Favourite Five Recent Releases
Five of the best albums from the recent postings at Elsewhere. Music too good to let slide into the archives. The Elsewhere place if you're looking for a quick fix.
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WILCO, THEN AND NOW (2022): What goes around comes around . . . to country
13 Jun 2022 | 2 min read | 1
The idea that genres in popular music are immutable has long been eroded. Even by the mid-Nineties No Depression magazine – which took its name from an 1990 album by the band Uncle Tupelo – had as its remit to cover “alternative country, whatever that is”. No Depression would occasionally consider mainstream country artists but more often bands like Whiskeytown,... > Read more
Memory Foam: Steel Magnolias (bandcamp)
12 Jun 2022 | <1 min read
Coming out of the gate like a dragster in flames intent on setting a land-speed record, this album by an Auckland five-piece is a collision of flat-tack and driving drumming, metal-edge guitar and Yuko Miyoshi's declamatory, yelping post-punk vocals It will certainly not be to most people's taste. But their confrontation is admirably energised (if somewhat incoherent) and inescapable... > Read more
Horsegirl: Versions of Modern Performance (Matador through Rhythmethod/bandcamp)
4 Jun 2022 | 1 min read
Sometimes you just want to hear an enthusiastic young rock band played loud by those who know their history but play like they just discovered this joyful noise. Meet Horsegirl, three teenage women from Chicago (singer/guitarist Penelope Lowenstein still in high school) which means – to get some perspective here – they weren't even born when the Strokes reinvented sleazy VU/New... > Read more
Homage to Birdnoculars
The Rolling Stones: Live at the El Mocambo 1977 (Polydor/digital outlets)
23 May 2022 | 2 min read
If the current reissue of the Clash's Combat Rock shows how damaging internal tension can be to a band's creativity – it's an indifferent and aimless album by a band pulling itself apart – the Rolling Stones, who'd had punks snapping at their heel and barking in their faces in 1977 ("No Elvis, Beatles, or The Rolling Stones in 1977" shouted the Clash's Joe Strummer) ,... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Te Kaahu: Te Kaahu O Rangi (digital outlets)
9 May 2022 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes in a beautiful and framable cover (as we said in the following review). Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . Amidst the landslide of local albums released in the current New Zealand Music Month, a few immediately stand out, among them this... > Read more