Music at Elsewhere
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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
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
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 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 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 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
A HEADS UP: My Pet Dragon
2 May 2010 | <1 min read
Brooklyn-based My Pet Dragon -- a five-piece around singer/guitarist Todd Michaelsen and singer/dancer/percussion player Reena Shah -- haven't appeared previously at Elsewhere although Michaelsen's vocals so impresssed producer Karsh Kale that he and Anoushka Shankar invited him onto their Breathing Under Water album (here). My Pet Dragon's debut album First Born won critical plaudits and... > Read more
My Pet Dragon: Between Us
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
Javelin: We Ah Wi
Greg Trooper: The Williamsburg Affair (52 Shakes)
2 May 2010 | <1 min read | 1
According to his website, country-rocker Trooper recorded these songs with his touring band 15 years ago in a Brooklyn studio in just four days, then he moved back to Nashville and the tapes were left to languish. Now mixed and mastered these 11 songs (10 originals and a strong treatment of Neil Young's Wrecking Ball) appear for the first time and don't sound dated a bit. Well, not in his... > Read more
Greg Trooper: Paradise
Maggie Bell: The Best of Maggie Bell (Angel Air/Southbound CD/DVD)
2 May 2010 | <1 min read
Bell was one of those paint-peeling, bluesy post-Joplin singers of the late Sixties and Seventies whose path crossed that of Long John Baldry, Rod Stewart, Led Zeppelin, Eric Burdon and others with whom she guested. The raw-throated singer also fronted Stone the Crows for four albums, embarked on a solo career, consistently won acclaim in Readers' Polls in NME and Melody Maker, supported... > Read more
Maggie Bell: Danger Money
Various Artists: The Hal David and Burt Bacharach Songbook (EMI)
2 May 2010 | <1 min read
Just a quick notice of this locally compiled double disc set which follows in the Lennon-McCartney and Goffin-King collections in this series. Some great acts here on David's lyrics wrapped in Bacharach's arrangements: the Shirelles with the Beatles' favourite Baby It's You; Cilla Black peeling the paint on Anyone Who Had a Heart; the songwriters' most importnt mouthpiece Dionne Warwick... > Read more
The Shirelles: Baby It's You
Richard Walters: The Animal (Kartel)
26 Apr 2010 | 1 min read | 1
Many singer-songwriters are prepared to essay their fragility in life and love, but few offer the sense they have some deep emotional strength to leaven the mix and lift their songs out of self-pity. This Paris-based Englishman is a rare one. He can push easily into a falsetto but, as with Jeff Buckley (whose style he otherwise doesn't resemble) you know he's going to come back to... > Read more
Richard Walters: True Love Will Find You in the End
Bonnie Prince Billy and The Cairo Gang: The Wonder Show of the World (Palace)
26 Apr 2010 | <1 min read
My guess is that because Bonnie Prince Billy aka Will Oldham aka Palace aka Palace Brothers etc has done so many albums that, like Woody Allen movies and local buses, you can afford to miss one because another will be along soon. This low-key, mostly acoustic outing framed by Neil Young-styled folk and Billy's default position of analytical introspection with a leavening of love songs is... > Read more
Bonnie Prince Billy: The Sounds Are Always Begging
The Soft Pack: The Soft Pack (Pod/Inertia)
26 Apr 2010 | 1 min read
And we thought Shihad had a controversial name post-9/11? This alt.pop four-piece based in Los Angeles – which has toured with the Breeders, Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party -- used to be called The Muslims. The flipside of their first single was Walking With Jesus. So let's give them points in their efforts to get a headline. This, their debut album, however steers a... > Read more
The Soft Pack: Pull Out
Ute Lemper: The Best of Ute Lemper (Decca)
25 Apr 2010 | <1 min read
With this great entertainer returning to New Zealand after her thrilling cabaret-noir/showtunes performance in 2003 it seems not only timely to reprint the lengthy, career encompassing interview with her, but to point to this 21-track easy-intro overview from the late Nineties. Here, divided into easy to assimilate sections, are songs from musicals (Chicago, Cabaret), films (Appetite,... > Read more
Ute Lemper: Surabaya-Johnny
The Apples in Stereo: Travellers in Space and Time (YepRoc/Southbound)
25 Apr 2010 | <1 min read
This will be brief: I never much cared for ELO back in the day and I still don't like them in this guise of Apples in Stereo on this over-long (16 tracks), Vocoder-splattered, ironically Seventies referencing, vaguely conceptual album about human and robots and space travel. Seventies pop for those who either haven't heard it before, or who think this is kitsch-cool. I have and I... > Read more
The Apples in Stereo: Hey Elevator
The Lil' Band o' Gold: The Promised Land (Dust Devil Music)
25 Apr 2010 | <1 min read | 3
"Supergroup" isn't a word you hear bandied about in the self-effacing world of Cajun music/swamp rock/zydeco circles but this outfit fits that description and on this, their second album, they mine that soulful Southern sound which Little Feat, Beausoleil and others have found so profitable and enjoyable. So here are accordion (Steve Riley), pedal steel (Richard Comeaux), saxes... > Read more
Lil' Band o' Gold: I Don't Wanna Know
Various Artists: Good God! Born Again Funk (Numero/Southbound)
25 Apr 2010 | <1 min read
The recent DVD Soundtrack for a Revolution showed how music uplifted the spirits and bonded those in the struggle for civil rights in the US in Sixties. This terrific, funky and soulful collection of contemporary gospel has much the same impact. You don't doubt Ada Richards is filled with spirit of the Lord when she roars "I'm drunk and real high". This is music of faith... > Read more
The Inspirational Gospel Singers: The Same Thing It Took
Farmer Pimp: Sweet Hot Pepper Pop (Family Farm)
22 Apr 2010 | 1 min read | 1
In a recent interview New Zealand singer/songwriter Claire Holmes from Farmer Pimp noted, "Other people worry more about what our genre might be than we do. That's actually why we called the album Sweet Hot Pepper Pop. We decided to make up our own genre". Very smart -- and certainly the odd band name gives no real clue to what they do. So let's just say that this album is a... > Read more
Farmer Pimp: Honey Bee
Various Artists: We Are Only Riders (Shock)
19 Apr 2010 | 1 min read | 1
The recent reissue of Gun Club albums (Miami, Fire of Love and Death Party), Jack White's championing of their frontman Jeffrey Lee Pierce (who died in 1996), and the presence of kindred dark soul Nick Cave here should further draw attention to the profile of Pierce, a man possessed of an angry, urgent yet poetic and often melancholy streak. Pierce's writing is much admired by all the right... > Read more