Absolute Elsewhere
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RICHARD FARIÑA REMEMBERED (2023): The man who wouldn't be king
1 Oct 2023 | 12 min read
See him there in that photo from the early Sixties, the young singer standing alongside the beautiful Baez sisters Joan and Mimi. There he is again, a key figure hanging out in the downtown New York folk scene around the Village, his original songs pulling an audience his way, their lyrics political, allegorical, metaphorical and sometimes as gentle as a butterfly alighting on a leaf.... > Read more
Michael, Andrew and James
MITSKI PROFILED (2023) Risking it on the fault-line
1 Oct 2023 | 2 min read
Recently Elsewhere wrote about artists – locals particularly – who, despite having a strong mandate from their hard-won audience, seem to be risk-averse. You get the impression the songs have been run past and shaped by a focus group which warns the artists not to do anything different and stick to the formula of pop bangers or songs which have their Selfie Generation... > Read more
THE LAUFEY PERPLEX (2023): To jazz or not to jazz
30 Sep 2023 | 1 min read
Okay pub quiz time, but be warned this could be a track question: Who was last year's most streamed jazz artist on Spotify?Now you might reasonably go for the ever-popular Miles Davis or even the great Pharoah Sanders who underwent a rediscovery with that 2021 album Promises with Floating Points and the LSO. But actually the most streamed jazz artist on Spotify – with 425 million... > Read more
THE BIG DAY OUT (1994): The acts and a survivor's guide
23 Sep 2023 | <1 min read
When there is time, Elsewhere will be sourcing a rich vein of its archival material which was published in various places during the Eighties and Nineties which are not available on-line. These will most often be reproduced as they appeared in print. Some may be a little fuzzy in the reproduction but we think the story or interview are worth it for researchers or fans. Best read on a... > Read more
NINA SIMONE, THE POLITICS AND THE PASSION (2023): From Porgy to protest
18 Sep 2023 | 4 min read
In 1964 before a predominantly white, liberal and monied audience at New York's Carnegie Hall, Nina Simone announced her song Mississippi Goddamn. It had been written quickly some weeks previous and she'd played it to a small audience in a Greenwich Village club, but here it became wide currency. She referred to it as a show tune, “but the show hasn't been written for it... > Read more
KRISTIN HERSH, INTERVIEWED (1994): One day at a time
17 Sep 2023 | <1 min read
When there is time, Elsewhere will be sourcing a rich vein of its archival material which was published in various places during the Eighties and Nineties which are not available on-line. These will most often be reproduced as they appeared in print. Some may be a little fuzzy in the reproduction but we think the story or interview are worth it for researchers or fans. Best read on a... > Read more
BJORK, INTERVIEWED (1994): There's more to life than this
11 Sep 2023 | <1 min read
When there is time, Elsewhere will be sourcing a rich vein of its archival material which was published in various places during the Eighties and Nineties which are not available on-line. These will most often be reproduced as they appeared in print. Some may be a little fuzzy in the reproduction but we think the story or interview are worth it for researchers or fans. Best read on a... > Read more
SORRY, YOUR BEST ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH (2023): When it becomes the singer not the song
11 Sep 2023 | 3 min read | 1
Some years ago I was sent a CD for review. It came from a young woman and had been recorded in the South Island. It was spare acoustic folk and pretty grim. Every song opened with either “I” or “you” and over however many songs – far too many to my ears – she seemed to be either tearful or angry about the relationship. I pointed this out in a review... > Read more
Dissolve Like Salt, by Violet Hirst
THE WIDE BRIDGE NEVER THE TIGHTROPE (2023): The plague of risk-averse pop
10 Sep 2023 | 4 min read
A week or so ago over lunch, a couple of us were talking about the state of local music. “There's just a lack of risk,” he said with obvious exasperation. And that's something I'd been thinking about for a while. We could blame Spotify and young pop artists' pursuit of scoring a breakout on one of the curated playlists. To achieve that you aren't going to do anything... > Read more
THE NOMAD, RESPECTED AND A RETROSPECTIVE (2023): The electronica pioneer celebrated 25 years on
3 Sep 2023 | 1 min read
The Nomad – Daimon Schwalger – earned his pseudonym: he took his vision for drum'n'bass and inventive electronica from Dunedin to Europe but also remained grounded here through numerous collaborations (with members of Fat Freddy's and Black Seeds as well as Luciano, King Kapisi, Pearl Runga and Tiki Taane among them). Since the late Nineties there were also much admired albums... > Read more
Musical Direction
STING, INTERVIEWED (1996): Stayin' alive at 45
31 Aug 2023 | 1 min read
When there is time, Elsewhere will be sourcing a rich vein of its archival material which was published in various places during the Eighties and Nineties which are not available on-line. These will most often be reproduced as they appeared in print. Some may be a little fuzzy in the reproduction but we think the story or interview are worth it for researchers or fans. Best read on a... > Read more
PETER GABRIEL, INTERVIEWED (1994): This charming man
30 Aug 2023 | <1 min read
When there is time, Elsewhere will be sourcing a rich vein of its archival material which was published in various places during the Eighties and Nineties which are not available on-line. These will most often be reproduced as they appeared in print. Some may be a little fuzzy in the reproduction but we think the story or interview are worth it for researchers or fans. Best read on a... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: CLEMENTINE VALENTINE AND VICTORIAN ROMANTICISM (2023): Soul dreams and sleepers wake
28 Aug 2023 | 4 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes on red vinyl with a lyric sheet and, which we wish all vinyl purchases included, a download code for a digital copy. And it has a framable cover, which we talk about specifically because it is clue to the contents. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . .... > Read more
The Understudy
HERBS, ALL BOXED UP (2023): This were whats' be happened
28 Aug 2023 | 4 min read
Herbs, one of this country's most important bands, certainly deserve their box set: all five albums on coloured vinyl with liner notes in a limited edition box. Aside from being in the vanguard of Pacific reggae – which they could fairly claim to have invented and refined on their debut EP Whats' Be Happen? and the album Light of the Pacific – Herbs were also that rarity: an... > Read more
THE THOKEI TAPES CONTINUANCE (2023): Home sounds from abroad
28 Aug 2023 | 2 min read
As Elsewhere has regularly done, we here again happily bring to attention the on-going project of Thomas Keitsch in Hamburg who presents music by New Zealand artists on his cassette label Thokei Tapes. The cassettes are the collector's items but the music is also available on bandcamp where downloads are also available. The extensive Thokei catalogue is here and Elsewhere has written... > Read more
BONNIE RAITT INTERVIEWED (1994): Raitt here, Raitt now
28 Aug 2023 | 1 min read
When there is time, Elsewhere will be sourcing a rich vein of its archival material which was published in various places during the Eighties and Nineties which are not available on-line. These will most often be reproduced as they appeared in print. Some may be a little fuzzy in the reproduction but we think the story or interview are worth it for researchers or fans. Best read on a... > Read more
SHAYNE CARTER, INTERVIEWED (1994): The Fits quits
25 Aug 2023 | <1 min read
When there is time, Elsewhere will be sourcing a rich vein of its archival material which was published in various places during the Eighties and Nineties which are not available on-line. These will most often be reproduced as they appeared in print. Some may be a little fuzzy in the reproduction but we think the story or interview are worth it for researchers or fans. Best read on a... > Read more
JOHN ZORN, THE UPDATE (2023): Zorn again
21 Aug 2023 | 2 min read
John Zorn albums are like buses, if you miss one another will be a long soon. Or three will arrive at the same time. New York's John Zorn – now just days away from turning 70 – went from avant-garde outsider to avant-garde insider whose early saxophone style didn't much impress serious jazz critics but captured the kind of post-No Wave downtown scene where all kinds of... > Read more
THE INBETWEENS, REISSUED AND DISCOVERED (2023): Play that funky music guitar boy
13 Aug 2023 | 3 min read | 2
When you've written about music for almost 50 years – often in very visible outlets which run your photo – you have to expect a bit of flak when out in public and minding your own business. The disgruntled friend of band member in a bar is usually easy to talk down after a disarming handshake, the genuinely menacing emails are something different. The most annoying thing is... > Read more
OUT OF THE CORNERS, AT AUDIOCULTURE (2023): "Because women weave the world"
3 Aug 2023 | 2 min read
Looking back at the women’s movement in the socially volatile 1970s and 80s, they were comparatively simpler times. Even though feminism was complex – a more militant, separatist faction would emerge – at its core was equality. Equal rights, equal pay, equal opportunity. As an insight into the culture of the period, music was a male-dominated and male-centric microcosm.... > Read more