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King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard: Phantom Island (digital outlets)
19 Jun 2025 | <1 min read
On their 27th album since 2012, Melbourne's psychedelic jam-band flatly refuse to be categorised easily with this beefy, orchestrated collision of horn-driven rock'n'soul (Deadstick), rocking left-field folk with flute and strings (Lonely Cosmos) and something like a heavily medicated ELO pulled towards funky space-rock (Eternal Return). There's a fair bit of cosmic prog-rock here too on... > Read more
Deadstick
19-Twenty: Call It What You Want (digital outlets)
19 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
This Australian blues-soul band have played at an alphabet of festivals (more than 70!) across their homeland and for two years running were the people's choice winners at the Bridgetown Blues Festival in Western Australia. The three-piece – Kane Dennelly (vocals/guitar), Jeremy Berg (drums), and John Gwilliam (double bass) – can be a take-no-prisoners band and their 2019 album... > Read more
Havin' a Good Time
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Mary Chapin Carpenter: Personal History (Thirty Tigers/digital outlets)
17 Jun 2025 | 2 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes with full credits, lyrics and is "pressed on D2 Ultra Premium vinyl for superior audio quality". We'll confirm that. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . At 67 Mary Chapin Carpenter has long since moved beyond categories... > Read more
New Religion
Van Morrison: Remembering Now (digital outlets)
16 Jun 2025 | 2 min read | 1
It's likely that the vast majority of people who were there for Van Morrison in his first couple of decades have long since parted company: too many album, quite a number a bit indifferent then in recent times his unpopular political statements about Covid mandates, government oppression . . . At least he had new targets because his constant complains about record companies (which dated... > Read more
Memories and Visions
Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts: Talkin to the Trees (digital outlets)
16 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
So it turns out the answer to the question, “Is there enough Neil Young in the world or exactly the right amount?” is “Not enough”. With Talkin to the Trees, his 48th studio album, Young adds to the pile of previously unreleased live albums, box sets and track-shuffling reissues. Young is heading towards his 80s as one of the most prolific recording artists of... > Read more
Let's Roll Again
Broad Oak: Broad Oak (digital outlets)
16 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
Berlin-based expat Nigel Braddock -- who founded Monkey Records -- wasn't in a rush to get out this debut album as Broad Oak: it has been 23 years since he first started recording for it. So no surprise then to hear it as a compendium of ideas and guest artists (from bands he recorded) which spans the decades. However it is bound together by a couple of overriding approaches: a... > Read more
You Can Make It
Robert Forster: Strawberries (digital outlets)
16 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
Brisbane on Australia's sunny central east coast has hardly been a hotbed of musical creativity although it did give us the protopunk band the Saints lead by the late, whippet-smart Chris Bailey, the rock band Powderfinger, the alt.pop of the Veronicas and the mainstream Savage Garden. Of course there have been others but the city's great musical export were the Go-Betweens which had a rare... > Read more
Such a Shame
Pulp: More (digital outlets)
16 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
Sometimes you can feel you are living in a previous time. It happened a couple of years back when the Beatles' new single Now and Then was released and Bob Dylan was back with the Shadow Kingdom album. That same year, 2023, Iggy Pop, Uriah Heep, Genesis, the Zombies, Jethro Tull and others whose time seemed long ago also had albums out. And of course so did Willie Nelson and Neil Young... > Read more
Farmers Market
Sneaky Pete Kleinow: You Are Here (1973)
16 Jun 2025 | <1 min read
Although Sean Lennon talked up John Lennon's Mind Games album when releasing the 2024 expanded box set with numerous mixes and such, it was – in its original form – a somewhat disappointing album with a few real nuggets and some filler. But among the many discs in the reissue was an album called Elemental Mixes which were just certain parts of the songs isolated. Among them... > Read more
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RATSO (2025): Loud, fast, here and gone
13 Jun 2025 | 2 min read
Auckland band Ratso weren't here for a long time, but they were here for a good time. Like a Space-X rocket they were loud, fast and explosive. And then they did explode. It was all over bar the memories of small gigs in confined space where garageband rock is at its best. We reviewed an Auckland gig and bought their limited edition vinyl live album which was very expensive but we... > Read more
Live for Nothing
THE ART OF NOISE (2025): Grecco Romank's subversive sound and visuals
11 Jun 2025 | 2 min read
You have to admire not just the ambition, but the vision of Auckland underground band Grecco Romank: their new album of edgy techno-rock Arts Colony is just one aspect of the culture they are trying to expand, explore and critique. They put it this way: “We're trying to tap into this vein of slop-culture that's being created in the world, that we're inundated with on social media.... > Read more
Bootlicker
GRAHAM BRAZIER, LEFT TURN AT MIDNITE, DISCOVERED (2017): Long gone for good
10 Jun 2025 | 3 min read
To be honest, I didn't know of the existence of this album by the legendary Graham Brazier until I ran into producer Alan Jansson at the 2025 music awards. Jansson is perhaps best known for producing OMC's classic How Bizarre, the Proud collection (including the hit In the Neighbourhood for Sisters Underground) and Nathan Haines' breakout album Shift Left. Of the latter he said “I... > Read more
Round the Bend
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . BABS GONZALES: The Boswell of Be-Bop
9 Jun 2025 | 3 min read | 1
The first things we need to know about Babs Gonzales is his name wasn't Babs Gonzales. Nor was it Ricardo Gonzales or Ram Singh, names he also adopted. And that he was man, although when called up for military service he arrived at the office dressed as a woman. This Corporal Klinger cross-dressing ploy worked and he was declared unfit for service. So who was the man we'll call Babs... > Read more
The Bebop Story
BILLY CHILDISH: ARCHIVE FROM 1959, CONSIDERED (2009): His rowdy and rough wayward ways . . .
9 Jun 2025 | 4 min read | 3
While it's feasible to live a happy and productive life never having heard a note of Britain's Billy Childish (b. Steven Hamper, 1954), the question is, “Why would you?” Perhaps the most off-putting reason would be, “But where would I start?" And that's fair enough because Childish has released – under his own name and that of his many bands –... > Read more
Evil Thing
Diane Hildebrand: You Wonder Why You're Lonely (1969)
9 Jun 2025 | 1 min read | 1
Record Store Days can make a major gouge in my bank account, but even so there were always some accidental bargains in my bag. While waiting in the queue at Southbound Records a few years ago with some pricey gems I found myself by their discount bin and so, idly flicking through the selections, I . . . Yes, the album by Diane Hildebrand made itself known to me for a number of reasons:... > Read more
Jenny Mitchell: Forest House (digital outlets)
9 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
As we noted recently when writing about the rise of certain genres, in that instance dream pop-cum-shoegaze, “Anyone who steps back and observes the changing tides of popular music would have seen the success of country music coming a little while ago. “And the reasons were simple: country music tells stories, has some stock imagery and metaphors, familiar melodic patterns and... > Read more
Little Less Lonely
I MUST GO DOWN TO THE SEA AGAIN . . . “we are strangers in your silent world, to live on the land, we must learn from the sea”
8 Jun 2025 | 4 min read
I grew up with the sea. My dad was a radio operator in the British Merchant Navy in World War II and had a passion for the ocean. He gravitated to the sea at any opportunity; we sailed back and forth between Britain and New Zealand on the Rangitiki and my dad was friends with dozens of people from “the Rangi boats” in the New Zealand Shipping Company (Rangitiki, Rangitane and... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Fly My Pretties: Elemental (Loop/digital outlets)
8 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes with full credits, photos and background notes about the concept on the inner sleeve. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . There are some highly successful business models in New Zealand music, among them the Phoenix Foundation, Six60 and... > Read more
See Me Flying
Marc Ribot: Map of a Blue City
6 Jun 2025 | <1 min read
As a session guitarist (Waits, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Costello, John Zorn, Jeff Bridges and others), Marc Ribot brings an evocative angularity. But left to his own devices he can be challenging, playing with jazz musicians and left-field avant-types like himself. His 2023 Connection album with Ceramic Dog was close to Hüsker Dü and Sonic Youth. This new album had its origins... > Read more
For Celia
Various Artists: Archipelago; Cosmic Fusion Gems from France 1978 – 1988 (Isle of Jura, digital outlets)
6 Jun 2025 | <1 min read
Something elsewhere for you . . . Isle of Jura is a label out of Adelaide, Australia run by Kevin Griffiths who performs as Jura Soundsystem. The label digs through crates and bins for rare gems to reissue and compile, and has the Temples of Jura imprint for new original work by a roster of artists. This compilation is what it says on the box: dreamy, dubby and often atmospheric... > Read more