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. Welcome . . .
Latest posts
Paul Weller: On Sunset (Polydor/digital outlets)
9 Jul 2020 | 3 min read
Paul Weller's albums are a bit like films by Woody Allen or Ken Loach. If you miss one it doesn't matter because another will be along soon. On Sunset is his 15thsolo album but it has been five years since we seriously checked in with his progress (for Saturn's Pattern) and there were two other albums (A Kind Revolution, True Meanings) and an EP in the interim. Note... > Read more
GUEST WRITER STEVE GARDEN considers women filmmakers looking at men in the #MeToo era
9 Jul 2020 | 3 min read
Recently I watched two films that ostensibly examine male power from female perspectives in the context of #MeToo, both of which could, in a sense, be described as psychological horror films. The Invisible Man (2020) is a mainstream thriller directed by Leigh Whannell starring Elisabeth Moss, who came to prominence playing Peggy Olson in the TV series, Mad Men. The... > Read more
EPs by Yasmin Brown
9 Jul 2020 | 5 min read
With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column by the informed and opinionated Yasmin Brown. She will scoop up some of those many EP releases, in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks up albums by New Zealand artists, and IN BRIEF does for international artists. You can read her... > Read more
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JUNELLE AND ABRAHAM KUNIN INTERVIEWED (2020): Tibetan words of wisdom, universal sounds of peace
6 Jul 2020 | 9 min read
In a year full of the unexpected, the new album Inner World still surprises. It features the voice of the Dalai Lama speaking words of wisdom and compassion and placed against relaxing soundbeds. The album Inner World, released on The Dalai Lama's 85thbirthday, has already picked up excellent advance notices, perhaps because in a troubled time his thoughts speak to... > Read more
The Dalai Lama: Inner World (digital outlets)
6 Jul 2020 | 1 min read
Two weeks ago in the Guardian's list of top new tracks there was an unusual entry. Alongside the clubland pop of Kiesza, a groovy remix of St Germain's Rose Rouge by Jorja Smith, the big voiced singer-songwriter Tom Walker and the r'n'b of Kenzie with Sia was the 84-year old Dalai Lama with the track Compassion from his debut album Inner Worlds. Maybe – with... > Read more
Joan Baez: Simple Twist of Fate (1975)
6 Jul 2020 | <1 min read
In late '74 Joan Baez went into a studio with hot session musicians and jazz players (Jim Gordon, Larry Knechtel, Joe Sample, Larry Carlton, Wilton Felder), and she had been hanging around with her new friend Hampton Hawes. So jazz -- and Joni Mitchell -- was in the air, and Baez responded by delivering the album Diamonds and Rust which was a step well away from her... > Read more
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . THE MAMAS AND THE PAPAS: Trip, stumble and fall
5 Jul 2020 | 6 min read
When we look at the cast of misfits, murderers and murder victims, oddballs and eccentrics in our articles at WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT, you'd be entitled to ask why Rock and Roll Hall of Famers and hit-makers The Mamas and the Papas should be in such strange company. By way of explanation, let us start at the end. In fact, let's start after the end . . . Because in... > Read more
Creeque Alley
Garnett Betts: Highfield (digital outlets)
4 Jul 2020 | <1 min read
Although this album by Canadian singer/guitarist Garnett Betts came out late last year, we'd bet high odds that few in this country have heard it, or of him. But with his appealing vocals style – sometimes country-blues, sometimes closer to Bruce Hornsby's easy style – he should have strong appeal here for those who have remained loyal to his fellow Canadian... > Read more
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE COMPILER'S QUESTIONNAIRE . . . Ben Stevens
4 Jul 2020 | 3 min read
The past decade has seen a surge of interest in New Zealand's pop culture history. In large part that has been due to the ever-expanding audioculture website, but also through the work of people like Chris Caddick quietly getting New Zealand music of all kinds onto digital platforms, archivists and compilers such as Grant Gillanders, John Baker, Karl Lock, Alan Perrott... > Read more
THE DURUTTI COLUMN: THE GUITAR AND OTHER INSTRUMENTS, CONSIDERED (1987): Man and machine music
3 Jul 2020 | 3 min read
Manchester's Vini Reilly -- who steered Durutti Column through scores of studio albums and many side-projects from the late Seventies until fairly recently -- probably only ever earned enough to pay the mortgage . . . and never enough to pay it off. Respected, nervous, anorexic and almost popular sometimes, he was always his own man. Reilly – in... > Read more
GREEN MONKEY OUT OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST (2020): Never too much Monkey business
3 Jul 2020 | 4 min read
When the music industry power players descended on Seattle waving cheque-books in the wake of Nirvana, a number of artists dodged that bullet. As grunge ran its course, many local artists and labels simply carried on making the music they wanted, free of the constraints of marketing, PR and a fickle media. As Elsewhere has frequently noted, we were lucky to have our... > Read more
Brigid Mae Power: Head Above Water (Fire/Southbound)
2 Jul 2020 | 1 min read
Elsewhere is well-known for approaching English and Irish folk music with some caution if not outright suspicion. The lamentations, murder and miserablism, references to medievalism, “fair maiden” and “kind sir” lyrics . . . . that is rarely for these ears. But of course there are a more contemporary stylists – like ol' Bill Fay or the... > Read more
We Weren't Sure
GRG67: Happy Place (Rattle)
1 Jul 2020 | 1 min read
This Auckland jazz group with what looks like a personalised plate for a name, impressed mightily with its debut album The Thing two years ago. And at that time we noted the credentials of the players, notably saxophonist Roger Manins who here again writes most of the pieces. The same quartet appears here – Manins, guitarist Michael Howell, drummer Tristan Deck and... > Read more
MayWayDay
EDIE BRICKELL AND THE NEW BOHEMIANS, SHOOTING RUBBERBANDS AT THE STARS, CONSIDERED (1988): What she was and what she is . . .
28 Jun 2020 | 4 min read
Texas-born and based Edie Brickell was 22 in '88 when – on a Saturday Night Live session in New York to promote this debut album with the New Bohemians – she first saw Paul Simon. He was more than twice her age and enjoying global success (and some controversy) with the Graceland album . . . but troubling over a follow-up. He was taken with... > Read more
Favourite Five Recent Releases
Ssewa Ssewa: Nva K'la (ARC Music/Southbound/digital outlets)
28 Jun 2020 | <1 min read
This smart 33-year old Ugandan multi-instrumentalist and singer has invented his own instrument, the 15-string harp-like Janzi which is non-metallic so he can pass through airport security without much hassle. That's just one reason he's smart. Another is the evidence on this multi-lingual album where his seductively low vocal rides across gently bubbling rhythms,... > Read more
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas: Third Finger Left Hand (1967)
28 Jun 2020 | 1 min read
Beyonce's thrilling Bollywood-influenced dancefloor hit Single Ladies; Put a Ring On It reminded of the long tradition of songs about wedding rings, or the lack of them, or how tarnished a memory can be . . . Elsewhere has already posted a number of such songs: Gary Lewis and the Playboys' pop hit This Diamond Ring and Freda Payne exceptional and ambiguous Band... > Read more
Favourite Five Recent Releases
Rava/Herbert/Guidi: For Mario, Live: (Accidental Records/digital outlets)
28 Jun 2020 | <1 min read
With elements of minimalism, tone poems, avant-garde inclinations, yearning European trumpet and soundtracks for disconcerting films, this trio of trumpeter Enrico Rava, pianist Giovanni Guidi (both ECM artists) and UK electronic composer Matthew Herbert here invent an aural landscape scape of manipulated sounds and samples, noise and delicacy, drama and reflection.... > Read more
Marshmellow: Secrets of the Universe (digital outlets)
27 Jun 2020 | <1 min read
Marshmellow is acclaimed singer-songwriter/soundtrack composer Marshall Smith who has been a Silver Scroll finalist and by his own account 2000 tracks published across the globe. He is also the managing director of The Sound Room . . . . so doubtless has the sonic artillery at hand, certainly enough to record these 12 originals (and a slightly... > Read more
Favourite Five Recent Releases
Khruangbin: Mordechai (Dead Oceans/Rhythmethod)
26 Jun 2020 | 1 min read
We here at Elsewhere are patient and allow people time to catch up with artists we've championed at the start of their careers. Like Khruangbin, the trio out of Texas who have perfected a kind of dreamy, psyche-ambience with nods to dub textures, Thai pop and bits of world music. We hailed their debut album The Universe Smiles Upon You more than four... > Read more
GUEST MUSICIAN PAUL McLANEY OF GRAMSCI considers the journey to sobriety and the new album Inheritance
26 Jun 2020 | 6 min read
Music and the performance of music are to me a public communion of grace; to share, collectively, in some form of majesty beyond self, of pure surrender and release. Obviously in a post Covid-19 world the luxury of congregation has been temporarily removed from us but Music’s facility to engage multiple minds via the recorded medium means that we can still share and... > Read more