Music at Elsewhere

Buddy Holly and the Crickets: The Very Best of (Universal)

2 Mar 2009 | <1 min read | 2

There's not a lot needs be said about this 50 song, double disc compilation that hasn't been said elsewhere at Elsewhere about Buddy Holly's particular songwriting gifts: he crafted stories and characters, was an interesting and inventive arranger, adopted different voices . . . The first disc here is where most of the classic material lies but because the lesser known songs are stacked on... > Read more

Buddy Holly: Learning the Game

Marianne Faithfull: Easy Come Easy Go (Naive)

1 Mar 2009 | 1 min read

The cracked and distinctive vocals of Faithfull have, as with Leonard Cohen, a devoted following -- and this double album which sounds typically whisky'n'smoke-cured is perhaps for longtime loyalists. Helmed by producer and musical conceptualist Hal Willner (who did, among other fascinating albums, the Charles Mingus tribute Weird Nightmare), this all-star collision includes among its vast... > Read more

Marianne Faithfull: Black Coffee

Ruthie Foster: The Truth According to Ruthie Foster (Shock)

22 Feb 2009 | 1 min read

This impressive soul-blues singer makes a guest appearance on the new Eric Bibb album Get On Board -- and Bibb contributes two tracks to this diverse collection of material which roams confidently from the Seventies-styled Stevie Wonder-ish opener (Stone Love) through more gritty guitar-driven material and some slippery soul-reggae not too far removed from the wonderful but largely overlooked... > Read more

Ruthie Foster: Tears of Pain

Belle and Sebastian: The BBC Sessions (Shock)

22 Feb 2009 | 1 min read

People like me -- about four decades past flatting, social anxiety, worries about sexual orientation, and so on -- are probably not the target audience for this light, fey but beguiling Scottish pop band who have previously appeared at Elsewhere with their delightful album The Life Pursuit. But these people deliver such a charming line in post-Bacharach, McCartney-like, Ray... > Read more

Belle and Sebastian: The Stars of Track and Field

Various: Beyond Bollywood (SDJ)

22 Feb 2009 | <1 min read

The title here might suggest a compilation album that is taking you past the standard Bollywood soundtrack music, but it is actually misleading: it simply sweeps up another very common style, that of "the contemporary sound of India-electronica and lounge". Exotic chill out in other words. So far so familiar. But what sets this apart a little from many other such... > Read more

Shreya Ghoshal: O Saathi Re

BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet: Alligator Purse (YepRoc)

22 Feb 2009 | <1 min read

Cajun music from Louisiana is perhaps an acquired taste: it's more about feel than finish, dancing and drinking than deliberating and thinking, and of course it has fiddles and accordions. The latter two might be the most off-putting aspect for some. But this album by these long-running Cajun revivalists has so much going for it that it could hurdle the barriers: guests include Natalie... > Read more

BeauSoleil: Rouler et Tourner (Rollin' and Tumblin')

Starsailor:All the Plans (Virgin)

15 Feb 2009 | 1 min read

When this English four-piece emerged in 2000 the world was very different: it was the post-Oasis/post-Verve period (they had conspicuously failed to fulfill the promise) and the British rock press was scanning for new heroes. It found the likes of Travis, Coldplay and, albeit briefly, Starsailor. There was also the informal New Acoustic Movement of the Doves, Turin Brakes and Ed Harcourt... > Read more

Starsailor: Boy in Waiting

Trygve Seim and Frode Haltli: Yeraz (ECM/Ode)

15 Feb 2009 | <1 min read | 1

One for those with refined tastes, I suspect: tenor and soprano saxophonist Seim in a duo outing with accordion player Haltli which traverses a lot of territory (the title track is an Armenian folk song, they cover Bob Marley's Redemption Song and music by Gurdjieff, they acknowledge Tom Waits in Waits for Waltz) but much of which seems overly familiar from the now vast ECM... > Read more

Seim, Haltli: Duduki

Various: Princes Amongst Men (Asphalt Tango/Southbound)

15 Feb 2009 | <1 min read

Subtitled "the soundtrack to the book" this album should be essential for Elsewhere readers who know of Garth Cartwright's exceptional music-cum-travel book of the same name which has been reviewed here at Writing in Elsewhere. In the liner notes here Cartwright says this is how his journey among the Roma people sounded -- and it sounds vibrant, vigorous, breathless, bluesy,... > Read more

Fanfare Ciocarlia and Dan Armeanca: Kan Marau La

The Derek Trucks Band: Already Free (Sony)

15 Feb 2009 | 1 min read

Considered by Rolling Stone to be one the top 100 guitarists, this child prodigy on slide guitar started sitting in with the Allman Brothers when he was nine, became a full member a decade later and between times had formed his own band (most of which he still carries) and sat in with Dylan. Since then he's toured with Clapton at his invitation and been a regular with the Allmans, but as the... > Read more

The Derek Trucks Band: I Know

Paddy Burgin and the Wooden Box Band: My Sweet Town (PB)

15 Feb 2009 | 1 min read | 1

Internationally successful guitar maker by day and guitarist by night, Wellington's Paddy Burgin last year got this very classy package which comes with a beautifully presented booklet of lyrics and a tie-in DVD by film-maker Costa Botes, the man behind the excellent film of the Windy City Strugglers, the up-close and personal footage of Nigel Gavin in his A Job with the Circus... > Read more

Paddy Burgin and Wooden Box Band: The Big Parade

Patti Smith, Dream of Life DVD (Arthouse/Madman)

15 Feb 2009 | 2 min read

Few, if any, musicians have been as self-mythologising as Patti Smith, she has written her story with capitals: New Jersey, Piss Factory, New York, Mapplethorpe, William Burroughs, Keith Richards, Bob Dylan, Rimbaud, The Chelsea Hotel, CBGBs, Horses, Fred “Sonic” Smith, Detroit . . . Yet Smith’s recorded reputation rests on very little. Certainly her astonishing debut... > Read more

Patti Smith: Going Under (from the album Dream of Life 1988

Clap Clap Riot: TV Knows Better (CCRiot)

14 Feb 2009 | <1 min read

In a recent blog at www.publicaddress.net I wrote about my day at the Big Day Out and in passing mentioned this local band: I said they didn't do it for me at all. In retrospect that seems surprising given I banged on about how much I really liked the pop acts on the day -- and CCRiot are certainly a pop band: they have the verse-chorus thing down pat, hooks that grip like a gaff and short... > Read more

Clap Clap Riot: Hospital Show

John Martyn (1948-2009)

9 Feb 2009 | 1 min read | 4

The death of this remarkably gifted British singer-songwriter in late January has gone largely unreported, but here we pay tribute to his exceptional talent. Martyn was originally associated with the British folk scene in the mid-Sixties but his ambition and interests could not be contained there. Within a few years he had plugged in and was exploring innovative sonic effects, bringing an... > Read more

John Martyn: Baby Please Come Home (from Grace and Danger, 1980)

Hacienda: Loud is the Night (Alive)

9 Feb 2009 | 1 min read

About two decades ago when magazines like Rolling Stone or rock weeklies such as Melody Maker were compiling their "best albums of all time" lists the Beatles' Sgt Pepper's and the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds would invariably be juggling for the top spot. As time went on the baroque-pop of Sgt Pepper's of '67 was replaced by the pre-psychedelic Revolver of '66 (still a critical... > Read more

Hacienda: Hear Me Crying

Various: Dark was the Night (4AD)

9 Feb 2009 | <1 min read | 2

This excellent, diverse but coherent double-disc in the Red Hot series commemorates 20 years since the first Red Hot album and is another in the on-going project to raise funds for HIV and Aids awareness. Overseen by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National, this collection naturally has a kind of alt.rock/alt.folk slant to it as they first hauled in friends and then those in their wider... > Read more

Grizzly Bear: Deep Blue Sea

The Lafayette Afro-Rock Band: Darkest Light, The Best of (Strut)

9 Feb 2009 | <1 min read

As I understand it (and I've never heard of these guys before) this band was a loose affiliation of ex-pat US musicians who got together in France in the Seventies and delivered such primo funky soul-rock that they have been heavily sampled by the likes of Public Enemy, De La Soul and Jay-Z. They wrote their own stuff but also covered period classics such as Manu Dibango's Soul Makossa . . .... > Read more

The LaFayette Afro-Rock Band: Hihache

Van Morrison: Astral Weeks, Live at the Hollywood Bowl (EMI)

9 Feb 2009 | 1 min read | 3

After years -- nay, decades -- of his indifferent albums it was real pleasure to post Van Morrison's excellent, understated Keep It Simple last year and then later pick it as one of the Best of Elsewhere 2008. When added to the non-chronological and slightly erratic re-issue programme, Van the Man seemed to be making something of a comeback to the frontline, albeit on the back of his earlier... > Read more

Van Morrison: Cypress Avenue/You Came Walking Down

Andrew Bird: Noble Beast (Fat Possum)

8 Feb 2009 | <1 min read | 1

Multi-instrumentalist and musical chameleon Bird has been an impossible character to pin down: in a good way. As mentioned at the time his Armchair Apocrypha -- which was one of the Best of Elsewhere 2007 albums -- he navigated his way from a bent, back-alley jazz with hints of Tom Waits and searing violin, to a kind of alt.rock/country-noir territory and these days has more in common with... > Read more

Andrew Bird: Not a Robot, but a Ghost

The Fireman: Electric Arguments (Shock)

8 Feb 2009 | 3 min read | 1

Paul McCartney -- who is half of The Fireman with producer/remixer Youth -- has always adopted a curious but probably sensible dichotomy when it comes to music outside of his pop-rock releases. The full title of his classical album of 1993 was Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio, and his small classical composition (played by pianist Anya Alexeyev) released two years later was Paul... > Read more