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
SAM COOKE, HE'S GONNA BRING THE CHANGE AGAIN: The RCA Albums Collection
1 Jun 2020 | 5 min read
One of the many bitter ironies of Sam Cooke's greatest song A Change is Gonna Come of 1964 is that the singer never lived to see it become an anthem for the Civil Rights era. Although he had written it at the end of '63 (based on some personal experiences) and it had been released on the flipside of the single Shake in early '64, he was never... > Read more
Somebody Have Mercy (live)
.jpg)
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes; Expansions (Ace/Border)
1 Jun 2020 | 1 min read
In the mid Seventies while some African-American artists were getting tight with the brothers and sisters on the angry street or getting back to Africa (sometimes via what we now call Afro-Futurism), some were heading for the cosmos propelled by jazz-funk and using the dancefloor as their launch-pad. This third album in '75 by the great keyboard player LLSmith with his... > Read more
RAC: Boy (Counter/Border/digital outlets)
1 Jun 2020 | 1 min read
The sensual pop electronica sound of Andre Allen Anjos (aka Portuguese-American RAC who lives in Portland) hits its apotheosis here on the second song where Luna Shadows' languid, almost post-coital vocals pull the listener into a world of pink sheets and a gentle Mediterranean breeze. And after that the rest of this 47 minute album by RAC – 18 tracks, some... > Read more
Daniel Hart: Three Day Bank (2018)
31 May 2020 | 1 min read
In August 2018, Robert Redford announced the film The Old Man and the Gun would be his last. He was 82 and went out with a very low-key and wry story about the real life recidivist bankrobber and serial prison escapee Forrest Tucker whose final spree was four banks in a single day when he was 79. That time he didn't live to escape or be freed, he died in prison at... > Read more
Flying Lotus: Flamagra Instrumentals (Warp/Border/digital outlets)
30 May 2020 | <1 min read
Now this is very interesting, the somewhat uneven Flamagra album by Flying Lotus released in the middle of last year now reappears in a Deluxe edition with an extra iteration where many of the tracks with vocals now reappear as instrumentals and remixes. If the half dozen or so vocals tracks on the over-stacked first version – 27 tracks of mostly fast-turnaround... > Read more
EPs by Yasmin Brown
30 May 2020 | 6 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
Soda Boyz: Farewell Spit (Flying Out/digital outlets)
30 May 2020 | <1 min read
Elsewhere has occasionally said we'd sometimes rather hear the debut album by a young band than the sixth by a careerist. That's because young people often play with enthusiasm and as if they have invented the genre whereas those who've been around the traps . . . Soda Boyz, a self-styled slowcore trio from Palmerston North via Wellington, work an interesting... > Read more
Lucinda Williams: Good Souls Better Angels (Highway 20/digital outlets)
29 May 2020 | 1 min read
Artists who build a vast catalogue can fall victim to their own productivity. At what point do you feel you have exactly the right number of albums by Van Morrison, Neil Young or Elvis Costello in your collection? Or Steve Earle or Lucinda Williams? Williams has more than 15 albums to her name (one a double) and with almost half of them being essential you'd... > Read more
Sunglass Moustache: Peaches (digital outlets)
29 May 2020 | <1 min read
As we understand it this band is an offshoot of a project by Austin singer-songwriter Ben Millburn who released an album called Sunglass Moustache a couple of years ago. That album was 11 very diverse songs which roamed from rhythmically jerky New Wave through pop and . . . well, it's on Spotify and a bit hard to get excited about. Now nominally a band, SM offer a... > Read more
Paul Flaherty: Borrowed From Children (577 Records/Southbound/digital outlets)
28 May 2020 | 1 min read
Now in his Seventies, alto/tenor player Paul Flaherty has been part of the NYC/free jazz scene for almost 50 years and continues the improvising project of his early influences such as the young Pharoah Sanders, Peter Brotzmann and Ornette Coleman. And for much of that time Flaherty has worked with – as he does here – drummer Randall... > Read more
COLIN McCAHON: IS THIS THE PROMISED LAND? VOL II 1960 – 1987 by PETER SIMPSON
25 May 2020 | 4 min read
When Peter Simpson left Colin McCahon at the end of the first volume of this superb series, the artist was at a turning point. McCahon had moved to Auckland after a successful career in the South Island, had turned 40 and – although he could not know this – was at the midpoint of his artistic career. Simpson now picks up this story with... > Read more
JOHN SINCLAIR: MOHAWK, CONSIDERED (2020): They gave him 10 for two . . .
25 May 2020 | 2 min read
In popular and political culture John Sinclair is best known for a small handful of things in the Sixties and early Seventies. He founded the White Panther Party, managed Michigan's MC5 and steered them into being a megaphone for radical politics (“We wanted to kick ass and raise consciousness,"), was one of the producers of the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz... > Read more
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . UTOPIA'S DEFACE THE MUSIC: So, ummm, that happened
25 May 2020 | 2 min read
It's a very odd thing to observe, but Utopia – the prog-rock band lead by Todd Rundgren from the mid Seventies – kind of did the Beatles' career in reverse gear. They went from ambitious and full blown stadium-sized prog on their debut as Todd Rundgren's Utopia – the opening Theme is over 14 minutes, The Ikon on the second side a tidy half hour –... > Read more
Everybody Else is Wrong
Oded Tzur: Here Be Dragons (ECM/digital outlets)
25 May 2020 | <1 min read
When recently invited to choose 10 formative jazz albums I had two which bridged Indian classical music and jazz, both being improvised musics. I noted that this area between two cultures and genres was often very rewarding. Here Israeli tenor player Oded Tzur – who has studied with bansuri/flute master Hariprasad Chaurasia – brings his sensibility for... > Read more
JOHN CALE, FRAGMENTS OF A RAINY SEASON, CONSIDERED (2020): The new society still ain't pretty
24 May 2020 | 3 min read | 3
Most musicians in rock culture establish their sound and reputation over a few early albums and consolidate both if their careers are of any length. The late Lemmy and Lou Reed for example released albums which became their hallmarks, and their personae – wildman Lemmy and pugnacious Reed – became our enduring image of them. That said, in each case there... > Read more
Library of Force (from M:FANS)
Souad Massi and Pascal Danae: Tell Me Why (2007)
24 May 2020 | <1 min read
This delightfully trippy exotically psychedelic song sounds like it has been beamed back to us for the late Sixties but in fact was on the excellent Essential Elsewhere album Honeysuckle/Mesk Elil album by the Paris-based, Algerian-born singer-songwriter Souad Massi. On her subsequent album O Huria/Liberty she had Paul Weller as a guest and from that album's title... > Read more
The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE HIGHLY PERSONAL QUESTIONNAIRE . . . Kiki Van Newtown aka Giantess
23 May 2020 | 4 min read
As Elsewhere noted when we reviewed the debut album Big Woman by Giantess, the person behind it Kiki Van Newtown had appeared previously under anther guise, as part of the band Hex. But we also noted about Big Woman that there was a lot going on musically and some interesting references, so we were curious. Time to ask Kiki/Giantess some very personal... > Read more
THE TAMI SHOW (2020): The lady in lockdown
22 May 2020 | 1 min read
Given that last year was a pretty lousy one for many people (self included) many were looking forward to a fresh start in 2020. Well, then that happened . . . Few musicians were looking forward to this year as much as singer-songwriter Tami Neilson who had a fine album ready to go (Chickaboom! reviewed here), had the backing to tour internationally to... > Read more
10 INFLUENTIAL JAZZ ALBUMS IN MY COLLECTION: The shape of me to come
22 May 2020 | 6 min read
During the Covid-19 lockdown, Facebook was awash with people being asked to choose their favourite albums, books and so on. And I too was there at the invitation of Rodney Hewson, a music man from way back, who asked me to pick 10 albums that were influential on my thinking about jazz. An impossible task in many ways, but one that did get me considering. It would... > Read more
FIVE FAMOUS BUT OVER-RATED ALBUMS IN ROCK: Acclaimed often, disappointing or dull mostly
22 May 2020 | 7 min read
Picking bad albums is child's play, acclaiming classics even easier still because mostly the work has been done for you by generations of critics, fans and the foolhardy. And acclaiming some obscurity as a lost classic is a breeze because chances are most people haven't heard it so aren't in a position to agree or disagree. However picking over-rated albums is much... > Read more