Music at Elsewhere
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Ben Vaughn: Designs in Music (Vampisoul/Southbound)
30 Aug 2010 | <1 min read
It's not like Ben Vaughn needs a calling card into the world of television soundtracks, his music has apparently been used in That 70s Show and Third Rock From the Sun. But this delightfully referential album -- recorded with the cream of LA session players who are in on the game -- includes nods to everyone from Ennio Morricone to whoever wrote the theme to The Jetsons, Henry Mancini and... > Read more
Ben Vaughn: While We're Here
Leonard Cohen: The Essential Leonard Cohen (Sony)
29 Aug 2010 | 2 min read
The British rock writer Nigel Williamson, considering the career of Leonard Cohen, recently observed, “We often describe singer-songwriters as being 'Dylanesque', a band with great harmonies you might describe as 'Beatlesque'. We even talk about someone being 'Waitsean', after Tom Waits. “But have you ever heard the word 'Cohenesque'? It doesn't exist, and that says it... > Read more
Leonard Cohen: Alexandra Leaving
Dylan LeBlanc: Paupers Field (Rough Trade)
29 Aug 2010 | 1 min read
From the understated openers with their gentle backbeat, soft organ and steel guitar, LeBlanc -- barely 21, out of Louisiana -- announces himself as part of a long lineage which stretches back to the country-soul out of Muscle Shoals studio (where his dad was a session musician) and the country-rock of the early Band, but which also reaches to more contemporary names such as Jim James (of... > Read more
Dylan LeBlanc: Changing of the Seasons
Queens of the Stone Age: Rated R, Deluxe Edition (Universal)
23 Aug 2010 | 1 min read
This, the second album by QOTSA and their first on a major label, was their breakthrough exactly a deacde ago and had critics digging in their superlatives bag. Oddly enough though, it wasn't because it was ground-breaking and innovative but rather it was (mostly) simply no nonsense, no flaffing about hard rock which was grounded in the great tradition of Zepp/Sabbath but with a dollop Meat... > Read more
Feel Good Hit of the Summer
Tom Jones: Praise and Blame (Island)
23 Aug 2010 | 1 min read
The late-career revival isn't uncommon these days (Bob Dylan, Bettye LaVette, Solomon Burke, Johnny Cash et al) but it still comes as a surprise, especially in the case of 70-year old Tom Jones who could have coasted into retirement with albums of interesting standards (in the manner of Rod Stewart) or even just pick up a few contemporary songs which suited his soul-belter style. But, as the... > Read more
Tom Jones: Lord Help
Melissa Etheridge: Fearless Love (Island)
23 Aug 2010 | 1 min read | 1
From the opening title track here – a windblown open-road rocker and statement of ferocious independence – Etheridge confirms her credentials as someone who performs open-heart surgery on the emotions while backing it up with powerful songs. As with Springsteen, she also drops into characters (the unfulfilled housewife in The Wanting of You, the lonely inner life of a... > Read more
Melissa Etheridge:Miss California
Juliagrace: Beautiful Survivor (Parachute)
23 Aug 2010 | 1 min read | 3
One problem with being identified as a "Christian artist" -- as so many have discovered -- is that there is a resistance to them outside that market, and because of that many simply give up and stay with the audience which has and will support them. The other problem is that it means many outside of Christian circles are denied hearing some exceptional singers and songwriters --... > Read more
Juliagrace: Diamond
Various Artists: The Great New Zealand Songbook Vol 2 (Thom/Universal)
23 Aug 2010 | 1 min read
The previous volume in this series (see here) sold eight times platinum which proved two things: that well packaged and intelligently compiled collections of New Zealand are popular and in short supply, and that a lot of Kiwis living abroad probably got one for a birthday/Christmas. If that set -- 42 tracks over two discs -- came up a little short in the wave of Pacific artists of the past... > Read more
The Veils: Lavinia
Simon Lynge: The Future (Lo-Max)
22 Aug 2010 | 1 min read
Singer-songwriter Lynge's story may be more interesting than his lowkey acoustic folk-pop: born in Denmark, childhood in Greenland (where his father is the local Bob Dylan apparently), back to Denmark, then to Los Angeles and Nashville, debut album Beautiful Way to Drown recorded in LA in Copenhagen in 2005 . . . Hard to top that in life experience for a 24-year old Inuit-Scandinavian... > Read more
Simon Lynge: Infinitely You
Hawklords: 25 Years On (Esoteric/Southbound)
22 Aug 2010 | 1 min read
This will be reasonably brief because there is perhaps a limited audience for this double CD reissue of the '78 album and EP by an off-shoot of the sci-fi prog-rock band Hawkwind. Inspired by the science fiction of Michael Moorcock, Hawkwind's Dave Brock and Robert Calvert created Hawklords after Hawkwind briefly fell apart (they are still a going concern in some form or other). And --... > Read more
Hawklords: Flying Doctor
Various Artists: The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle (EMI)
22 Aug 2010 | 1 min read
Although very different, Brian Eno and Malcolm McLaren had one trait in common: after the event both would attribute philosophical and/or political meaning to something they had done. In the case of the late McLaren, the prime mover behind the Sex Pistols -- Johnny Rotten/John Lydon denies he was ever their "manager" -- would have had us believe that the Pistols/punk/anarchy of... > Read more
Johnny Rotten: Stepping Stone
The Erica Miller Experience: Reconsidered (Universal)
17 Aug 2010 | 1 min read | 1
Obviously there is a curiosity factor at work here: 63-year old Erica Miller is the woman Shayne Carter (Straitjacket Fits/Dimmer) calls "Mum" and so the album comes with acquired cachet in some circles. That it is also an album of covers of songs first recorded by Elvis and arrives on the anniversary of Presley's death adds another dimension of interest. The question is... > Read more
Erica Miller Experience: Don't
Bill Kirchen: Word to the Wise (Proper/Southbound)
16 Aug 2010 | <1 min read
It really doesn't matter if you don't already know of guitarist/singer Kirchen, judge him by the friends he keeps. Here are his longtime friend Nick Lowe (on the wonderfully overhauled Merle Haggard number Shelly's Winter Love, with Paul Carrack); Elvis Costello on Kirchen's outstanding Man in The Bottom of the Well; Commander Cody playing piano on the funny I Don't Work That Cheap (Bill... > Read more
Bil Kirchen: Time Will Tell the Story
Brendan Perry: Ark (Cooking Vinyl)
16 Aug 2010 | <1 min read
As half of Dead Can Dance (alongside Lisa Gerrard), Perry was responsible for impressive sonic landscapes which owed a little to a kind of geographically amorphous "world music" and also to cinema soundtracks. Here, more than a decade after his previous solo outing, he embarks on gloomy sounding, authoratively-delivered meditations and thoughts over his swathe of synths which have... > Read more
Brendan Perry: Utopia
Peter Wolf Crier: Inter-Be (Jagjaguwar)
15 Aug 2010 | <1 min read
Peter Wolf Crier are an electro-acoustic duo out of Minneapolis (not to be confused with this guy) and this is their modest debut album. I say modest because while they utilise all the lo-tech vehicles at their command (loops, filters) they aren't intent on breaking free as a duo like the White Stripes or Black Keys. Their hearts are closer to the melodic school of M. Ward/early Beck and... > Read more
Peter Wolf Crier: Lion
Dan Sultan: Get Out While You Can (Arts Victoria/Southbound)
15 Aug 2010 | <1 min read
Sultan from Melbourne -- father Irish, mother Aboriginal -- is a hard one to put in any box: tracks here are reflective but mainstream country rock, others more alt.country, then he delivers some rural balladry and a broken-down acoustic folk ballad. Then things rock out. This also opens with a terrific slice of Sixties soulful pop balladry on Goddess Love and Dingo rides a Johnny Cash... > Read more
Dan Sultan: Crazy
Department of Eagles: Archive 2003 - 2006 (Bella Union)
15 Aug 2010 | <1 min read
Department of Eagles became the vehicle for Daniel Rossen and Fred Nicolaus to get their staccato sonic'n'sample experiments and increasingly dreamy pop into the wider world from their university dorm in New York. Initially they were called Whitey on the Moon, then Dept of Eagles . . . and later Rossen became the mainman in the already extant Grizzly Bear. The Eagles still... > Read more
Department of Eagles: Golden Apples
Butcher Holler: A Tribute to Loretta Lynn (Signature)
14 Aug 2010 | <1 min read
As well-intentioned as this is -- a tribute to the country legend Loretta Lynn from a group lead by the excellent Eilen Jewel -- Lynn herself brought self-confident earthiness to her delivery of assertive songs like Fist City, Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' With Lovin' on Your Mind and You Ain't Woman Enough to Take My Man which somewhat eludes Jewel's pleasant and smoother delivery here.... > Read more
Butcher Holler: Whispering Sea
Cyndi Lauper: Memphis Blues (Inertia)
9 Aug 2010 | <1 min read
Even those of us who would still mount the argument that Cyndi Lauper was -- and remains -- a far greater talent than her peer, Madonna, might approach this album with some trepidation: just as Dusty and Elvis went to Memphis to record some of their finest songs, so now has Cyndi -- but a rather different, more bluesy Memphis than that which drew the sophisticated Ms Springfield. But with a... > Read more
Cyndi Lauper: Shattered Dreams (with Allen Toussaint)
Tom Kerstens' G Plus Ensemble: Utopia (Real World/Southbound)
9 Aug 2010 | <1 min read
Although nominally a contemporary classical album -- English acoustic guitarist Kerstens and a string quartet -- this delightful, deep, meditative and probing album should find wide favour beyond the recital hall. Kerstens has commissioned from outside the classical world for this debut of his G Plus ensemble (which includes The Tippett Quartet) and among the composers are New Zealander... > Read more