Favourite Five Recently Reviewed CDs
Five of the best albums from the recent postings at New Music From Elsewhere. Music too good to let slide into the archives. The Elsewhere place if you are looking for a quick fix of great and interesting albums.
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Richard Thompson: 13 Rivers (Proper/Southbound)
15 Sep 2018 | 1 min read | 1
Longtime fans and loyalists – count Elsewhere among them – have long admitted defeat with Richard Thompson OBE: no matter how good the albums are by this extraordinary British guitarist and songwriter, and many are exceptional, his fan base never seems to expand. So despite us here reviewing his albums and conducting interviews we assume that the same small cabal of aficionados... > Read more
The Dog in You
The Chills: Snow Bound (Fire/Southbound)
14 Sep 2018 | 2 min read
In a typically forthcoming interview with Elsewhere recently, Martin Phillipps – mainman of the Chills – observed that their last album Silver Bullets of 2015 (19 years on from the previous studio album Sunburnt) was in small part a clearing house of songs he'd been sitting on. So he could understand why some said it was just him tidying up scraps . . . but, he asserted, this new... > Read more
Complex
Princess Chelsea: The Loneliest Girl (Lil' Chief)
7 Sep 2018 | 1 min read
Behind many fairytales there lurks a sense of unease, and so it is with the music of Princess Chelsea (aka Chelsea Nikkel), the Auckland singer-songwriter who has created an interesting persona for herself which she effectively plays with, but frequently delivers music which seems to possess all the magic of dreamy fairytale. But, as we know with fairytales . . . The Pretty Ones here... > Read more
The Beths: Future Me Hates Me (Carpark)
7 Aug 2018 | 1 min read
Let's be very clear here: This local four-piece doesn't reinvent the wheel. But Elsewhere is of the unshakable opinion that bristling power-pop doesn't require any kind of overhaul, just that it be done loudly and with enthusiasm. So when the Beths -- who play the soon-come Others Way Festival in Auckland, see below -- hit a midpoint between Nirvana, the pure pop of the Courtneys and/or... > Read more
You Wouldn't Like Me
Lee Konitz and Dan Tepfer: Decade (usual digital outlets)
2 Aug 2018 | 1 min read
At 90, the great saxophonist Lee Konitz – among very few of his generation still standing – has played in almost as many styles of jazz (free to formal) as he has been on record labels (from Enja to Blue Note and ECM). And of course has played alongside many of his illustrious peers like Miles Davis, Lennie Tristano, Chick Corea, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Enrico Rava, Alan... > Read more