Further Outwhere

Alan Brown: Composure (alanbrown.co.nz)

12 Feb 2018 | <1 min read

This very welcome release is another installment from improvised ambient sessions recorded on a Steinway by pianist Brown in the concert chamber of the Auckland Town Hall in August 2014. The first pieces released from that day appeared as Silent Observer in 2015 and at the time Elsewhere had very positive things to say, among them that we'd like to hear more from those hours of... > Read more

Composure

Alan Brown: Silent Observer (alanbrown.co.nz)

1 May 2015 | 2 min read

Despite what many amateurs in the New Age world may think -- and Brian Eno's Bloom app allows you to pretend you can do it -- creating respectable ambient music isn't quite as easy as it sounds. We default to Eno again because he has some form in this area and he said this genre was about creating music which should be as ignorable as it was enjoyable. In other words it could be aural... > Read more

Unanswered Question

ROTOR PLUS INTERVIEWED (2014): The slow music movement

10 Feb 2014 | 7 min read

One of the most interesting albums/projects Elsewhere heard last year came from a New Zealand artist who goes under the name Rotor Plus (variously rotor plus, rotor +). With the release of the album Dust, he completed a trilogy of CDs which were as seductive as they were mysterious. The music was understated and sometimes barely there, surface noise and found sounds were part of the... > Read more

Middle: The Drape of the Curtain

ROTOR+ CONSIDERED (2013): A beautiful journey into the black

12 Aug 2013 | 5 min read

For many decades Avis, the international rental car outfit, had slogans which were variations on its position as number two in the market. Among them was “When you're only No 2, you try harder”. To advertise its ethic the company promoted itself with “We try harder” buttons . . . and it worked. People like it when others make an effort on their behalf. ... > Read more

End: A Boundary and An Edge

Dave Lisik and Richard Nunns: Ancient Astronaut Theory (Rattle)

3 Oct 2011 | 1 min read

Recently it was my great privilege to be asked to write some liner notes for this album on the estimable Rattle label. It is a very special album as you may hear. So rather than relitigate those ideas why don't I simply reproduce the notes here and you can make what you will of it? This is what I wrote . . . We live in a world post-everything. Many paintings are post-Modern;... > Read more

Wondjina

BRIAN ENO AND THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE: Obscure but not oblique

3 Jan 2011 | 2 min read | 2

By happy chance recently I pulled out a vinyl album which has changed my listening habits for these past weeks. It was released 30 years ago but has always struck me as timeless: it is Brian Eno’s Music For Films and the austere, pale brown cardboard cover is mottled with age. At any opportunity since I have gravitated to my cherished vinyl collection of Cluster, Harold Budd, Laraaji... > Read more

Friend: Inaccuracies and Omissions (Flying Nun)

12 Aug 2003 | 1 min read

"Musique concrete" has generally had a bad rap. The problem lies in the "musique" part of the equation. Being constructed from found sounds or by mixing up sounds into some other form, musique concrete doesn't conform to a definition of "music" as most understand it. Put it this way: you can't whistle it. So it's a courageous, inspired or art... > Read more

Friend: First Easy Piece

From Scratch: Global Hockets (Scratch)

5 Dec 2000 | 1 min read

From their origins on PVC pipes and Jandals, through the incorporation of voices and here with the German electronic group Supreme Particles, From Scratch's explorations of rigorous and mathematically determined rhythm patterns has always been worth following. And the computer-percussion interface here offers them a richness of sound they explore fully within the technically narrow... > Read more

From Scratch: Global Hockets, Part Two (of a 10 part continuous performance)

JOHN COUSINS INTERVIEWED (1989): Taking time to explore time

23 Feb 2000 | 3 min read

We see time contracted so often in our lives -- soap operas telescoping weeks into minutes, sports events distiiled down to highlight packages -- that it is sometimes hard to accept the longer natural rhythms of days and tides. But exploring time, especially in relation to the natural landscape, is the province of Christchurch artist John Cousins, a senior lecturer in music at the... > Read more