Music at Elsewhere
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Villagers: Becoming a Jackal (Domino)
24 May 2010 | 1 min read
Engrossing though the clear, strong voice of Conor J O'Brien out of Dublin is -- the chief feature of this quietly gripping album -- it is the insistent, poetic first-person, image-carving narratives which become irritating at times. O'Brien frequently writes songs from that perspective of what I call The Knowledgeable One and he will "show you the backroom where I saw the dead"... > Read more
Villagers: Home
Jack Rose: Two Originals of Red Horse, White Music and Opium Musick (VHF)
23 May 2010 | <1 min read
Quite why this 2004 instrumental album -- actually guitarist Rose's two even earlier albums on a single disc, appparently -- has turned up now is a bit of a mystery, but those with a taste for Anglo-folk blues, Davey Graham, John Fahey, Leo Kottke, Bert Jansch, Doug Cox and others will find a lot to enjoy in this six and 12-string finger-picking. As with Graham and then Jimmy Page, Rose --... > Read more
Jack Rose: Linden Avenue Stomp
Grayson Gilmour: No Constellation (Flying Nun)
19 May 2010 | 1 min read
We shouldn't feel too sorry for the profoundly talented Grayson Gilmour -- but I do sympathise with him at the moment: being the first act signed to the resurrected Flying Nun label means that has become the story and not this quite superb album. I have heard and seen Gilmour interviewed repeatedly and most of the time has been taken up with asking him what he thinks about being on such a... > Read more
Grayson Gilmour: Our Heads Colide
Ocean Colour Scene: Saturday (Keep on Keeping On)
17 May 2010 | 1 min read
Despite being one of the most exciting and interesting bands of the Britpop Nineties -– singer Simon Fowler had a rough and soulful voice, guitarist Steve Cradock a member of Paul Weller's touring band –- this outfit from Birmingham never really took hold in New Zealand. On their home turf they had Weller as a vocal supporter, opened for Oasis and scored five top 10 albums,... > Read more
Ocean Colour Scene: Rockfield
Band of Horses: Infinite Arms (Sony)
16 May 2010 | 1 min read
Where the last and quite terrific Band of Horses album Cease to Begin opened with the strained alt.rock of Is There a Ghost, this new one -- again after some line-up changes around sole founder member Ben Bridwell -- stretches to life with a string-coloured melancholy alt.country ballad Factory. It -- like Is There a Ghost -- is an immediate winner, but of a very different kind. And it... > Read more
Band of Horses: On My Way Back Home
Managers: The Grove St Tapes (Hoi)
16 May 2010 | <1 min read
While it's hardly a tabloid heading -- "Ska band in reggae shock!" -- it is something of a surprise to hear Auckland's long-running and popular live act shift from upbeat ska to downbeat reggae grooves on this four track EP of originals cut from the same cloth as roots reggae of four decades ago. Singer Paul Frewin has a smooth style which suits these chipping, consciousness songs... > Read more
Managers: Jealousy
Polar Bear: Peepers (Leaf/Southbound)
10 May 2010 | 1 min read
This fiery UK jazz quintet helmed by acclaimed young drummer/composer Seb Rochford (interviewed here) has really caught the attention of the British jazz (and elsewhere) imagination: they were nominated for a Mercury Prize a few years ago; Rochford picks up awards; the various members work in other outside (and very interesting) projects; and they bring a 21st century/post-modern ethic to their... > Read more
Polar Bear: Drunken Pharaoh
Lewis McCallum: Syntheology (Finch Studios)
10 May 2010 | 1 min read
To be honest, because of how his previous album Wake went, I was going to review this in the jazz column I have in Real Groove -- but this doesn't conform to even my very, very broad church definition of "jazz". Which, I hasten to add, doesn't demean or diminish it any way -- it is a very sassy, smart and funky album of synths'n'sax, old school references (yep, Seventies Afro-hair... > Read more
Lewis McCallum: Tales of Mingus
Ian King: Panic Grass and Fever Few (Wing and a Prayer)
10 May 2010 | 1 min read
King is in the vanguard of a diferent kind of British folk -- witness that this debut album is co-produced with Adrian Sherwood and Skip (Little Axe) McDonald. So this is folk with a world view and a dub feel -- and sounds all the better for it. King is straight out of that earnest, well-enunciated and slightly stern school of vocal delivery, and his material draws from old recordings (some... > Read more
Ian King: Death and the Lady
How to Kill: Like Angels (Failsafe)
9 May 2010 | <1 min read
If the band name, the album cover, titles like And Death Shall Have Dominion and the black on black postcards within don't give you the clue, then I shall flip all the cards and tell you: this four-piece from Christchurch delve into the dark stuff . . . but not in some kind of death-metal/horror-kitschy way at all. These guys are a wall of sonics instrumental band who have a widescreen... > Read more
How to Kill: Bad Day at Black Rock
Catherine Russell: Inside This Heart of Mine (World Village/Ode)
9 May 2010 | <1 min read
With an excellent ensemble of understated but very classy players, jazz-cum-r'n'b singer Russell takes a sophisticated journey down the byways of ol' New Orleans, finger-snapping Swing Era sounds, cool blues and other related styles on a warmly produced album which includes materiaal by Fats Waller, Harold Arlen, Duke Ellington, early r'n'b star Wynonie Harris, Willie Dixon (Spoonful), Louis... > Read more
Catherine Russell: Troubled Waters
Various Artists: 135 Grand Street New York 1979 (Soul Jazz/Southbound)
9 May 2010 | <1 min read
New York's short-lived No Wave movement was sort of punk with pretention: the untutored would collide with instruments, throw up "art statements" or aggressive political and/or social views, and appealed to an alarmingly small audience of like-minded people. Lydia Lunch is credited with the first using the term to describe bands like Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and Brian Eno... > Read more
Jill Kroesen: Fay Schism Blues
Deadstring Brothers: Sao Paulo (Bloodshot)
9 May 2010 | 1 min read
With the impending 40th anniversary re-issue of the Stones' Exile on Main Street, the time might be right to rediscover rootsy, toxic, blues-driven rock'n'roll which slews sideways out of the speakers fueled by whisky and weed. If that's the case, then this album is neatly timed to anticipate the Stones. On their fourth album this outfit from Detroit offer that strained yelp... > Read more
Deadstring Brothers: Can't Make It Through the Night
Jeremy Mason: Distorted Vision (self released)
9 May 2010 | <1 min read
Expat Mason was bassist in the Kiwi punk band Kill the Fake Patient (2005-07) but clearly the Northern Hemisphere has blown a new wind through him: he's now an acoustic/alt.folk singer living in a one bedroom flat in Glasgow and this self-produced EP of songs written in Wellington and London (available here) is the first flickering of a new direction. An album follows apparently. As a... > Read more
Jeremy Mason: The Labyrinth
Rufus Wainwright: All Days Are Nights; Songs for Lulu (Decca)
9 May 2010 | <1 min read
It's perhaps enough to note that this is Art Music in which Wainwright sings largely chorus-free, sweeping lyrics over the top of grandiose and often grandiloquent solo piano and addresses the death of his mother Kate (his greatest supporter and critics, he says) and dedicates it to his sister Martha, "the bright lady". This is also a song cycle (Lulu is that which lurks within us... > Read more
Rufus Wainwright: Zebulon
The Twitch: Time for Change (Rangi)
8 May 2010 | <1 min read
The album title is slightly misleading: if it is a time for change then acccording to Auckland's Twitch it is back to the future -- back to stabbing post-punk power-pop with a sharp New Wave delivery. Rock'n'roll Mirror could have come from any time in the past three decades: a touch of metal in the guitar chords, a boastful Joan Jett-style lyric, Cheap Trick-cum-punk energy, short and... > Read more
The Twitch: Rock'n'Roll Mirror
The Doves: The Places Between; The Best of the Doves (EMI CD/DVD)
3 May 2010 | 1 min read
This alt.rock English outfit -- here wrapping up their first decade with a double CD and DVD set -- are one of those bands which people feel passionately about (one of my sons) or just let go right on by. They were nominated for the Mercury Award for both of their first two albums (Lost Souls in 2000, the even better The Last Broadcast two years later) and since then they have continued to... > Read more
Blue Water
The Phoenix Foundation: Buffalo (EMI)
3 May 2010 | 1 min read
After their excellent, Best of Elsewhere 2007 album Happy Ending -- and in the interim solo projects and the amusing, enticing and experimental pre-Christmas EP Merry Kriskmass -- expectation is high for this album by one of New Zealand's most interesting and enjoyable acts. More so even than the mostly laidback, slightly-delic Happy Ending, there is a dreamy languor here and... > Read more
The Phoenix Foundation: Bailey's Beach
The Fall: Your Future Our Clutter (Domino)
2 May 2010 | <1 min read
Mark E Smith of Britain's marathon-running post-punk agit-prop outfit The Fall, is nothing if not consistent: He's still annoyed at the world and putting his anger and observations into a brittle, confrontation garage-noise, electro-distorted musical context. His vocals on Bury Parts 1 and 3 here come from the bottom of some sulphur pit in a factory then haul themselves into the... > Read more
The Fall: Bury Pts 1 + 3
Javelin: No Mas (Luaka Bop)
2 May 2010 | 1 min read
After internet chatter last year about how cool, kitschy and carefree this now Brooklyn-based duo of George Langford and Tom Van Buskirk (and friends) were for their loose borrowings from all parts of pop history (cheap Farfisa pop, reductive disco, New Wave bubblegum) on their widely circulated demos (Jamz n Jemz), you hoped they would step up on their debut album and deliver something... > Read more