Music at Elsewhere

Chris Hurn: Too Busy Dreamin' (Monkey)

1 Apr 2011 | 1 min read

While owing a clear debt to Paul Simon, the young Dylan, early Donovan and others in the acoustic singer-songwriter category, this young guy from Lower Hutt just north of Wellington, New Zealand brings a pop sensibility to his writing (the openers here Watch Got and Only One I Need hook you immediately) and often a deliberately light touch (whistles, handclaps). Maybe that is in part due to... > Read more

Chris Hurn: Day of My Escape

Willie Nelson, Wynton Marsalis and Norah Jones: Here We Go Again (Blue Note)

29 Mar 2011 | 1 min read

This cross-generational/cross-genre superstar triumvirate isn't as unusual as it appears on paper: There are two or fewer degrees of separation between the protagonists. Jones has toured and performed with Nelson (here); Willie and Waylon got together for their less-than-thrilling Two Men with the Blues project (CD/DVD); and Jones began life in Wynton's hometown of jazz. Given all that... > Read more

Willie, Wynton and Norah: I Love You So Much It Hurts

Sean Rowe: Magic (Anti)

28 Mar 2011 | 1 min read

Because of the nature of his burred baritone -- and these profound and emotionally deep songs -- it would be wrong to say this debut by New York singer-songwriter Rowe is "exciting". That might give the impression of pulse-racing music . . . and this isn't like that at all. Quite the opposite, it can be heart-stopping. But it is genuinely exciting to hear such a mature,... > Read more

Sean Rowe: Wet

Will Crummer: Shoebox Lovesongs (Ode)

28 Mar 2011 | 1 min read | 1

Perhaps because my father-in-law was a member of the short-lived and largely anonymous Sixties band the Samoan Surfriders (one album, a gem, no names on the cover) or maybe because I came to New Zealand from the chillier climes of Scotland, I have always felt a great affection for music of the Pacific. Probably not helped by my dad being in a danceband in New Zealand -- Roy Reid's... > Read more

Will Crummer: Naringa Koe

Who Slapped John: She Had Picasso's Child (UrbanHeadMusic)

28 Mar 2011 | 1 min read

On a late-night (for him) phone call from the UK, Allan Evans -- who is Who Slapped John -- says although he hasn't lived in New Zealand for decades he still feels himself a Kiwi. Which is unusual for someone who was born in Liverpool, emigrated to New Zealand with his parents in the early Sixties, played in bands at high school and around Auckland (among them the Snipes which played at... > Read more

Who Slapped John: In Your Shadow

The Blind Boys of Alabama: Retrospective (Stem/Southbound)

27 Mar 2011 | <1 min read | 1

With this long-running gospel-cum-doo wop group due in New Zealand for a concert in April with Aaron Neville and Mavis Staples, this triple disc originally released in 2007 gets a timely re-release. The Blind Boys have been around in name since 1939 and recording since the late Forties -- a couple of their founders only died in the past decade -- and they extended their repertoire from... > Read more

The Blind Boys of Alabama: He's Got What I Want

The Thomas Oliver Band: Baby, I'll Play (Rhythmethod)

23 Mar 2011 | 1 min read | 1

As with his fellow Wellingtonian Darren Watson, Thomas Oliver is a finalist in the blues category of the International Song Writing Competition to be judged in April 2011. The song is Goin' Home - which kicks off this rootsy, bluesy and alt.country-tinged album -- and the video of it released a year ago was named among the top 30 internationally at the Rushes Soho Shorts in London, and it... > Read more

The Thomas Oliver Band: Bad Talkin' Man

The Low Anthem: Smart Flesh (Nonesuch)

21 Mar 2011 | 1 min read | 2

Sin and death and guilt; archaisms like "apothecary", "Gatling gun" and "player piano"; harmonica, pump organ, violin, saw and cello; whiskey and gin; recorded in a freezing cold room in winter . . . all the right elements would seem to be in place for more rustic music grounded in an older America from educated urbanites. Smart Flesh is another mood piece of... > Read more

The Low Anthem: Golden Cattle

Asian Dub Foundation: A History of Now (Cooking Vinyl)

21 Mar 2011 | 1 min read | 1

Nobody would thank you for being so politically incorrect as to observe that much of this is just a politicised Asian-British version of nu-metal: lots of raging against the machine; rock guitars colliding with white-knuckle rap (with tabla); plenty of socio-political sloganeering (the title track which yells "you can't download me" and "living the history of now", which... > Read more

Asian Dub Foundation: In Another Life

The Strokes: Angles (Sony)

21 Mar 2011 | 2 min read | 1

When the Stokes out of New York invaded the airwaves and pop glossies a decade ago they came with an advance guard of salivating journalists and those who heard them as leading a ragged garageband revival by conjuring up the late Sixties/Seventies spirit of the Big Apple by referencing the Velvet Underground and dirty arse art-rock. The Strokes were, put another way, necessary for American... > Read more

The Strokes: Machu Picchu

Matt Langley: Featherbones (Hometown)

18 Mar 2011 | 1 min read

Langley's rootsy folk-cum-alt.country EP Lost Companions of 2007 – recorded in Wellington – announced a mature lyricist and a singer with a delivery like the best Americana artists (James McMurtry particularly) with a little Dylanesque drawl. It went past most, and this debut album is doing the same with few mainstream media reviews, despite it including 7.13 for which he won... > Read more

Matt Langley: Love and Money

Papercuts: Fading Parade (Sub Pop)

18 Mar 2011 | <1 min read

Although San Francisco's Jason Robert Quever – who is for most purposes Papercuts – opens this fourth album with the drilling indie.pop of Do You Really Wanna Know and the dreamy Do What You Will, which puts them in the lineage running from the power pop of Shoes in the late Seventies through the shoegaze dreamscapes of Neil Halstead's Slowdive and to his more... > Read more

Papercuts: The Messenger

Imelda May: Mayhem (Universal)

16 Mar 2011 | 1 min read

Irish singer Imelda May Higham started her profesional life singing folk, rock'n'roll and rockabilly but has made her way towards saucy, raunchy old-time jazz while losing none of her original passions. Which is why on the recent Jeff Beck tribute to Les Paul she could weigh in with everything from rockabilly to haunting torch singing, so much so that you could have been mistaken for... > Read more

Imelda May: Sneaky Freak

Marianne Dissard: L'abandon (Dissard/Rhythmethod)

14 Mar 2011 | <1 min read

Although her impressive debut album L'entredeux took her to small audience (she sings in French) this Tucson-based singer and film-maker is rather more edgy on this outing which might win her an even bigger following. Dissard -- interviewed here and more recently answering our Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire here -- lets some of the Americana influences of the previous album take... > Read more

Marianne Dissard: Un gros chat/A Big Cat

R.E.M.: Collapse Into Now (Warners)

14 Mar 2011 | 1 min read | 1

Thirty years into a career and with this, their 15th studio album, it seems a bit rich for REM bassist Mike Mills to say this one is somehow different with really beautiful slow songs, some nice mid-tempo ones and three or four rockers. That pretty much describes every REM album in the past two decades, and for this one -- despite them talking it up, and Michael Stipe's lyrics even more... > Read more

R.E.M.: Oh My Heart

Teddy Thompson: Bella (Verve)

11 Mar 2011 | 1 min read | 1

This 35-year old son of famed British folk-rockers Richard and Linda follows his own path. He took his powerful, sensitive voice to excellent originals on his second album Separate Ways in 05, followed it up with an album of country covers Upfront and Down Low (which boasted the stunning sole original in Down Low) then unveiled the exceptional album of mature pop and alt.country A Piece... > Read more

Teddy Thompson: Delilah

Various Artists: Late Night Tales; Midlake (LateNightTales/Southbound)

11 Mar 2011 | <1 min read

The Late Night Tales mix-tape series continues with this especially interesting and quite lovely collection put together by Midlake who had a Best of Elsewhere 2010 album with The Courage of Others (and were instrumental in John Grant's Queen of Denmark, also a winner that year). The chief feature here -- aside from the coherence of the acoustic and post-folk theme -- is how it will... > Read more

Bob Carpenter: Silent Passage

Beady Eye: Different Gear Still Speeding (Liberator)

10 Mar 2011 | 1 min read

In one of life's great ironies it was, of all people, Ringo Starr who enjoyed the greatest chart success with a string of chart singles in the wake of the Beatles break-up. And who would have reckoned on Dave Grohl's subsequent career after Nirvana. So perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that Liam Gallagher is the first Oasis brother out of the gates since the band split, or that this should... > Read more

Beady Eye: For Anyone

Left Lane Cruiser: Junkyard Speed Ball (Alive/Southbound)

9 Mar 2011 | 1 min read

Judge a band by its cover? Sure, why not? Here the raucous blues-rock duo of guitarist Freddy J IV and drummer Brenn "Sauasage Paw" Beck out of Indiana are almost horizontal in a bathroom sharing a bottle of Jameson whisky on the inner sleeve of the cover, and the album features tracks with the titles Lost My Mind, 24HR, Weed Vodka, Cracker Barrel, Pig Farm, Road Again and At The... > Read more

Left Lane Cruiser: 24HR

The Baseball Project: High and Inside Vol. 2 (YepRoc/Southbound)

8 Mar 2011 | <1 min read

A power pop supergroup of sorts -- Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate, Gutterball), Scott McCaughey (Fresh Young Fellows, REM), Peter Buck (REM) and Linda Pitmon (Golden Smog) -- here continue their passion for baseball after their similarly conceived debut project Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails. You probably don't need to know too much about the sport to appreciate sentiments like Fair Weather Fans... > Read more