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
BILL FAY, CONSIDERED (2020): A calm balm for these hard times
20 Jan 2020 | 4 min read
Everywhere is madness, disaster and chaos. The young feel on the precipice of the climate apocalypse as rivers dry and oceans rise, the land burns and the air chokes. If you read anything about current politics you can confidently say that yes, anyone can aspire to be the president of the United States. If this vile, bullying, lying, dangerous and psychopathic... > Read more
Pinegrove: Marigold (Rough Trade/Rhythmethod/digital outlets)
20 Jan 2020 | <1 min read
New to Elsewhere, this New Jersey outfit here deliver a strangely enticing fourth album of downbeat material which sometimes errs towards worn-down narrative pop-poetry delivered over elemental, almost alt.country settings (Dotted Line, the arresting Alarmist) or gently urgent power-pop (Moment about an unexpected incident on the road). Spiral is a 75... > Read more
Moment
The Mighty Sparrow: Jack Palance (1956)
20 Jan 2020 | <1 min read
Actually no, the great Trinidad calypso singer Mighty Sparrow isn't paying a tribute to the wonderful character actor Jack "pick up the gun" Palance (1919-2006). Rather, he is making a very unflattering comparison between the actor's rather battered looks and the faces of aging prostitutes: "Without any doubt they could be my granny but they walk around at... > Read more
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Pale Saints: The Comforts of Madness (4AD 30thAnniversary Edition)
19 Jan 2020 | 2 min read
Although not exclusively the “shoegaze” band they have been tagged as, Britain's alt.rockers Pale Saints could hopefully get some traction for this expanded, 30thanniversary reissue of their debut album, because it seems shoegaze is currently enjoying a resurgence. Maybe this terrific compilation of shoegaze from a few years ago has lead to the renewed... > Read more
Sight of You
I WANNA BE YOUR MAN, RECONSIDERED (2020): The hit the Beatles stole and on-sold
18 Jan 2020 | 3 min read | 2
Most people who know the story of the Beatles' success are aware that before they conquered America by appearing on the Ed Skelton Show in February 1964 they had already made their reputation in Britain. Not only had they had hits like Love Me Do, Please Please Me, Hold My Hand and She Loves You, but the Lennon-McCartney songwriting team had written hits for Billy J... > Read more
Algiers: There is No Year (Matador/digital outlets)
17 Jan 2020 | 1 min read
The previous two albums by this sometimes incendiary, political, four-piece soul rock-cum-punk experimentalists out of Georgia made Elsewhere sit up and listen for the powerful sonic punch coupled with direct social and historic comment. Of their self-titled debut we simply concluded “extraordinary” and of The Underside of Power we said “although... > Read more
VIOLENT FEMMES' BRIAN RITCHIE INTERVIEWED (2020): Playing to the gallery
17 Jan 2020 | 1 min read
Ahead of his veteran band Violent Femmes' return to New Zealand, Brian Ritchie talks about his other life – working at Tasmania’s Mona art gallery. When Brian Ritchie – bassist in Milwaukee folk-punk band Violent Femmes – moved to Hobart 12 years ago, as the band he founded was in a... > Read more
Selena Gomez: Rare (Interscope/digital outlets)
15 Jan 2020 | 1 min read
While Elsewhere always takes considerable amusement in how many writers and producers it takes to shape a mainstream pop album these days (see the screenshot below!), we also believe that if that's what it takes to make a great album then that's what it takes. Is this a great album by onetime Disney child star Gomez . . . who is now 27? Well, actually that gets a... > Read more
THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND: Away with the faeries and poets
15 Jan 2020 | 4 min read
Unexpected people are into the Incredible String Band: Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin you can understand, given Led Zepp played a kind of Anglofolk/Tolkein thing alongside their hijacking of black blues and other hoary riffs. But bristling DIY post-punk Chris Knox speaking highly of this slightly fey Scottish folk group who pioneered the use of instruments from... > Read more
The Incredible String Band: The Mad Hatter's Song (from The 5000 Spirits/Onion album)
EIGHT OBSCURE USA INDIE SINGLES I'M SURPRISED I OWN: And believe me, eight is enough!
13 Jan 2020 | 5 min read
The small town of Paeroa in New Zealand's North Island (the other island being named . . .) can make a couple of claims for itself. First, it is the origin of the “world famous in New Zealand” soft-drink Lemon & Paeroa, and second that it is the antiques capital of the country. These days “antiques” mostly just means old stuff, but in the... > Read more
The Serpent Power: The Endless Tunnel (1967)
13 Jan 2020 | 1 min read
The cover of their sole album in 1967 on the Vanguard label told part of the story: psychedelic Californians with a female vocalist in the line-up. That much is clear, but the music added to much more to the Jefferson Airplane reference point. Songwriter-guitarist David Meltzer was a poet around San Francisco and his wife Tina was the singer. But then add in organ... > Read more
DELINQUENT DAYS; OUTSIDERS ON THE SILVER SCREEN (2020): The kids aren't alright
12 Jan 2020 | 3 min read
In the shorthand of pop culture, some would have you believe there was nothing going on between the death of Buddy Holly and the arrival of the Beatles. Certainly there were a lot of bland, production-line pretty-boy pop stars as we noted here, but there was also much more happening. As we said in that piece, “there were surf bands and Motown, Phil... > Read more
Ryuichi Sakamoto: Plastic Bamboo (1978)
12 Jan 2020 | <1 min read
A little over four decades ago the Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto of Yellow Magic Orchestra released his debut solo album Thousand Knives Of Ryuichi Sakamoto. It was at the time – but perhaps sounds a little less so today, vocoder is a bit passé – an innovative and ground-breaking collection of half a dozen pieces on multiple synthesisers (and some... > Read more
ONE WE MISSED: Corea/McBride/Blade: Trilogy 2 (Concord/Southbound)
11 Jan 2020 | 1 min read
Although Elsewhere unashamedly indulges in free jazz (and has written about some of its more obscure corners here), there is something satisfying, reassuring and comfortable about hearing some of the idiom's finest practitioners playing off each other in a small acoustic setting, often on standards which get reinvented in that instant between thought and expression. That... > Read more
Serenity
James Blood Ulmer: Are You Glad To Be In America (1980)
11 Jan 2020 | <1 min read
For many of the open-eared among jazz listeners -- those who had grown up on rock guitarists and heard in Hendrix the vanguard of a fusion, followed Miles Davis through Bitches Brew and Jack Johnson, had albums by John McLaughlin and understood jazz-funk -- it seemed as if guitarist-singer James Blood Ulmer was going to deliver them from mediocrity. His pedigree was... > Read more
Trentemoller: Obverse (In My Room/Southbound/digital outlets)
10 Jan 2020 | <1 min read
Over time spent with the considerable catalogue of the Danish electronica experimenter Anders Trentemoller, you might conclude it is easier to like what he likes than what he does. By that we mean we would refer (again) to his engrossing Late Night Tales compilation of some years back rather than perhaps direct listeners to his often darkly, monochromatic soundscapes . .... > Read more
Sleeper
Marina Bloom: Back Where We Started (digital outlets)
8 Jan 2020 | 1 min read
Very few artists bother to release an album at this time of year because there's just nobody around, the country is on holiday. That said, it is also counter-intuitive to deliver your album in this dead-air time because there is so little competition for attention. So let's tip the hat to Marina Bloom (who previously appeared at Elsewhere here) and this new 12... > Read more
Lucinda Williams: West (2007)
6 Jan 2020 | 2 min read
Although saturated in the sadness which had affected her in the years before this album's recording -- the break-up of a relationship, the death of her mother -- it would be unwise to presume that everything on West had turned on those events: Williams is too smart and too poetic a writer to be quite that literal. That said, she concedes the opener Are You Alright? was... > Read more
Lucinda Williams: Come On
The Vagrants: I Can't Make a Friend (1966)
6 Jan 2020 | <1 min read
There are any number of bands called the Vagrants, but there is only one Vagrants and it was this garage-band out of Long Island who appeared on the original Nuggets compilation with their version of Otis Redding's Respect. Those few who heard their quite remarkable version loved it, but it was swamped when Aretha's seminal version was released at the same time. This... > Read more
ARVO PART, TABULA RASA (2020): The sound of angel wings
2 Jan 2020 | 4 min read
The story is such an improbable cliché it can only be true: one night in the late 70s while driving between Stuttgart and Zurich, the famous jazz producer Manfred Eicher heard music on the radio so entrancing he had to pull over to listen more closely. Eicher – founder of the ECM label which has a reputation for music of often profound austerity – was... > Read more