THE MAGAZINE FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE
Elsewhere is a concept and a place, and for many years Graham Reid has been going there for his wide angle travels, writing, music review columns and interviews with writers, musicians and artists.
Elsewhere is an ever-expanding on-line magazine for people curious about new music, different travel, interesting arts and much more. This site is dedicated to the diversity and possibilities of Elsewhere. It is an equal opportunity enjoyer. Subscribe here (it's free) for a weekly newsletter and be in to win CDs, DVDs, books and more. Welcome . . .
Latest posts
Various Artists: Even a Tree Can Shed Tears (LITA/Southbound)
21 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
Subtitled “Japanese Folk and Rock 1969 – 1973”, this 19 song collection with very useful liner notes shines a spotlight on music you might thought would have been much explored in that lust so many have for the obscure or left-field. As Yosuke Kitazawa observes in the notes, Japanese pop has only made one lone impact on the mainstream charts... > Read more
Richard Thompson: Acoustic Classics II (Proper/Southbound)
21 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
For decades his fans have argued that Richard Thomson has been cruelly overlooked, but that only seems to apply to sales: he has been accorded just about every major songwriting and guitar accolade possible in the USA and UK and also has an OBE. But of course, none of that directly translates into a profile for a more mainstream audience. This album –... > Read more
LED ZEPPELIN MASTERS (2017): The songs better remain the same
21 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
Elsewhere has made no secret of its sneaking admiration for tribute shows. The audience's expectation of authenticity and commitment has driven most of the lesser players out of the market and – removing the kitsch factor of Bjorn Again – there's something strange, disconcerting but ultimately quite enjoyable about seeing someone being someone else and... > Read more
Django Bates: Saluting Sgt Pepper (Edition)
21 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
Although you couldn't fault the timing of this album by British keyboard player/conductor/arranger Bates and the Frankfurt Radio Big Band, the result is somewhat less engaging. The 50th anniversary of the Beatles' Sgt Pepper album invited many such opportunistic tributes but too often this, by remaining extremely faithful to the original right down to the... > Read more
Boyd Rivers: Fire Shed in my Bones (1985)
21 Aug 2017 | <1 min read
Not a lot is known about the Mississippi-based country-blues and gospel singer Boyd Rivers who died in '93, but his growling voice seems to belong to a much older time. He was born near the town of Pickens in December '43 and after being injured at his casket-making job in '72 he lived off his music and the pay-out. He was also a Reverend. And that's about it.... > Read more
The Band: Music from Big Pink
21 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
Although it might be drawing a long bow to suggest alt.country started about here with this '68 album by The Band (with Bob Dylan within ear-shot), it certainly – along with Dylan's John Wesley Harding of the previous year – made many people think about an older style of music, imagery and songwriting in the heady days of hippiedom. And it came at a... > Read more
EVE de CASTRO-ROBINSON'S NEW WORKS FOR PIANO (2017): Pictures made into sound
14 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
In her new work for solo piano – a zigzagged gaze, 10 piano pieces -- the New Zealand composer Eve de Castro-Robinson was “let loose among the art collection of the Wallace Trust” which she describes as “a gleeful trawling through riches” in the liner notes to the new Rattle release by pianist Henry Wong Doe. On that album Pictures,... > Read more
Willie Nelson: Cowboys are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other (2006)
14 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
When this Willie Nelson song started to get a bit of attention around the time of the movie Brokeback Mountain, many people -- myself included -- assumed it had been prompted by that film. But the story of it goes back quite a way and the song's writer Ned Sublette tells it in his excellent book The Year Before the Flood about his time in New Orleans before Katrina and... > Read more
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . HUGUES PANASSIE: Writing a line through jazz
14 Aug 2017 | 3 min read
Depending on what angle you look at Hugues Panassie from, the Parisian was either jazz's greatest European advocate and instigator in the Thirties and Forties. Or he was a divisive and opinionated cuss whose dogmatic writing and dismissal of many artists shoved an unwelcome wedge between styles and musicians. As with so many purists – Ken Colyer in... > Read more
PRINCE EUGEN'S WALDERMARSUDDE IN STOCKHOLM (2017): The prince and the painters
14 Aug 2017 | 3 min read
Although most people discreetly draw a veil around the private life of Prince Eugen of Sweden, you can't help note the homoerotic quality of the male nudes in his art collection. Or the absence of women in his inner circle of friends. Prince Eugen – born into a liberal royal family in 1865 as Eugen Napoleon Nicolaus Jansson, fourth in... > Read more
The Who: My Generation
14 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
In a classic cover -- bassist John Entwistle sporting the famous Pop Art-referencing "Union Jacket" -- the Who's debut album of '65 captured the youthful energy, anger, self-doubt and generational unity of the moment. There had been a massive socio-cultural shift with the success of the Beatles and all who followed in their wake: London was the centre of... > Read more
Grawlixes: Set Free (Home Alone/Southbound)
14 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
This debut album for the Wellington indie.folk duo Grawlixes – Robin Cederman and Penelope Esplin, with violinist Alex Vaatstra in places here – appeared while Elsewhere was elsewhere so we missed their tour. Are we disappointed on the evidence here? Although the title track is an uninviting dirge as an opener – even... > Read more
Ov Pain: Ov Pain (cocomuse.co.nz)
14 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
In the musical microcosm that is Dunedin/Port Chalmers these days, we might allow ourselves to consider the duo at the core of this multi-referencing Goth-cum-drone-cum-claustrophobically dark-rock-psyche release as something of a pocket-edition supergroup. Partners Renee Barrance and Tim Player are of Elan Vital and the very interesting Opposite Sex respectively.... > Read more
THE NEW ARCHITECTURE OF OSLO, PART THREE (2017): Operaen; The Norwegian National Opera and Ballet
9 Aug 2017 | 3 min read
In the first two parts of this brief series about the architecture of Oslo, we looked at the new developments in the Barcode area and around the Renzo Piano-designed Astrup-Fearnley Museum of Modern Art. The centrepiece of Oslo's archirtectural regeneration and development however is the undeniably beautiful and strikingly innovative home to the Norwegian Opera and... > Read more
Mermaidens: Perfect Body (Flying Nun)
9 Aug 2017 | <1 min read
This Wellington trio are quite rightly the hip, fashionable and classy name to drop because of their crafted, emotionally tense pop which holds up in the face of easy dismissal. To these ears so many young indie-rock groups lack any sense of bite let alone firepower. But Mermaidens walk a line between ethereal pop and brittle indie.rock which channels some of... > Read more
THE NEW ARCHITECTURE OF OSLO, PART TWO (2017): The Tjuvholmen district
7 Aug 2017 | 2 min read
In the first part of this photo essay-cum-envy tourism look at the new architecture of Oslo, we turned the camera onto the small and developing area known as Barcode which is emerging behind the city's magnificent opera and ballet hall on the water's edge. More on that building in Part Three, but here we look to the small peninsula beyond AkerBrygge just a few... > Read more
Public Service Broadcasting: Every Valley (PIAS)
7 Aug 2017 | 2 min read | 1
The two previous albums by Britain's boffinish PSB – Inform-Educate- Entertain and The Race for Space – had an audience outreach in their sampled themes: voices from the past evoking speed, progress, science, energy and vigour propelling us into the future . . . Couple those themes with energetic music borne out of techno, rock, pop and dance, and the... > Read more
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Micronism; inside a quiet mind (Loop)
7 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
When Denver McCarthy released this album in the late Nineties the musical landscape in New Zealand was very different and electronica – although not a new genre – was very in the forefront of conversations. There was quite a schism between the electronica and rock factions (just as there had been previously between hip-hop and rock) and cheerleaders on... > Read more
This is the Kit: Moonshine Freeze (Rough Trade)
7 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
The previous album Bashed Out by the acclaimed UK alt.folk singer/writer and banjo player Kate Sables (aka This is the Kit) was a frustrating affair. Round my way the cry was always “turn it up” or that she should just punch in a bit harder. However this fourth album (produced by John Parish, with guests who do the punching on electric guitars, cello,... > Read more
Maria Dallas: The Best of Maria Dallas (Sony)
7 Aug 2017 | 2 min read
In 2013 – which was what we now know as “The Year of Our Lorde” – there was a huge upset at the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards. For the young people in the audience, their new pop-godhead Lorde had dominated their thinking and so a shockwave of “Who . . .?” went around the room when the award for the biggest selling album was... > Read more