and sometimes astute socio-political observation. He is a sensitive singer-songwriter -- if that also means being sensitive to... more >>

Loudon Wainwright III: Grey in LA

Added: 22 Dec 2008

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: MGMT: Oracular Spectacular (Sony/BMG)

As regular visitors to Elsewhere are aware, not everything posted here is a work of unalloyed genius which will be treasured down many lifetimes. (Although there are however more than a few like that I would hope.) But sometimes albums just come along that you are very glad to have heard and simply enjoy for what they mean to you on some odd subconscious level. I suspect this one is like... more >>

MGMT: The Youth

Added: 22 Dec 2008

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: James McMurtry: Just Us Kids (Lightning Rod/Elite)

The murky photo of a small, barroom audience on the inner sleeve of this brittle and typically dark album by singer-poet McMurtry might have included me. It looks like it was taken in the Continental Club in Austin where I caught him and his band the Heartless Bastards a couple of years ago playing their regular gig. Since his remarkable debut Too Long in the Wasteland at the opening of... more >>

James McMurtry: Ruins of the Realm

Added: 22 Dec 2008

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: Hayes Carll: Trouble in Mind (Lost Highway)

You'd think with strip malls, fast food franchises, saturation low-cost reality television and the widespread levelling out of mainstream culture that guys like Carll would have been ironed out of American life But he's one of those crinkles in the texture, an alt.country-cum-trad.country guy who is a little early Steve Earle and Joe Ely, and a bit of Basement Tapes Bob Dylan, but also very... more >>

Hayes Carll: Girl Downtown

Added: 22 Dec 2008

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: Van Morrison: Keep It Simple (Lost Highway)

Another year and another Van album on yet another label . . . And with the reissue of his earlier albums drawing attention to great work like It's Too Late to Stop Now (read about it in Essential Elsewhere) it would hardly be surprising if this one was ignored by even longtime followers, many of whom might be picking up the remastered back-catalogue or one of the new greatest hits... more >>

Van Morrison: No Thing

Added: 22 Dec 2008

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: Duffy: Rockferry (Rough Trade)

Funny how the UK rock press works, innit? Just a month or so ago this soulful, young Welsh singer who has a mainline to Dionne Warwick, Spector girl groups and Motown was being hailed as the next big thing/one to watch etc. Her record company had slipped out an advance sampler CD/7 inch which was so terrific it was posted here at Elsewhere about three months back as a very early heads-up.... more >>

Duffy: Serious

Added: 22 Dec 2008 2 Comments

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: Radiohead: In Rainbows (XL)

Over the Christmas 07-08 period I heard a radio interview with a young musician denouncing the gross villany of major record companies -- about which I expect he had no personal experience -- and pointing to Radiohead's on-line/download release in October 2007 of In Rainbows (with buyers paying what they liked for it) as evidence the music industry was tottering like a mortally wounded... more >>

Radiohead:Nude

Added: 22 Dec 2008 3 Comments

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: The Mountain Goats, Heretic Pride (4AD)

Co-produced by John Vanderslice, the typically opaque lyrics by John Darnielle are given space and clarity so as to bewilder and bemuse you by turns. Not many people write songs with titles like Sax Rohmer #1, How to Embrace a Swamp Creature, Marduk T-Shirt Men's Room Incident and Michael Myers Resplendent. But here augmented by some discreetly dramatic strings and the small band, and with... more >>

The Mountain Goats: Heretic Pride

Added: 22 Dec 2008 3 Comments

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: Moana and the Tribe: Wha (Black Pearl/Ode)

Across her previous three albums Moana Maniapoto confirmed her status as one of New Zealand's most significant voices whose sound could just as comfortably incorporate politics and culture as seduce with her flowing lyrics in te reo and her astute ear for using the traditional within a contemporary context. This album might lack the obviously powerful and overt statements of material like... more >>

Moana and the Tribe: Te Apo

Added: 22 Dec 2008

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: Samuel Flynn Scott and Bunnies on Ponies: Straight Answer Machine (Loop)

Sam Scott is the singer and main songwriter of the Phoenix Foundation (alongside Luke Buda) and wrote the music for the feature Eagle Vs Shark but this, his second solo album, sounds like a man thoroughly enjoying himself (in a somewhat serious way) out of the confines of both of those. As with the PF this is pop which has a light'n'loose feel (soft drugs I suspect) and a sense of... more >>

SF Scott and BOP: Sodium Ions

Added: 22 Dec 2008 1 Comment

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008 Luke Buda: Vesuvius (Arch Hill)

This exceptional album by Buda of the Phoenix Foundation may take some getting used to for a few people: it is ambitious (and often lyrically funny or provocative) wide-screen pop which unashamedly doesn't shy from a McCartney-like hook, or deploying lap steel to fine effect -- as well as conjuring up the innocence of mid 60s pop (Electric Waterfall has a melody, guitar solo and vocal harmonies... more >>

Added: 22 Dec 2008 1 Comment

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008 Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson: Rattlin' Bones (Liberation)

Chambers -- daughter of the very great singer-songwriter Bill -- is one of Australia's finest alt.country/roots artists and here she teams up with her husband Nicholson for their first album together. Oddly enough although they play together in their casual side-project The Lost Dogs covers band they hadn't previously written together -- yet the evidence on this album is that they are rare,... more >>

Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson: Sweetest Waste of Time

Added: 22 Dec 2008 1 Comment

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008 Johann Johannsson: Fordlandia (4AD)

Part romantic and lyrical classical music, part minimalism of the early La Monte Young kind, and deftly orchestrated in the manner of albums on Eno's Obscure label of the Seventies (Gavin Bryars' Sinking of the Titanic comes to mind), this emotionally downbeat but eerily beautiful album is probably of as much appeal to those who like a bit of Mahler as anyone coming from Eno's ambient music end... more >>

Johann Johannsson: The Rocket Builder

Added: 22 Dec 2008 1 Comment

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008 Mavis Staples: Live. Hope at the Hideout (Anti)

The last album by the great Mavis Staples, We'll Never Turn Back was picked as one of the best albums of 2007 at Elsewhere, and that was no sympathy vote for one of life's survivors who had grown up with the civil rights movement and has now lived long enough to see Obama heading for the White House. So when she sings "keep your eyes on the prize, hold on", Freedom Highway and... more >>

Mavis Staples: This Little Light

Added: 22 Dec 2008 1 Comment

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: James Hunter: The Hard Way (Universal)

This Englishman with an unexpectedly soulful voice was one of the first artists posted at Elsewhere back in mid 2006 and that astonishing album People Gonna Talk was easily among the best of that year. But in this country with very little publicity (I saw none) it rose without a trace. Still, those who heard it got a wonderful slice of Sam Cooke/soul-reggae -- and it went on to be in... more >>

James Hunter: Til the End

Added: 22 Dec 2008 1 Comment

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: The Felice Brothers: The Felice Brothers (Shock)

These three actual brothers (and a friend) weighed in with the Tonight at the Arizona which made the Best of Elsewhere 2007 list and turned up as many a critic's favourite Americana album.This long-awaited sequel follows an interim album sold at gigs, and a few of those songs are now available on this self-titled album (and some other tracks were, confusingly, recorded before their debut... more >>

Felice Brothers: Murder by Mistletoe

Added: 22 Dec 2008

Tehimana Kerr: Defamation of Character (Capital)

Over 10 years in the making by all accounts, which means that this is either a mammoth of Floyd-like dimensions or that Kerr is one helluva laidback character. It's the latter if this lazy Sunday outing is anything to go by -- and of course he has been busy as Jetlag Johnson, guitarist with Wellington band Fat Freddys Drop. This is mellow and soulful to the point of being horizontal -- it... more >>

Tehimana Kerr: Summer 97

Added: 15 Dec 2008 1 Comment

AA Bondy: American Hearts (Fat Possum/Shock)

From what I have read, this dark folk album isn't what we should have expected from Mr Bondy out of Alabama. It seems he was previously the lead singer of an alt.rock band and drew favourable comparisons with Kurt Cobain. Quite what made him drop the volume, pick up acoustic guitar and harmonica, craft literate and questioning songs, and aim for a place between Dylan (65 and... more >>

AA Bondy: How Will You Meet Your End?

Added: 15 Dec 2008

Various: Bob Dylan's Jukebox (Chrome Dreams/Triton)

The influence of the young Bob Dylan (64-66) is evident today in singer-songwriters such as AA Bondy and Pete Molinari (among many others), and you can certainly hear unashamed echoes of Dylan 67 - 72 in the likes of the Felice Brothers and many more in the alt.country, folk-blues vein. So there should be an audience for this 25-track compilation of artists who influenced The Man Himself,... more >>

Hank Williams: Lost Highway

Added: 15 Dec 2008

Tim Finn: The Conversation (EMI)

Tim Finn has had an interesting solo career punctuated by as many great albums as disappointments. He's done the folk-Irish thing and a bit of Nashville, rocked out, been with an orchestra or back with Neil, and at times you wondered aloud if his voice hadn't really lost it. Some of his best work (the superb Feeding the Gods in 2002 for example) seemed to go past people who embraced his... more >>

Tim Finn: Invisible