Music at Elsewhere

Keep up to date with new articles on Elsewhere as they're added with Rss or subscribe to receive a weekly e-newsletter with updates, giveaways

Peter Case: Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John (YepRoc Records)

Case used to be the mainman in the Plimsouls, a terrific and slightly ragged power pop band but he has enjoyed a long and diverse alt.country/alt.rock solo career -- as befits a man who was once married to Victoria Williams. On his superb self-titled debut in '86 he had John Hiatt and Roger McGuinn helping out, and down the decades he has worked with Ry Cooder and Sir George Martin, and... more >>

Peter Case: Some Bright Morning Blues

Added: 27 Oct 2007

Josh Ritter: The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter (Shock) BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2007

Elsewhere has been around long enough to do a bit of bragging about bringing certain people to your attention long before anyone else: one of them being this American singer-songwriter whose previous album The Animal Years (see tag) was such a gem. I just kept bringing it back and named it as one of the Best of Elsewhere 2006. Then he was discovered by the British press -- although not by... more >>

Josh Ritter: Rumours

Added: 27 Oct 2007 3 Comments

Joni Mitchell: Shine (Universal)

Despite critical acclaim and mega-sales for two decades or so after the early 70s, Joni Mitchell was never a happy traveller in the music industry, and frequently denounced it. The most recent crunch for her came when she was told by a music exec that her 2002 album Travelogue (new arrangements of old songs which she did partly as a contractual obligation to her longtime label Warners) was a... more >>

Joni Mitchell: One Week Last Summer

Added: 26 Oct 2007

Zbigniew Preisner: Silence, Night and Dreams (EMI)

Composer Preisner is best known for his dramatic soundtrack work -- but this gentle exploration of Biblical texts owes more to austere and evocative meditative music, which makes that album title utterly apt. The title track and a couple of others feature the pure and unwavering vocals of the young soprano Tom Cully from Libera (who looks about 12), but elsewhere it is Teresa Salgueiro from... more >>

Zbigniew Preisner: To Love

Added: 22 Oct 2007

Devendra Banhart: Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon (XL)

Widely credited as the figurehead of the neo-folk movement (which owes more to early jazzy folk-rocking Donovan than Dylan in its encompassing vision and musical ambition), Texas-born Banhart has delivered a series of fascinating albums notable for their diversity. Drawing on traditional folk, world music and trippy psychedelic styles (and lyrics), Banhart has staked out such a broad piece... more >>

Devendra Banhart: Cristobal

Added: 22 Oct 2007

The Phoenix Foundation: Happy Ending (Flying Nun) BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2007

In a cover so cheap-looking and unpromising that it reminds me of an intermediate school kid's doodle comes one of the best New Zealand albums of the year. Let's hope that godawful "artwork" doesn't put off any prospective buyers because if it does they will be missing one of the most nuanced, textured, seductively melodic and vibrant albums that Flying Nun has released in a very... more >>

The Phoenix Foundation: Pure Joy

Added: 22 Oct 2007

Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True, Deluxe Edition (Universal)

Elvis had a fair run here on Elsewhere when the recent reissue of his first 11 albums prompted a consideration of his quite remarkable career (see tag). But this Deluxe double disc edition of his debut album adds extra texture to that exceptional album with its touchstones in Phil Spector, country-rock, beat pop, Chuck Berry-meets-Dylan and so on. Here is the original album on the first... more >>

Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Stranger in the House (out-take)

Added: 21 Oct 2007

The Felice Brothers; Tonight at the Arizona (Shock) BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2007

Although perhaps too referencing of Dylan and the Band holed up in the basement of the Big Pink, that doesn't mean this shakily delivered collection of Americana from these three brothers and a bassist isn't without considerable charm and lowkey impact. And nope, there is no problem with your stereo during Hey Hey Revolver, that drop-out is where lightning hit their cheap studio and the... more >>

The Felice Brothers: Hey Hey Revolver

Added: 21 Oct 2007

Jenny Owen Youngs: Batten the Hatches (Shock)

This album has floated to the top of the pile quite frequently in the past three months and it has only been distractions which have meant it hasn't made an appearance here earlier. Let's rectify that oversight and tell you what prompted it: a line I saw somewhere which said that if KT Tunstall could be big why not this woman. Fair point. Youngs is an acoustic-framed rocker with... more >>

Jenny Owen Youngs: Fuck Was I

Added: 21 Oct 2007

Arthur and Yu: In Camera (Stomp)

On a first hearing I thought this would have been the album that Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood might have made if Nancy had been more like Elizabeth Montgomery in Bewitched and Lee more like Karl Wallinger from World Party. Sort of pop but not, as it were. There is a dreamy and disconcerting quality to much of this pairing of Seattle's Grant Olsen and Sonya Westcott, but the seductive... more >>

Arthur and Yu: 1000 Words

Added: 21 Oct 2007

Johnny Devlin: How Would Ya Be (Ode)

I was too young to be swept up in the fervour surrounding Johnny Devlin, New Zealand's first shirt-rippin' stage-ragin' rock'n'roll star. But my older sister certainly had a Devlin EP -- sponsored by Coca-Cola as I recall -- which I later poured over. When I think about it though my sister was more into beatnik cool in the late 50s than rock'n'roll, so maybe it was my parents who had the... more >>

Johnny Devlin: Nervous Wreck

Added: 19 Oct 2007

John Fogerty: Revival (Fantasy)

Now back on his original label after decades of litigation, animosity and a refusal to play the Creedence Clearwater Revival hits that made his repuation, Fogerty sounds like a man at peace with himself -- but as angry as ever about his country being involved in yet another foreign war. On this album which doesn't stray far from that winning CCR template of short, sharp swamp-rock and... more >>

John Fogerty: I Can't Take It No More

Added: 19 Oct 2007

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss; Raising Sand (Rounder) BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2007

From what seems a most unlikely pairing -- the former Led Zepp frontman and the "new bluegrass" singer/fiddle player -- comes one of the best albums of the year: an often eerie folk-framed collection in which the duo engage the heart of songs by Townes Van Zandt (the other-world sound of Nothing), Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan (Trampled Rose), the Everly Brothers (Gone Gone Gone),... more >>

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss: PLease Read the Letter

Added: 18 Oct 2007 1 Comment

Levon Helm: Dirt Farmer (Vanguard) BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2007

If anyone has won the right to sings songs of life on hard scrabble farms it is Levon Helm, the former drummer/singer/mandolin player in the Band who grew up on a cotton farm near a town called Turkey Scratch in Arkansas. His group -- called for a time Levon and the Hawks -- backed Ronnie Hawkins, linked up with Bob Dylan and became simply The Band. Many consider Helm the authentic voice... more >>

Levon Helm: The Mountain

Added: 18 Oct 2007

Beirut; The Flying Club Cup BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2007

Ambitious and slightly eccentric pop music doesn't come much more ambitious and eccentric as this, the second album by Zach Condon (aka Beirut), an American with a European sensibility whose musical reach encompasses indie Anglopop, French chanson, nods to Scott Walker, hints of Spanish or mariachi music, snippets of conversations, swooning choruses, quasi-choral passages . . . There is an... more >>

Beirut: Cliquot

Added: 18 Oct 2007

Trip to the Moon: Welcome to the Big Room (Ode)

This astral-ambient and very trippy outfit from Auckland record far too infrequently for my liking, and this seductive offering is further evidence of the singular path they have been travelling on: deliciously textured music which refers to space-flight jazz and the most refined aspects of 70s prog-rock, but is never over-indulgent. Trip are multi-instrumentalists Trevor Reekie and Tom... more >>

Trip to the Moon: Long Lost Days

Added: 18 Oct 2007

Various: A Tribute to Fats Domino (Tipitina's/Shock)

In the days after Hurricane Katrina it was believed that this great New Orleans r'n'b singer had been washed away. Fortunately he had been rescued although his home, like much of that wonderful city, had suffered extreme damage. The interesting thing about the rumours of his death was the sudden recognition of his talent in the wider world: he had been one of the earliest influences on... more >>

Big Chief Monk Boudreaux with Galactic: So Long

Added: 17 Oct 2007

Various Artists: Sowing the Seeds (Appleseed/Elite)

This moving and sometimes inspiring double-disc celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Appleseed label which is a home to various socio-political folkies such as Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton and others. But for this, their first sampler, they have also invited in some guests such as Bruce Springsteen and Donovan -- and had Seeger record some excellent new material, notably the opener, a brief... more >>

Tommy Sands, Pete Seeger, Vedran Smailovic: Music of Healing

Added: 16 Oct 2007

Bettye LaVette and Drive-By Truckers: The Scene of the Crime (Anti) BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2007

This is an unexpected pairing: soul-singer LaVette with alt-country rockers Drive-By Truckers recording in Muscle Shoals in Alabama. A marriage made in heaven (or a somewhat hotter place) as it turns out: the band are edgy or supportive and nudge LaVette (who needs little prompting it must be said) through a collection of gritty songs which either jump out of the speakers or drag you into... more >>

Bettye LaVette and Drive-By Truckers: I Still Want to be Your Baby

Added: 29 Sep 2007

Tunng: Good Arrows (Full Time Hobby)

This Anglofolk-cum-indie altpop outfit were a previous Elsewhere pick with their beguiling and sometimes baffling Comments of the Inner Chorus. At time they sound like the Incredible String Band without the fey folksiness, at others like the Beta Band (a good thing) or the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, or evoke hot Hawaiian beaches beside a dark English forest, or seduce you with a gorgeous melody... more >>

Tunng: Bricks