Music at Elsewhere

Gunter Herbig: Flower of the Sea (Rattle/bandcamp)

24 Jun 2022 | 1 min read

While it doubtless expanded understanding, it wasn't necessary have any prior knowledge of the music of the philosopher Gurdjieff to enjoy the interpretations of his songs by electric guitarist Gunter Herbig on his previous album Ex Oriente. Similarly this new programme of pieces by John Cage, Isaac Albeniz, Carlo Domeniconi, Peter Sculthorpe and Douglas Lilburn. The Cage opener In a... > Read more

Dream (by John Cage)

Shearwater: The Great Awakening (Polyborus/bandcamp)

22 Jun 2022 | 1 min read

For more than a decade we have dipped into the beguiling and extraordinary – if sometimes bewildering and even infuriating – catalogue of Shearwater, the Austin band lead by Jonathan Meiburg (also of Okkervil River). Although one we missed a few years ago – which is a pointer to their Anglo-framed drama – was their cover of Bowie's Lodger album. You can certainly... > Read more

Black Seeds: Love & Fire (blackseeds/bandcamp)

17 Jun 2022 | 1 min read

If Barnaby Weir didn't exist it might be very difficult to create him. The Wellingtonian is a musician, producer, songwriter and guitarist. Okay, that might describe quite a few people. However he has also been a DJ and presented radio programmes, is the mainman behind the long-running Black Seeds (coming close to its 25thanniversary) and has his hand on the tiller of Fly My Pretties... > Read more

Steve Wells: Songs for Summer Rain (digital outlets)

17 Jun 2022 | <1 min read

This artist's name will be familiar if you remember the hugely popular rock band Fur Patrol who had a number one single with Lydia in 2001 and relocated to Melbourne. They started at the bottom over there, but still toured and recorded. Guitarist Wells quit the band in 2004 and went to Paris with his family where he started a successful career as a fashion photographer. But here he is... > Read more

Memory Foam: Steel Magnolias (bandcamp)

12 Jun 2022 | <1 min read

Coming out of the gate like a dragster in flames intent on setting a land-speed record, this album by an Auckland five-piece is a collision of flat-tack and driving drumming, metal-edge guitar and Yuko Miyoshi's declamatory, yelping post-punk vocals It will certainly not be to most people's taste. But their confrontation is admirably energised (if somewhat incoherent) and inescapable... > Read more

Horsegirl: Versions of Modern Performance (Matador through Rhythmethod/bandcamp)

4 Jun 2022 | 1 min read

Sometimes you just want to hear an enthusiastic young rock band played loud by those who know their history but play like they just discovered this joyful noise. Meet Horsegirl, three teenage women from Chicago (singer/guitarist Penelope Lowenstein still in high school) which means – to get some perspective here – they weren't even born when the Strokes reinvented sleazy VU/New... > Read more

Homage to Birdnoculars

Rhombus: After Party (Rhombus/digital outlets)

3 Jun 2022 | <1 min read

Now this is unexpected. The last time we heard from Wellington's dub, drum'n'bass-cum-electronica outfit Rhombus would have been almost 15 years ago. The two CDs I have -- Bass Player (2002) and their self-titled release of 2008 – are on the shelf alongside the likes of Chelsea, Phelps and Munroe, Recloose and others giving that electronic vibe in the early 2000s. But here are... > Read more

Border Patrol

Liam Gallagher: C'mon You Know (Warners/digital outlets)

30 May 2022 | 1 min read

When Oasis split up Noel Gallagher seemed to want be taken more seriously and become credible like Paul Weller as we've previously noted. But brother Liam had a more simple need, he just wanted to be a rock'n'roll star like, well, just like Liam Gallagher actually. After a faltering but reasonably passable start with Beady Eye, Liam hit his straps with his first two solo albums As... > Read more

Mavis Staples and Levon Helm: Carry Me Home (Anti-/digital outlets)

29 May 2022 | <1 min read

There's a slightly bitter irony and sadness in the title of this album: within a year of the great soul singer Staples and drummer Helm getting together in his converted barn for this concert in 2011, he died. With a big band of horns the pair weave their way through timeless and classic soul, gospel and rootsy r'n'b. Here are the still timely Civil Rights-era This is My Country, Trouble... > Read more

Willie Nelson: A Beautiful Time (Columbia/digital outlets)

23 May 2022 | 1 min read

While surprised that Paul McCartney – 80 next month – and septuagenarians Jagger'n'Richards are still touring, it's worth remembering Willie Nelson was writing hits when the Beatles were a bar band in Hamburg and the Stones hadn't formed. Nelson – now 89 – is still on the road despite being unwell and has recorded 14 studio albums in the past decade. McCartney... > Read more

Bonnie Raitt: Just Like That . . . (Redwing/digital outlets)

23 May 2022 | <1 min read

Artists like 72-year old Bonnie Raitt – here on her 18th studio album – set themselves a high threshold. We come to their albums confidently. Raitt's new album opens with Made Up Mind where she extends herself into yearning soul, later we encounter edgy Stones-like riffing on Livin' for the Ones “that didn't make it” prompted by the passing of close... > Read more

Harry Styles: Harry's House (Sony/digital outlets)

23 May 2022 | 1 min read

When the former One Direction singer Harry Styles embarked on his solo career the odds – given the lack of success of so man boy band singers – were stacked largely against hi. Most such soloists from girl groups and boy bands get away a hit single and maybe an album before retiring to the wings or watch the diminishing sales returns for a while before giving up. In some ways,... > Read more

Chelsea Jade: Soft Spot (digital outlets)

16 May 2022 | 2 min read

The hand of fame is fickle: it rests on some artists' heads and they become household names, others it gives a firm shove toward our attention, some get a mere shoulder tap. But most – some as talented as the chosen ones – are passed over, forever working away beyond the spotlight. Lorde was among the elect but so far her friend Chelsea Jade has only been... > Read more

Big Spill

Marc Chesterman and Various Artists: Florian Habicht's Woodenhead/Woodenhead Reimagined (bandcamp)

16 May 2022 | 1 min read

And in keeping with Elsewhere's policy of bringing you elsewhere music, we present this soundtrack to filmmaker Habicht's 20-year old, rather bent fairytale with spoken word narrative, Chesterman's music, Habich's lyrics and guest players including the late Killer Ray, Steve Abel, Warwick Broadhead and Margo Potter. Let it be said that this of course works better if you have seen the film,... > Read more

Hospice for Destitute Lovers, from Woodenhead Reimagined, by Mimi Gilbert

Kurt Vile: (watch my moves): (Verve/digital outlets)

9 May 2022 | 1 min read

For much of this album a reference point is less Kurt Vile's hazy guitar psychedelia but the fact that one of his heroes – with whom he performed – was the late John Prine. And that he name-checkss Neil Young in Goin' On A Plane Today (“Listenin' to Heart of Gold, gonna open up for Neil Young. Man, life can sure be fun”), covers Springsteen's Wages of Sin (which... > Read more

Sin City: Welcome to Sin City (digital outlets)

9 May 2022 | <1 min read | 1

If Orville Peck takes his country music seriously, locals Sin City casually weld classic American stadium rock, finger-snap Mink DeVille (Hold On Little Girl), Jersey Shore rock'n'soul (Turn Out the Light) and more on this debut with telling song titles: Hanging From the Branches Above (a dust-blown hanged-man narrative); Belly of the Beast (rockabilly); Pissin' in the Wind and Bandit of Love... > Read more

Orville Peck: Bronco (Columbia/digital outlets)

9 May 2022 | 1 min read

With a desperate baritone sometimes akin to a young Johnny Cash coupled with Chris Isaak's moulded falsetto -- and his face shrouded in a veil like a concubine in a harem -- the stetson-wearing Orville Peck was always going to attract attention: A masked singer before The Masked Singer. Add melodrama – think Bruce Springsteen's album Western Stars for Kalahari... > Read more

Cowboy Junkies: Songs of the Recollection (Proper Records, digital outlets)

1 May 2022 | <1 min read | 2

When Canada’s Cowboy Junkies broke through with The Trinity Sessions in 1987, they whispered their way to attention as grunge was making its noisy way into ears. The album, recorded quietly in a church, included their cover of Lou Reed’s Sweet Jane and in the decades since they’ve continued to pepper in covers. Prior to The Trinity Sessions, their abrasive... > Read more

Various Artists: We've Got You Covered (Frenzy)

30 Apr 2022 | 2 min read

One result of an increasingly inward-looking society – exacerbated by Covid isolationism – is a belief in national exceptionalism which elevates its own above all others. New Zealand music has fallen for some of that. But not every album ever released is a lost classic or every artist could’ve been a contender. However the reissue of the self-titled Ragnarok... > Read more

Lydia Pense: I'll Forgive You and Forget You

James Heather: Invisible Forces (digital outlets, Ninja Tune)

30 Apr 2022 | 1 min read

Categories in music have become more arbitrary, flexible and even irrelevant over the past few decades. As we've noted, someone like Leonard Cohen was in rock culture but not of it, and artists like Laurie Anderson and Meredith Monk are listened to by the same people who would play Bowie's blackstar, Thom Yorke soundtracks and Lorde. British pianist James Heather might have a background... > Read more