Music at Elsewhere
These pages - sometimes with sample tracks and videos posted - introduce and review music which may otherwise go unheard and unnoticed. Subscribers to Elsewhere (free, here) receive a weekly e-newsletter with updates on what's new at the ever-expanding site. Elsewhere: an equal opportunity enjoyer. So enjoy.
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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
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
Arjuna Oakes: While I'm Distracted (digital outlets)
6 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
Singer/writer/producer Arjuna Oakes – who seems to divide his time between Britain and Aotearoa New Zealand – has appeared a few times at Elsewhere, but always in association with others. He collaborated with his mentor, the classical composer John Psathas, on the It's Already Tomorrow project, played and sang on albums with Serebii, Nathan Haines (on his recent Notes) and... > Read more
Catch Me
Throw: Dreambaby Goodbye (Failsafe/digital outlets)
2 Jun 2025 | 1 min read
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 allows the writer to insert their own narrative. Those stepping back to look at that bigger picture might also have observed... > Read more
Freefall
Voom: Something Good is Happening (Flying Nun/digital outlets)
26 May 2025 | 1 min read
For those outside his immediate orbit, Buzz Moller is something of an enigma. His intermittent project Voom – debut album Now I Am Me arrived in 1998, the follow-up Hello, Are You There? eight years later and given vinyl pressing in 2021 – have enjoyed great affection for their heartfelt, sometimes raw and always melodic alt.pop-rock which roams freely between ragged rock and... > Read more
Crazy Feeling
Ocean Beach: Long Road Home (Freezing Works Records/digital outlets)
23 May 2025 | <1 min read
Although the charts would suggest there's no great demand for them, people still form guitar-driven rock bands. Something in the camaraderie of like minds as much just getting together to make a thrilling noise? Auckland five-piece Ocean Beach -- named for the former freezing works in wind-blown Bluff at the bottom of the South Island -- manage both on this debut album with committed... > Read more
On My Way
Viagra Boys: Viagr Aboys (digital outlets)
19 May 2025 | 1 min read
Set aside the silly band name, because here is a band which is part rocking Beck in slacker-punk mode, part Beastie Boys, part political comedy act and probably a bit more of other things. This Swedish outfit – fronted by US-born singer-writer Sebastian Murphy – are frequently described as dance punk and garage punk. They seem adequate descriptors for a band big on energy,... > Read more
Dirty Boyz
Tune-Yards: Better Dreaming (digital outlets)
19 May 2025 | 1 min read
The classy songwriting and delivery of Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner has been one of the delights and discoveries of the past decade as they weave soul, r'n'b, funk and pop into art-pop. But they also deliver more as on this album which, despite the sheen of the surfaces and the clever music, has something to say about these straitened times. This from the hypnotic and elevated... > Read more
Swarm
Car Seat Headrest: The Scholars (digital outlets)
19 May 2025 | 1 min read
Labels “indie” and “alternative” haven't meant much since one-time indie bands (R.E.M., Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Husker Du) signed to major labels. But they are convenient shorthand. Seattle-based Car Seat Headrest fronted by singer-writer Will Toledo have remained loyally indie and alt.rock, but for this impressive 13th album they embrace one of rock's most demanding... > Read more
Devereaux
Jensen McRae: I Don't Know How But They Found Me! (digital outlets)
19 May 2025 | 1 min read
The jury is always out on an album where the artist uses it as public therapy. Of the few successful ones, the most outstanding for its courage was the John Lennon Plastic Ono Band album of 1970 which was cathartic and uncomfortable. It was uncommon at the time – has any other artist of his stature since been that emotionally naked and brave, musically and lyrically? – but these... > Read more
I Can Change Him
Thom Yorke, Mark Pritchard: Tall Tales (digital outlets)
12 May 2025 | 1 min read | 1
Sometimes it's useful for a critic to make clear their position and preferences, especially when it comes to artists with lengthy and diverse careers. We've mentioned this in regard to Pink Floyd whose work before Dark Side is rated much higher at Elsewhere than all which followed; with U2 it is the two albums before Pop Mart (Achtung Baby and Zooropa) and just a few early singles. Very... > Read more
The Spirit
Greta O'Leary: River Dark (digital outlets)
12 May 2025 | 1 min read
Let's be clear: this debut album by the local “spook-folk” singer-songwriter is not delivered up as an easy proposition. It opens with three dreamy and melancholy songs – Baby I'm a Singer, The Greatest Peace I've Ever Known and Prelude, all previously released as singles – which certainly establish her distinctively high vocal style and the supportive accompaniment... > Read more
Prelude
Neither Do I: We're Not Known For Anything (digital outlets)
12 May 2025 | 1 min read
What's in a name? Quite a lot I would think. No band named something like Big Fat Possum, Up at Sparrow Fart or Drunken Uncle at a Wedding is making a serious pitch for wide attention. A band name can be an identifier of a sound also, or at least give a clue that it's metal and not gentle folk. Which brings us to this album and artist. With an album title deliberately... > Read more
Recollection
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Bon Iver: SABLE, fABLE (digital outlets)
5 May 2025 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes as a double set in a gatefold sleeve with lyrics and credits. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . The landscape of popular music is in constant flux and development with new genres emerging all the time (coldwave, grime, folktronica and... > Read more
From
Julien Baker and Torres: Send a Prayer My Way (digital outlets)
5 May 2025 | 1 min read
Those Th Those understandably lamenting that boygenius have gone into an indefinite hiatus actually have reasons to celebrate, each of the three artists in the group have released solo albums in the past month, starting with Lucy Dacus' excellent Forever is a Feeling. And now the highly regarded Grammy-nominated alt.rock singer-songwriter Julien Baker moves from one acclaimed... > Read more
Tuesday
The 2a.m. Orchestra: The Last (digital outlets)
2 May 2025 | 1 min read
Expat Californian now resident in Auckland, multi-instrumentalist David Kelley has helmed his long-running and serious-minded “orchestra” (here mostly just him) across four previous albums. Kelley has never lacked ambition, in fact we criticised the lyrics of the Impermanence album for being messianic. But that is in the position he has frequently adopted and his voice... > Read more
Dying Star
Adrianne Lenker: Live at Revolution Hall (digital outlets)
28 Apr 2025 | <1 min read
Outside of the band Big Thief, their singer-songwriter Adrianne Lenker runs a parallel solo career which has hit some impressive high-water marks. Notably last year's Grammy-nominated Bright Future (in the folk category) which was also among our best of 2024 picks. (The earlier Big Thief album Dragon Warm New Mountain in our 2022 list.) This enormous collection – two hours, 43... > Read more
Not a Lot, Just Forever (live)
Alisa Xayalith: Slow Crush (digital outlets)
28 Apr 2025 | 1 min read
Now this is interesting and raises the usual interesting questions about just how autobiographical about their love life an artist wants to be. The embarrassment of J-Lo putting it all out there – on album, documentary and some weird extended video movie – about her getting back with Ben Affleck should be an object example to anyone. A few months after that blitz of... > Read more
Romance is Dead
Lucy Dacus: Forever is a Feeling (digital outlets)
28 Apr 2025 | 1 min read
When bands break up it's interesting to observe which members go on to the most success: in 1970 would anyone have put their money on George Harrison over McCartney and Lennon? The Stones never actually broke up but when Mick Jagger released solo albums he realised very quickly that his best pathway to more success lay in mending the rift with Keith and getting the band back together.... > Read more