Music at Elsewhere

Gin: Extended Play (Island/Universal)

2 Jun 2008 | <1 min read | 1

The other night we were flicking across the music channels and did that rare thing, paused for more than five seconds because there was a remarkable voice about which I said, "Wow, I'd like to hear more from that one". "That one" -- as it turned out two days later when a copy of this EP was pressed into my hand -- was this young singer originally from New Zealand but now... > Read more

Gin: Under My Skin

The Nothing: A Warm Gun (Amaj001/Rhythmethod)

2 Jun 2008 | 1 min read | 1

Lately on my Kiwi FM programme I have been playing quite a lot from Chris Knox's albums and thoroughly enjoying rediscovering them. (Like Mike Leigh movies and city buses you often didn't feel the need to catch them because another would be along soon enough). Knox has been prolific and always offers good value -- his last one Chris Knox and the Nothing ran the full 70 minutes available.... > Read more

The Nothing: Empty

The National: A Skin, A Night/The Virginia EP (Beggars Banquet)

1 Jun 2008 | <1 min read | 1

Don't be put off by the under-selling title here, this is much more than an EP (which I consider to be what, four, maybe five songs?) This "EP" is a 12 track collection which features this group of New Yorkers on some new material, some rather smart demo tracks and three live songs (including a fine, scraped-cello version of Springsteen's Mansion on the Hill). And there's more:... > Read more

The National: Blank Slate

Iva Lamkum: Iva Lamkum (Base/Rhythmethod)

25 May 2008 | <1 min read | 1

The first thought that may occur to you on hearing this classy EP by 22-year old Wellington singer-songwriter Lamkum is just when a major international label will scoop her up. I'm picking sooner rather than later. With a mature and sophisticated meltdown of soul, jazz phrasing, funk and slippery reggae, Lamkum places herself right on the faultlines of suave and hip . . . and writes... > Read more

Iva Lamkum: Water - Part I

T Bone Burnett: Tooth of Crime (Nonesuch)

25 May 2008 | 1 min read

Burnett might not be a household name but you can bet his name is in the small print in many households: among other albums he has produced are Los Lobos' How Will the Wolf Survive?, a couple for Elvis Costello in the mid-late 80s, two for Gillian Welch (Revival, Hell Among the Yearlings), various soundtracks and incidental music (Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, Down From the Mountain), the recent... > Read more

T Bone Burnett: The Rat Age

Carlene Carter: Stronger (YepRoc/Southbound)

25 May 2008 | <1 min read

It's hardly surprising that on her first album in more than a dozen years there are songs about loss: in 2003 she buried her mother June Carter, her stepfather Johnny Cash, her partner Howie Epstein (of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers) and her sister Rosie. That said, this album seems to also want to live up to its title and on material like Why Be Blue and I'm So Cool she shakes the bar walls,... > Read more

Carlene Carter: Why Be Blue

Sonny Landreth: From the Reach (Shock)

25 May 2008 | 1 min read

Having once stood in torrential rain and mud up to my boot-tops at a New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival to watch guitarist Sonny Landreth, I have always felt a strange loyalty to him. I have faithfully reviewed his many albums but always came to the same conclusion. Gifted though he obviously is -- and conceding his career performing with the likes of John Hiatt, Bonnie Raitt, Buddy Guy... > Read more

Sonny Landreth: The Milky Way Home

Steve Abel and the Chrysalids: Flax Happy (Monkey/Rhythmethod)

24 May 2008 | <1 min read | 1

Among the many unaddressed issues about the effectiveness of New Zealand Music Month is that of so many albums being released: they cancel each other out and some just won't get the attention they deserve. I sincerly hope that out of the mountain released -- around 50 albums in, or in time for, NZMM, which is just self-defeating -- that this languid, melancholy and lowkey outing doesn't... > Read more

Steve Abel and the Chrysalids: Cinders of the Sun (with Jolie Holland)

Various: Monkey Magic Vol II (Monkey)

21 May 2008 | <1 min read

I doubt Auckland's Monkey Records has a motto, but I'm prepared to suggest one: "When you are smaller you have to be smarter." And although this label may be small it certainly is smart -- as this excellent CD/DVD compilation package proves. The label boasts many fine artists who have been posted at Elsewhere in the recent past (Karen Hunter, Tim Guy, An Emerald City, Ishta,... > Read more

The Mamaku Project: Cirque Part II

Beach House: Devotion (Arch Hill)

18 May 2008 | 1 min read

Anyone who was dropped into New Zealand music in the 80s and 90s would have thought that (for the most part) they had arrived in some grim North England industrial town: black moods, anger, negativity and cynicism -- and the shoe-gazing bands dressed to match. There was a lot of sullen music around and I guess young musicians thought that by being cynical they were also dark and interesting.... > Read more

Beach House: You Came To Me

Mudcrutch: Mudcrutch (Reprise)

17 May 2008 | 1 min read

Here's an odd and unexpected one. Anyone who has seen Peter Bogdanovich's recent Runnin' Down a Dream DVD doco about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (in Absolute Elsewhere, use the tag below) should be very interested in this belated debut album by Petty's pre-Heartbreakers band. Mudcrutch were Tom's band in Gainesville, Florida in the mid 70s and there was interesting footage in that... > Read more

Mudcrutch: Crystal River

Elvis Costello and the Imposters: Momofuku (Lost Highway)

17 May 2008 | 1 min read

Elvis Costello has been at it so long now -- his debut was more than three decades ago (see Absolute Elsewhere) -- he's reached that McCartney/Clapton platform where he could do his best work in years, and few would be listening. Costello's most recent albums have been loosely in the classical and jazz genres, and an album of New Orleans-influenced music with Allen Toussaint. His last... > Read more

Elvis Costello and the Imposters: Drum and Bone

Amy Winehouse: Frank Deluxe (Island)

3 May 2008 | <1 min read

Her life might the equivalent of a pub brawl (indeed sometimes it is, literally), but then again some seminal singers didn't always live a quiet life in the suburbs. What Winehouse's court appearances and fragile state have meant however is that there are holding actions on the part of her record company until she gets back on the rails. Hence the Back to Black reissue of her second... > Read more

Amy Winehouse: What It Is (original demo)

Various artists: Dreamboats and Petticoats (EMI)

1 May 2008 | <1 min read

It's not hard to pull together a market-pleasing collection of early rock'n'roll hits (Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and so on). This Kiwi-compiled selection manages that but goes further across two discs and pulls in a democratic cross-section which includes some of the radio novelties of the period (Sheb Wooley with The Purple People Eater,... > Read more

Brenda Lee: Sweet Nothin's

Sera Cahoone: Only As The Day is Long (SubPop/Rhythmethod)

29 Apr 2008 | <1 min read

This Seattle-based songer-songwriter has a tenuous connection with a former Elsewhere favourite, the group Band of Horses for whom she used to drum. Putting aside the kit she shifted to guitar, wrote a self-titled album of country songs (never heard it myself) and now offers this, an album that haunts some kind of country territory but one with more noir than alt, more backwoods than grand... > Read more

Sera Cahoone: Runnin' Your Way

Eddie Bo: In the Pocket With Eddie Bo (Vampi through Southbound)

28 Apr 2008 | <1 min read

The reissue label Vampi appeared on Elsewhere previously with the Mary "Queenie" Lyons and Quinteplus albums from the cusp of the 70s -- and this r'n'b soul-funk singer from New Orleans comes from the same kind of obscurity to those outside an inner circle. According to the extensive liner notes on this 28 track collection of Bo tracks and those often equally obscure artists he... > Read more

Eddie Bo: Check Your Bucket

The Last Shadow Puppets: The Age of Understatement (Domino)

26 Apr 2008 | <1 min read

References in UK reviews to Scott Walker with regard to this album tweaked my interest -- more so when you look at who is behind it: Alex Turner from Actic Monkeys and Miles Kane of the UK indie-rockers Rascals, two least likely Walker aficionados I couldn't imagine. And yet . . . No there is no Amsterdam here, not even The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore (although they write a song... > Read more

The Last Shadow Puppets: Time Has Come Again

Colin Meloy: Sings Live! (Rough Trade)

26 Apr 2008 | 1 min read

Something about a couple of these solo songs sounded oddly familiar and I suspect I may have seen this Portland-based singer-songwriter and mainman in the Decemberists at a songwriter night in the famous White Eagle Hotel in his hometome. Or maybe it's just that these memorable, lyrically dense and chorus-fuelled songs were recorded live on a solo tour in 2006 and so have an immediacy and... > Read more

Colin Meloy: Devil's Elbow

The Black Keys: Attack & Release (Shock)

21 Apr 2008 | 1 min read | 1

I maintain I was right about this Ohio drum-'n'guitar duo: that their first albums showed more promise than being as great as they were hailed. And that when I saw them I was struck by how the hip, young crowd acclaimed them yet wouldn't cross the street to see someone as unfashionable as, say, George Thorogood who could wipe the floor with their "blues". But that was then and they... > Read more

The Black Keys: Things Ain't Like They Used To Be

Wayne Mason and the Fallen Angels: Sense Got Out (Ode)

20 Apr 2008 | 1 min read

Singer-songwriter Wayne Mason may be best (and in some circles only) known as the guy who wrote the Kiwi classic Nature for the Fourmyula (later covered by the Mutton Birds). But that was almost four decades ago and he has spent the intervening period crafting equally excellent material for the Warratahs (until '94), and now delivers them on a trickle of solo albums of which this is only the... > Read more