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
MARK DE CLIVE LOWE PROFILED, AT AUDIOCULTURE (2019): Jazz in the present and future tense
23 Apr 2019 | 1 min read
As with his peer and fellow jazzman Nathan Haines, Auckland-born keyboard player, DJ, producer and composer Mark de Clive-Lowe was a serious young jazz musician who came of age in the hip-hop era. And so his musical – and then geographic – horizons widened rapidly. These days he is a global citizen who has collaborated with local players in Japan, performed... > Read more
ANTHEMS, NEW ZEALAND'S ICON HITS a doco series by JULIA PARNELL and MARCUS PALMER
23 Apr 2019 | 2 min read
It's an odd thing but the more nuanced and articulate a political song is, the less successful it is likely to be. People want slogans like Lennon's reductive All YOu Need is Love, Give Peace a Chance and Power to the People, not Costello's Tramp the Dirt Down. “The simpler the lyrics are, the more people will remember them,” says Dave Dobbyn. He's talking... > Read more
Delaney Davidson and Barry Saunders: Word Gets Around (Rough Diamond/Southbound, digital outlets)
23 Apr 2019 | 1 min read
After his idiosyncratic production work on his own albums and most recently for Harry Lyon on his excellent To the Sea, Delaney Davidson must be the go-to guy for singer-songwriters wanting to get some deeper grit, evocative noir and dirty r'n'b into their sound. Barry Saunders (Warratah, solo artist) met Davidson years ago when on the Churches tour with Marlon Williams... > Read more
All Fall Down
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . MARZETTE WATTS: Everywhere I hear the sound of . . .
22 Apr 2019 | 4 min read
Should anyone doubt the close connection between American free jazz and the rise of radical black politics in the Sixties they only need to look to the life of saxophonist Marzette Watts. However Watts -- who died in early '98 a week short of his 50th birthday -- gets barely a footnote in any jazz histories. His name is usually just as part of a list which includes... > Read more
Geno
DENNY LAINE RECONSIDERED (2019): It wasn't much of a holly day
22 Apr 2019 | 4 min read
When he parted company with Paul McCartney at the dawn of the Eighties, Denny Laine had been the former Beatles loyal lieutenant for a difficult decade as McCartney falteringly launched a solo career then steadily soared upwards on the success of Wings. Denny Laine – born Brian Hines, he took Laine in tribute to singers Cleo Laine and Frankie Laine – was... > Read more
Sophie Mashlan: Perfect Disaster (digital outlets)
22 Apr 2019 | 1 min read
This young singer-songwriter is in her final year as a pop music student at the University of Auckland, but while others are getting singles together she leaps out with a fully-fledged, professional and mature album which has elements of dark country woven through the sometimes heroic pop-rock songs and the literate, reflective folk. Given she's already sprung a couple... > Read more
Norah Jones: Begin Again (Blue Note)
22 Apr 2019 | 1 min read
This seven song compilation acts as a neat stop-gap and tour promotion (she's here this week, see below) and is a collection of material Jones has recorded with others. She's been down this path previously with the Featuring Norah Jones album of 2010, but as with her every release there's always something sound, thoughtful and professional about it. The opener here... > Read more
My Heart is Full
Daniel Lentz: On the Leopard Altar (1984)
22 Apr 2019 | <1 min read
To be fair to Paul McCartney, he's always said he can't pick a hit single and never knows if he's written one until people line up to buy it. Even so, when Mojo magazine asked him in '97 -- as part of their 100 Greatest Singles of All Time issue -- to name his favourite songs, and then one that should have been a contender he went for this odd item by the American... > Read more
JAN HELLRIEGEL: SPORTSMAN OF THE YEAR (book+CD/Seahorse Swim)
21 Apr 2019 | 2 min read
There is an interesting dichotomy in this book-album project by Auckland singer-songwriter Jan Hellriegel: In her prose she has an easy, anecdotal and conversational tone but the published words of the new songs on the tie-in CD are refined, poetic and precise. It is the difference between the artist and the art; and the vicissitudes and joys of the life that informs... > Read more
Ice IV
Murray McNabb: e-music (Sarang Bang)
19 Apr 2019 | 2 min read
This beautifully presented double vinyl in a gatefold sleeve comes from Auckland's excellent Sarang Bang Records and -- as with their earlier The Way Out is The Way In and Every Day is a Beautiful Day -- presents innovative music from the vaults of the late composer/keyboard player Murray McNabb. A jazz player of local renown by the cognoscenti, McNabb was also musically... > Read more
David Harrow: Dub Journeys Vol 1 OICHO (Dubmissions/digital services)
17 Apr 2019 | <1 min read
Dubheads rarely need a second invitation because they know approximately what they are getting with a dub album. And the pedigree of David Harrow (aka OICHO) is impeccable: witness his work with Lee Perry, Bim Sherman, Jah Wobble, Salmonella Dub and the Headless Chickens locally, African Headcharge and many more. These 10 deep, synth-heavy tracks – very astute... > Read more
Arrowrooted
THE TAHI ALBUM, INDUCTED (2019): Number one, the first, and first of many
17 Apr 2019 | 2 min read
At the 10thannual Taite Music Prize awards held on April 16, I was invited to induct the Tahi album by Moana and the Moahunters into the category of the Independent Music New Zealand Classic Record category. This is what I said, ad libs excluded. – Graham Reid Kia ora e te whanau. It is my privilege to be here at the invitation of Moana Maniapoto... > Read more
Billie Eilish: When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (Interscope)
15 Apr 2019 | 1 min read
Talking about current pop music with some university music students last week (all a third my age) I mentioned sevenTeen-sensation Billie Eilish. And we agreed “she were crap, mate” when she played the Auckland Laneway Festival in 2018. I said that frankly she couldn't sing and couldn't dance (she danced as badly as me, 'nuff said) but one... > Read more
Xanny
The Comet is Coming: Trust in the Lifeforce of The Deep Mystery (Impulse)
15 Apr 2019 | 1 min read
The name to note in this UK trio is saxophonist and jazz-shaman Shabaka Hutchings, the pivotal figure in the emerging new wave of British jazz who is in Sons of Kemet and Shabaka and the Ancestors. He's a prime mover in a scene which is enjoying a renaissance (and enjoying itself in the process) with big and boisterous music, controls sometimes to the heart of the sun... > Read more
Unity
ONE WE MISSED: Michal Martyniuk; Nothing to Prove (SJ Records/digital outlets)
15 Apr 2019 | 1 min read
Michal Martyniuk is a composer/keyboard player who divides his time between Poland and Auckland, completed his music degree at the University of Auckland and has played with Nathan Haines' band. This album however was recorded in Poland last year – he'd been absent for almost a decade – and appeared the SJ Records label there. Here is an interesting... > Read more
Insomnia
Drugdealer: Raw Honey (Mexican Summer/Southbound)
15 Apr 2019 | <1 min read
Whatever the reason – DJs seeking out rare groves, compilations of deep cuts, the aural clutter of Spotify – a lot of people like obscurer-than-thou artists and songs. Well, Drugdealer – aka Michael Collins of LA – is one of those underground artists who has played with those on the fringes of Ariel Pink so he qualifies as usefully obscure. But... > Read more
Lost in my Dream
Rufus Thomas: Itch and Scratch Part I (1972)
15 Apr 2019 | <1 min read
One of the most natural funk artists this side of James Brown, Rufus Thomas struck gold with Walking the Dog and Do the Funky Chicken in the Sixties, but this song from just a little later captured him as a dance-floor filler with a Stax song which failed to chart. But it went on to be much sampled and he epitomised a specific Memphis sound at the time. He was... > Read more
Second Prize: The Heel Turn (digital outlets)
15 Apr 2019 | <1 min read
As the man said in his e-mail, it's not often that Glenfield College (on Auckland's North Shore) is a useful old school tie! True. He was a student there a couple of decades ago and said he used to get out odd library books and was always a bit confused because on the slip of previous borrowers “one of them was invariably the mysterious "Reid... > Read more
Waiting for a Spark
Anderson.Paak: Ventura (Aftermath)
14 Apr 2019 | 2 min read | 1
To click that it's the great Smokey Robinson in the backdrop of the lovely and yearning Al Green-influenced Make It Better here might seem a little strange, especially when the vocal by Anderson.Paak is about how he and his woman used make love at the drop of a hat but now things have changed. Some might consider Smokey's presence here just a bit creepy, especially given... > Read more
Reachin' 2 Much (ft Lalah Hathaway)
Maggie Teachout: Maybe I'm Still Just Peter (Green Monkey)
14 Apr 2019 | 1 min read
On the small but admirably persistent Green Monkey label out of the US Pacific Northwest (Seattle, Olympia) comes this debut by 18-year old singer-songwriter Maggie Teachout who fires off a 13-song volley of rocking indie-folk and more intimate ballads where at the upbeat end of her spectrum sounds she like a one-woman Violent Femmes (Colourblind, Lemonade Day) and at the... > Read more