THE MAGAZINE FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE
Elsewhere is a concept and a place, and Graham Reid goes there for his wide angle travels, writing, music review and interviews with writers, musicians and artists.
Elsewhere is an on-line magazine for new music (we filter out the mundane and spotlight the more interesting albums), different travel, arts and more. It is dedicated to the diversity and possibilities of Elsewhere. It's an equal opportunity enjoyer. Subscribe here (it's free) for a weekly newsletter. Welcome . . .
Latest posts
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . TUCKER ZIMMERMAN: He who never went away is back
11 Oct 2024 | 4 min read
It seems no matter how many diverse artists you seek out, follow their influences into obscure corners or go down blind alleys to chivvy out little-known singers, there's always someone whose name you have never heard before. What makes it worse in the case of Belgium-based, American-born singer-songwriter Tucker Zimmerman – now in his Seventies – is that he... > Read more
Lorelei
HERBIE HANCOCK, REVIEWED (2024): Lessons in fun and how to rockit
9 Oct 2024 | 3 min read | 1
A few weeks ago we interviewed the great Herbie Hancock and asked, politely, what possesses a man of 84 to go on the road and get up on stage to play for a couple of hours when he could comfortably be at home. He laughed and said something about paying the mortgage, then offered, “it's a privilege to be able to express myself with a great band and to play music... > Read more
Goodspace: Let's Talk About Death (digital outlets)
7 Oct 2024 | <1 min read
We saluted Goodspace/Jefferson Chen for his inventive album launch at a foodhall which we wrote about. Now lets turn attention to what's on the menu. Recorded at the Lab, Roundhead and his own studio, this album reflects Chen's considerable abilities and musical interests from the lightly boiling bass and percussion which drives She Don't Need You (which also gets... > Read more
Nests
Memorials: Memorials Waterslide (digital outlets)
7 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
This impressive debut by Britain's Verity Susman and Matthew Simms cleaves close to classic, upbeat pop heading towards psychedelia with Susman's seductive vocal delivering venturesome lyrics which compliment the twisting melodies: “Turning back to an imaginary hearse, two white horses pulling towards the door. You’re too late to write the book” on the... > Read more
Horse Head Pencil
Bob Dylan: You Belong To Me (1994)
7 Oct 2024 | 1 min read | 2
The idea of "possessing" your lover isn't a pleasant thought these days: the subtext is spousal abuse, just plain creepy stuff and not a few killings you read about on page five. But there are a few songs where that idea of possessive passion has a wistful, oddly lost and sympathetic quality on the part of the singer. At one end it is someone asking Ruby not to... > Read more
Thurston Moore: Glow Critical Lucidity (digital outlets)
7 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
When Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth separated after more than 20 years of marriage, for the indie.kid generation it was as if their own parents had broken up. Moore and Gordon seemed to have had it all: a life together making music and art, being creative, hanging out with the hippest of the hip and so on. Well, infidelity rarely plays out well as Moore... > Read more
Hypnogram
Dam Native: Kaupapa Driven Rhymes Uplifted
7 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
It's interesting to look at how this classic New Zealand album fared on release in late 1997: it just scraped into the top 40 and only lasted four weeks on the charts. That doesn't sound impressive at all until you consider that today we have a separate chart for local artists (actually a few) and so Dam Native was up against the best the world was throwing at us:... > Read more
Bright Eyes: Five Dice, All Threes (digital outlets)
7 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
Here's an interesting and somewhat relevant comparison: bear with us. John Lennon's 1970 God on his Plastic Ono Band album was a renunciation of previously held beliefs (Elvis, Kennedy, mantra), the litany ending with “I don't believe in Beatles”. It was his farewell to Beatle John, the 1960s and being reborn. It was hard for many to take, but he was... > Read more
El Capitan
GUEST WRITER RICHARD FOSTER unravels the bewildering debut album The New Sound by Geordie Greep
5 Oct 2024 | 7 min read
One of the driving themes of Anthony Powell’s roman-fleuve, Dance to the Music of Time, is the contrast between those characters driven solely by power and those more in tune with life’s more sensual pleasures. Inevitably, time and fate catches up with each protagonist and the reader can ponder if their fates are justified or not. The New Sound,... > Read more
Holy Holy
Geordie Greep: The New Sound (digital outlets)
4 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
Most genres of music have their identifiers: in country it can be beer, Jesus, Elvis and/or a pick-up truck; in death metal a guttural rumble which is Satan bellowing at you . . . Anyone who feels much popular music simply defaults to these easy tropes and is lacking in risk, adventure and wit – and there are many of us who do – should push themselves to... > Read more
Blues
Taka Nawashiro: Lifescape (digital outlets)
4 Oct 2024 | <1 min read
Now mostly based in New York where this album was recorded, guitarist Nawashiro from Saitama, Japan won the John Coltrane Award when he graduated from The School of Jazz and Contemporary Music in 2020. He has a smooth, swinging and inventive style although the namechecking of Pat Metheny in his PR doesn't quite stack up. There is a beautiful fluidity to his playing... > Read more
6 to 11
IN PRAISE OF THE MIDDLE-SIZED (2024) The pleasures of the 10 inch record
1 Oct 2024 | 5 min read
As a vinyl format, the 10'' (10 inch) record was a tasty thing between the 7'' 45rpm single and the 12'' 33rpm album. And you could get a lot onto the 10'' when the playing speed was 33. In the Forties and Fifties it was the favoured medium for many jazz artists – especially vocalists and bands, not so much the bebop crowd. And early rock'n'rollers discovered... > Read more
Perseus, by Diem Redux (Nic Roughan mix)
Ezra Collective: Dance, No One's Watching (digital outlets)
30 Sep 2024 | <1 min read
Britain's jazz-cum-world music ensemble Ezra Collective have gone from strength to strength in the past three years, their 2022 album Where I'm Meant To Be won the Mercury Prize which I believe the first time a jazz group has picked up that award. Guests on that album included Sampa the Great and Emile Sande. On this double album – after a short dubby intro... > Read more
Shaking Body
DURANS, CLARY, STUART, GLADYS AND ME: Talent with talons
30 Sep 2024 | 3 min read
Press conferences are a waste of time and no sensible journalist entertains them. Ask your best question and everyone else gets the great answer. And if you are a print journalist those lazy slime from television go to air that night with it and you can wait a day to see it in the paper. And then your mates think you copied it from them. As a journalist I... > Read more
The Rainmakers: Let My People Go-Go (1986)
30 Sep 2024 | 1 min read
Bob Walkenhorst of Kansas City's Rainmakers had a good line about his fellow Americans' willingness to get out of it. "The generation that would change the world is still looking for its car keys." The smart line came from the song Drinkin' on the Job off the band's self-titled, major label album in '86 ("Everybody's drunk, everybody's wasted,... > Read more
Paul Turney and the Human Condition: Thoughts and Prayers (digital outlets)
30 Sep 2024 | 1 min read
A couple of weeks ago we posted a major interview with Paul Turney, not just because he was interesting but also because his life showed you how far music can take you: in his case the unexpected journey from playing with post-punk/New Wave band Flight X-7 out of Auckland to now living in lovely Cirencester, England where he has his own company cleaning up archival... > Read more
Another World
MJ Lenderman: Manning Fireworks (digital outlets)
30 Sep 2024 | 1 min read
Sometimes you feel a weird connection with an album that you kind of adopt it, tell friends who stop listening the second you mention the unfamiliar name of an artist or just listen to in private wonder what it would take for this artist to become more than a cult act. We leave you with the names Howe Gelb, Julia Jacklin, the Unforgiven and the Shoes. And now MJ... > Read more
She's Leaving You
Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets: Indoor Safari (digital outlets)
30 Sep 2024 | 1 min read
Over the decades Elsewhere has interviewed many, many hundreds of musicians: some have been smart and funny (David Bowie, PJ Harvey, Lulu), others fascinating (Bjork, Ornette Coleman, Linton Kwesi Johnson), a few surprising in their candour (Miles Davis), some troubled (Townes Van Zandt), some political (Steve Earle, Chuck D) . . . and occasionally there's someone like Nikki... > Read more
Crying Inside
JT and the Agnostics: Yes More Blues (digital outlets)
30 Sep 2024 | 1 min read
This will be quick because this Waikato band have an album release coming up (see details below). First, they are honest: the album title, the band name with reference to the opener God's Mind. The band are as follows, and there are some familiar names here enjoying themselves on these originals: John Thomson (bass, vocals), guitarist Maciek Hrybowicz, Ben Gilgen... > Read more
Feeling for the Blues
INTRODUCING HERBIE HANCOCK'S BAND (2024): He headhunts the best
26 Sep 2024 | 3 min read
Among the many problems some people have with jazz is there seems to be no concept of “a band”. Players shift around constantly and the leader's name on the album cover is the only constant over a career: every album, new players. That's because in this demanding, improvised idiom – where the performer is simultaneously the composer – artists... > Read more