Music at Elsewhere

Grant Hart: Hot Wax (Fuse/Southbound)

18 Jan 2010 | 1 min read | 1

Because of the sporadic and sometimes wayward nature of his career after the break-up of Husker Du in '87, it was always going to be hard to predict what this album under their former drummer/singer Hart's own name would come off like. It isn't easy in the sense that it doesn't gives its gifts up readily, and its slightly scattergun nature (it opens with rock blast, next up is a quirky... > Read more

Grant Hart: Khalid

J Tillman: Year in the Kingdom (Shock)

18 Jan 2010 | <1 min read

Possessing the same kind of intimate, engrossing voice of Nick Drake and with an equal interest in hushed, dreamlike ballads where death, and the transitory nature of life and love are themes, Josh Tillman offers his sixth album where the songs are barely fleshed out but the sinew and strength are immediately apparent. With discreet dulcimer, piano and string arrangements around the... > Read more

J Tillman: Age of Man

Wheedle's Groove, Kearney Barton (Light in the Attic)

18 Jan 2010 | 1 min read

Seattle’s claims to musical fame run from 60’s garage bands (the Sonics) through Hendrix, grunge and more recently Modest Mouse -- but it also once boasted a strong (if largely overlooked) soul-funk scene. Here some of its senior citizens -- most players are in their 60s -- get tight (and loose) on some fatback sounds which are sometimes urban (Everything Good is Bad, Baddest)... > Read more

Wheedle's Groove: Jesus Christ Pose

Blakroc: Blakroc (Blakroc)

11 Jan 2010 | 1 min read | 1

While nu-metal spawned some horrible offspring in terms of rap/rock collaborations or assimilations of one into the other, there has always been more in common between the two genres than many would concede. If nothing else, some of that bad nu-metal at least prepared the mind for this collection where the one-time blues-rock duo Black Keys (Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney) get... > Read more

Blakroc: What You Do To Me (with Nicole Wray)

Hyacinth House: Black Crows' Country (Phantom)

11 Jan 2010 | <1 min read | 2

Very belated acknowledgement of an album that was recorded in 2007, came out Stateside in 2008 (to little fanfare) but to the best of my knowledge only appeared in New Zealand in late 2009. This dark, edgy country-rock (and beyond) band with a revolving door membership -- who perhaps take their name from the Doors song of the same title? -- deliver a convincing line of tense uptempo but... > Read more

Hyacinth House: Whiskey Nights

Helen Henderson: Twisting Wind (Ranui)

11 Jan 2010 | <1 min read

Tough and often earthy blues rock/alt.country from a New Zealand-born LA raised singer-songwriter who here calls up some big names (guitarist Doug Pettibone, Spooner Oldham on keyboards) whose credentials (Dylan, Ronstadt, Neil Young, Lucinda Williams) adds lustre to what is a fine collection of self-produced, mostly original co-writes (with guitarist Matt Downs). When Henderson unleashes... > Read more

Helen Henderson: Stateless

Michael Hurley: Ida Con Snock (Gnomonsong)

5 Jan 2010 | 1 min read

Michael Hurley's laidback style which bridges traditional and alt.country hasn't gone overlooked by his musical peers although their audiences seem a little slower to catch on: he has toured with Lucinda Williams, Bill Callahan, the Palace Brothers (aka Bonnie Prince Billy) and others, and he counts Cat Power and Vetiver among those who have covered his songs. Perhaps it is because he falls... > Read more

Michael Hurley: I Can't Help Myself

Frank Turner: Poetry of the Deed (Epitaph)

4 Jan 2010 | 1 min read

One part youthful Billy Bragg and another of very early Springsteen (the Asbury Park period) and a Pogues-styled energy propels this manic, politicised, wordy outing by this English post-punk folk poet who does a terrific line in taking down myths: "There's no such things as rock stars there's just people who play music, and some of them are just like us and some of them are dicks. So... > Read more

Frank Turner: Live Fast Die Old

Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed: Me and Jerry, Me and Chet (Raven/EMI)

4 Jan 2010 | <1 min read

Doubtless one for guitarists (of the country pickin' persuasion too perhaps), this two-fer pulls the '70 and '72 Grammy-grabbing duet albums by Atkins and Reed onto one disc and adds eight bonus tracks. There is a small band (which includes pianist Floyd Cramer) on the Me and Chet album. With Chet on the right and Jerry on the left you can discern their stylistic differences (Reed rocks,... > Read more

Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed: I Saw the Light

Dave Rawlings Machine: A Friend of a Friend (Acony)

4 Jan 2010 | <1 min read

The quiet and often largely invisible power beside Gillian Welch, guitarist/singer-songwriter Rawlings here comes into the spotlight with a collection of folk-country and alt.folk-rock songs which would mostly not fit Welch's canon but here have an understated charm of their own. They still possess some of that old time quality which has been a hallmark of his work with Welch but here (with... > Read more

Dave Rawlings Machine: Bells of Harlem

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Bob Dylan: Together Through Life (Sony)

17 Dec 2009 | 2 min read

Bob Dylan doesn't exactly make easy listening music, but Together Through Life finds him in a musically mellow mood and although darkness lurks in the lyrics (guns, death, danger, songs of love and loss) there is something relaxed and almost settled about most of these 10 songs. Where its superb predecessor Modern Times (his first number one Billboard album since Desire 30 years... > Read more

Bob Dylan: I Feel A Change Comin' On

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 The Puddle: The Shakespeare Monkey (Fishrider/Yellow Eye)

17 Dec 2009 | 2 min read | 1

Dunedin's The Puddle should have been bigger (and perhaps better) than they were during New Zealand's vibrant indie-rock scene in the Eighties and early Nineties. But they were sometimes "indisposed" during the heyday of their famous label Flying Nun -- although they still managed to release a couple of interesting and almost excellent albums (and probably a single or two, who... > Read more

The Puddle: One Romantic Gesture

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Wild Bill Ricketts: John Dryden (Ricketts)

17 Dec 2009 | <1 min read

Certainly not what you might expect: an outlaw reading the poems or plays of Dryden. The Ricketts here is the percussion player (and songwriter) in the wonderful Phoenix Foundation (Dryden was an ancestor apparently) and here he coaxes various members of Trinity Roots, Opensouls, Fat Freddys and the Black Seeds to assist on an album of gently Pacific-flavoured songs which are gorgeously... > Read more

Wild Bill Ricketts: New J

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Bill Callahan: Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle (UK Spin)

17 Dec 2009 | 1 min read | 2

At a time when yet another Neil Young album and a truly dire Stevie Nicks live outing command major media attention, it could be slightly depressing that this one by the great Bill Callahan will probably go straight past most reviewers, and his potential audience. Often appearing under the name Smog, Callahan has always appealed to people attuned to Bonnie Prince Billy, the Handsome Family... > Read more

Bill Callahan: The Wind and the Dove

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 The Beatles Remasters (EMI)

17 Dec 2009 | <1 min read

Much as it is possible to love every crackle and piece of surface noise on the original vinyl albums which some still have or have inherited, the remastering brought out an energy and vitality in the Beatles catalogue which was undeniable. The music (and the Beatles Rock Band game) was much essayed at Elsewhere on release (I heard the recordings in Abbey Road back in June) but the truth is... > Read more

The Beatles: Happiness is a Warm Gun (from "The White Album", mono version)

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Sonic Youth: The Eternal (Matador)

17 Dec 2009 | 2 min read | 1

Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth recently noted that they were the Grateful Dead or Rolling Stones of their generation. He meant it seemed they had been around a very, very long time and were still out there doing it. And they are. This is, depending on how you are counting, at least their 16th studio album (which sort of puts them around their Some Girls/Emotional Rescue period?) but rather... > Read more

Sonic Youth: Massage the History

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Wilco; Wilco (the album): (Warners)

17 Dec 2009 | 2 min read | 3

While no one would suggest that Wilco's Jeff Tweedy is on happy pills -- the glum Country Disappeared and Bull Black Nova here would deny that -- he is clearly a very different man than he was around the time of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The chunky rockist opener on this seventh studio album -- yes, it is called "Wilco (the album)" -- is Wilco (the song) and asks the listener "do... > Read more

Wilco: You Never Know

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Leonard Cohen: Live in London (DVD, Sony)

17 Dec 2009 | 1 min read | 1

Those who saw Cohen's New Zealand concerts earlier this year -- and even those whose wallets couldn't stand the cruel gouging -- will find much to enjoy in this, almost exactly the same show, here filmed live in London's O2 Arena last July. Musically this was an interesting concert (again, what you see here is almost identical, jokes and all, to what he did everywhere on that tour) and his... > Read more

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 St Vincent:Actor (4AD)

17 Dec 2009 | 1 min read

Not having heard the (apparently) much acclaimed debut Marry Me by St Vincent (aka Annie Clark out of Texas) means coming to her particular talents with fairly high expectations -- and she doesn't disappoint. This is a sonic circus with her gentle and melodic voice as the centrepiece, but it is the crashing arrangements for strings, voices and distorted guitars around it which command... > Read more

St Vincent: The Strangers

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Bonnie Prince Billy: Beware (Spin)