Music at Elsewhere
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Ravenhall: Brother (digital outlets)
17 Feb 2024 | <1 min read
The folk-rock duo of Joe Ravenhall and Chris Brebner appeared at Elsewhere previously with their Live at Breb's Bar last year. Impressive songwriters, expressive singers – we'd put them in the Don Walker/Jimmy Barnes axis but Bob Seger also comes to mind on the more assertive material – and storytellers, Ravenhall deserve more attention from mainstream radio than maybe they will... > Read more
The River
Idles: Tangk (digital outlets)
17 Feb 2024 | 1 min read
If the British five-piece Idles haven't previously crashed onto your pathway you might need a little warning: singer-writer Joe Talbot has been a troubled man so sings a troubled song. Sometimes he has roared them out as he has grappled with addiction, being a carer for his stroke-affected mother, living through Brexit and all the pressures of the 21st century which roll like a scroll of... > Read more
Grace
Future Islands: People Who Aren't There Anymore (digital outlets)
17 Feb 2024 | <1 min read
On this, their seventh album, Future Islands' frontman/writer Samuel T. Herring – also an actor – delivers every emotion as if it's on the surface of his skin as he immerses himself (and his audience) in the emotional fallout of a recent break-up. “I am waiting, I’m not breaking I lie, tell myself, 'it’s okay', when it's not quite” on The Tower;... > Read more
The Smile: Wall of Eyes (digital outlets)
12 Feb 2024 | 2 min read
Some bands are the vehicle for the songwriter: the Kinks, Jam, Pretenders, the Chills, Verlaines, Wilco, the Veils . . . A few are greater than the sum of their parts – Split Enz, Beatles, U2, Blondie, boygenius, Fat Freddy's Drop, Phoenix Foundation . . . The test of that is to see how well the members do as solo artists, like the Stones. Mick Jagger's solo albums always... > Read more
Melati ESP: adaptations (digital outlets)
5 Feb 2024 | <1 min read
Well, you don't come to Elsewhere for Beyonce and J-Lo, do you? So here's something closer to our mandate: a series of remixes of tracks from the Indonesian-born, New York-based electronica experimentalist Melati Malay's debut album of last year, hipernatural. She was part of the Asa Tone trio but her debut album (all in Indonesian) launched her as a solo artist. She's collaborated with... > Read more
Kupu Kupu Electronik (Kasimyn remix)
Sleater-Kinney: Little Rope (digital outlets)
5 Feb 2024 | 2 min read
Sleater-Kinney's album titles have always been interesting: 2019's The Center Won't Hold came from Yeats' The Second Coming and – given the album's background – the “little rope” here may refer to a rope of rescue, the gallows' rope, the rope that binds, constrains and tethers, or the one you might be at the end of? The one given to hang yourself? Since their... > Read more
Don't Feel Right
J Mascis: What Do We Do Now (digital outlets)
4 Feb 2024 | 1 min read
In 2002, J Mascis – of Dinosaur Jr – played an unforgettable solo show at Auckland's Galatos. Looking like “a slacker physics graduate” (our words in the review) he began with his melodic alt.pop and then suddenly hit a foot-pedal to unleash a howling gale of guitar squall in the manner of Neil Young with Crazy Horse. Young has been a key touchstone for Mascis'... > Read more
Set Me Down
Folly Group: Down There! (digital outlets)
4 Feb 2024 | 1 min read
As we noted many years ago when discussing in great detail The Strokes when they emerged -- and being rather cynical in the face of seeming unanimous acclaim -- sometimes we need to be cautious about why we fall for certain artists. As we observed, we suspected it was because the Strokes played right into the familiar for many older rock writers (rock'n'roll attitude, New York,... > Read more
Big Ground
Rosina and the Weavers: Hitching the Starlight Highway (digital outlets)
4 Feb 2024 | 1 min read
Out of Pukekohe, this five-piece might nominally be a rock band but with Rosina's flexible and often soulful vocals they have considerable reach and range beyond the genre, showcased on the slow opening title track. It's a decent enough song, but as an opening statement for a debut album it lacks lapel-grabbing attention on a collection which has more immediately compelling material later,... > Read more
Walking Song
Admiral Drowsy: Industrial Consistency (Melted Ice Cream/digital outlets)
26 Jan 2024 | 2 min read
With this second album following the much recommended The Gutter Boy Speculates of 2021, the project of Admiral Drowsy – Luke Scott with assistance from co-producer, drummer, bassist Ryan Chin – becomes even more clear. And it is rather special in a very unprepossessing way. First let's note that within what we call “rock” there are many artists and genres who... > Read more
Pinnacle
Shed Seven: A Matter of Time (digital outlets)
19 Jan 2024 | 2 min read | 1
It's been almost 30 years since Shed Seven arrived in the mainframe of Britpop with their energetic debut album Change Giver. Although it was their 1996 follow-up A Maximum High which was their most successful and accomplished outing, better capturing the zeitgeist and them as spiritual followers of both widescreen, uplifting Oasis and a powered-up Smiths. As we've mentioned previously,... > Read more
Throwaway ft Pete Doherty
The Afro-Semitic Experience: Our Feet Began to Pray (digital outlets)
19 Jan 2024 | 1 min read
Released to coincide with the birthday of Dr Martin Luther King, January 15, this musical project of unity began in the Nineties when pianist Warren Byrd and bassist David Chevan hooked up to play in each other's bands. And from that the idea of exploring Jewish and African American traditions grew. Hence the Afro-Semitic Experience and a series of albums since which bring together soul,... > Read more
Eretz Zavat Chalav
Sundae Painters, Sundae Painters (digital outlets)
17 Jan 2024 | 2 min read
It's possible that in 2023 we reached peak Flying Nun & Associates. Flying Nun never really went away: witness Roger Shepherd's memoir In Love With These Times and the many young acts citing the Clean, Chills, Bats and so on as influences. But Matthew Goody's excellent Needles and Plastic's detailed look at Nun records from 1981-1989 (the bands, characters and the scene by... > Read more
Serious Eye
Betsy and the Reckless: Salty (digital outlets)
12 Jan 2024 | <1 min read
They may not live up the rock'n'roll/rockabilly suggestion of their name but Taranaki's Betsy Knox and her band do a very appealing line in originals on this debut album which draws on soul, nightclub cabaret, not too much default reggae and a little jazzy swing. Released late last year and therefore lost in that “best of the year” mopping up period, Salty is damn fine calling... > Read more
Ghost
Tales from the Box: Ciel (digital outlets)
8 Jan 2024 | <1 min read
Tales from the Box are cellist Stella Tempreli and accordion player Thanos Stavridis who across 11 tracks on this debut album – with some augmentation from guests on bass, drums, vibes and percussion in places – cover a wide swathe of original music by Stavridis (jaunty pastoral music, a lullaby, bossa nova, a jazzy spin off from My Favourite Things) to Ave Maria at the end.... > Read more
Um Tom Para Jobim
Sprints: Letter to Self (digital outlets)
6 Jan 2024 | 1 min read
This debut album from a hotly tipped Dublin four-piece taps directly into the spirit of intellectual, fist-tight post-punk and – in the delivery and claustrophobic lyrical repetition of Karla Chubb – has something in common with Deborah Iyall of Romeo Void as much as Siouxsie Sioux and more recently Savages. There's high drama here too (the desperation of Heavy with the cries of... > Read more
Heavy
Van Morrison: Accentuate the Positive (digital outlets)
4 Jan 2024 | 1 min read | 1
As we hinted at in the Editor's Picks of best albums of 2023, it was a strange year which saw attention-getting releases by the Beatles (the new single and the Red and Blue collections) and Rolling Stones, not to mention reissues of albums by Golden Harvest, the Proud compilation and many more from past decades. And we didn't even mention Cliff Richard's album Cliff With Strings; My Kinda... > Read more
Lonesome Train
Various Artists/Grayson Gilmour: Holding Patterns, Remixes (Flying Nun/digital outlets)
22 Dec 2023 | 1 min read
Grayson Gilmour's recent album Holding Patterns was – for the most part – very well received Elsewhere but as with many contemporary artists (Unknown Mortal Orchestra's recent V a prime example) there was a tendency to shift ground frequently so promising ideas weren't always sustained or explored more. On Holding Patterns there was also the instrumental title track which we... > Read more
Adam Hattaway and the Haunters: Anthology 2018-2023
17 Dec 2023 | <1 min read
Christchurch's Adam Hattaway and the Haunters have released six albums (one a double) of country rock and country-influenced rock'n'roll shaped into memorable originals. So they have fully earned this 16-song compilation. They explore country-soul, Seventies Rolling Stones, and much more, and over the years we have reviewed a number of their albums and consider their 2021 Woolston,... > Read more
Laut Fragen: Age of Angst (digital outlets)
16 Dec 2023 | 1 min read
Laut Fragen? They made polite contact but about whom we know little except this: they are the electro-postpunk duo of Maren Rahmann (vocals) and Didi Disko (electronics, guitar, voice) from Vienna. We conclude: they are very much in the manner of early Eighties post-punk experimentation with synths and discord/noise; create intelligently short sonic, downbeat punk landscapes (the cinematic... > Read more