Music at Elsewhere
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Various Artists: Let Me Take You Down . . . Under. Volume 2 (Frenzy)
3 Jun 2024 | 2 min read
Traveling down the Beatle path means you invariably pass some familiar landmarks, so we'll acknowledge first that we previously reviewed Volume 1 of Let Me Take You Down . . . Under, this new edition subtitled “Another Celebration of Kiwi Artists Covering the Songs of the Beatles”. Once again archivist Grant Gillanders has unearthed a couple of dozen Beatle covers by New Zealand... > Read more
Ticket to Ride Part 2, by the Rebels
St Vincent: All Born Screaming (digital outlets)
3 Jun 2024 | 1 min read
Under a title almost designed to confront and in typically striking cover art, Texas-raised Annie Clark (St Vincent) puts yet another stake fiirmly in the ground with this seventh studio album, a decade on from her self-titled fourth album which took her to a huge audience and was critically acclaimed. Although she has a sometimes singular vision she has also been a keen collaborator,... > Read more
Big Time Nothing
Beth Gibbons: Lives Outgrown (digital outlets)
3 Jun 2024 | 1 min read
If the name is unfamiliar you are forgiven because it has been a very long time since she was part of the conversation, and this is her debut album under her own name at 59, some decades on from when her voice was so familiar. Beth Gibbons was the voice of Portishead who defined British trip-hop in the Nineties. Now she steps out under her own name and certainly has something to say as a... > Read more
Lost Changes
Richard Thompson: Ship to Shore (digital outlets)
31 May 2024 | 2 min read
There are any number of very creditable artist like Richard Thompson – and we've mentioned Nick Drake in this regard also – for whom no amount of favourable reviews, well intentioned interviews and profiles will much shift the needle on their audience base. They will always – barring the accident of a hit – command a small but loyal following, somewhere between not... > Read more
The Fear Never Leaves You
Park Rd: The Novel (Loop/digital outlets)
25 May 2024 | 1 min read
This Auckland five-piece have established themselves as live favourites at festivals here and in Australia, and drawn attention to this 13-song debut album by releasing five strong – possibly even their strongest – songs already. Singer Tom Chamberlain has one of those pleading voices which nudges into soulful hurt (Hey Hello, the interesting Asleep:Awake, Tonight I, I Don't... > Read more
Miss French: The Trials and Tribulations of Miss French Pt Two (Spirit of Play/digital outlets)
25 May 2024 | 1 min read
Miss French is Julie Foa'i and the reason for the long gap between her 2016 album The Trials and Tribulations of Miss French Pt 1 and this is perhaps because she's been so busy managing the enterprise that is the acclaimed Te Vaka. Married to that band's mainman/songwriter Opetaia – who produced, arranged and wrote the music for some of the 12 songs – Julie steps well away from... > Read more
Differences Blues
Various Artists: Everybody's Getting Involved; A Tribute to Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense (digital outlets)
24 May 2024 | 1 min read
While Lorde's cover of the Al Green song Take Me to the River (which was in Talking Heads' repertoire) understandably got attention locally – although she shoulder-taps the Heads too much when Al might have offered a more challenging and interesting take – there is so much ordinary and sometimes downright awful stuff on this tribute that you wonder why some of them bothered.... > Read more
Life During Wartime, by DJ Tunez
Leila Adu: Moonstone and Tar Sands (digital outlets)
13 May 2024 | 1 min read
Brought to our attention by New York-based expat musician and designer Andrew B White, this artist is very much Elsewhere. From what we can find she is a British-born expat New Zealander, a Grammy-nominated composer and an assistant music professor at New York University. She got her BMus at Victoria, Wellington and doctorate at Princeton. She has written for the London Sinfonietta,... > Read more
Gold Yod ft PUBLIQuartet
T Bone Burnett: The Other Side (digital outlets)
13 May 2024 | 1 min read
When Elvis Costello played at the now long-demolished His Majesty's Theatre in Auckland in 1985, he strode down the aisle singing Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues which, by the time he got to the stage, morphed into Pump It Up. It was dramatic flourish to start a brilliant show and an acknowledgement of source material. As he did in a duet as the Coward Brothers – Howard and... > Read more
He Came Down
The O'Donnell Brothers: Back in the Day (odbrosmusic)
13 May 2024 | 2 min read
It was 1990 when I met Auckland bassist Greg O'Donnell. He was in Gray Bartlett's band going into Southern China – a year after the Tiananmen Square massacre – for concerts and music workshops. I was the tag-along journalist who was going to write something for the Herald. It was a fascinating 10 days, Gray was generous with the Chinese students, the band and concerts were... > Read more
You Can't Hide
Rupert Angeleyes: Pillow Talk (digital outlets)
12 May 2024 | <1 min read
This Minneapolis-based and much toured artist (he's played in 48 of the US states) is frequently described as “psych and dream pop” which is sort of true in that some of his songs here meander nicely or play off the tropes of dream pop. But there's also something more funky going on in the bass lines (Make Out Lately), shafts of synth-pop scattered throughout (the shapeshifting... > Read more
Matt Joe Gow and Kerryn Fields: I Remember You (digital outlets)
8 May 2024 | 1 min read
Melbourne-based expat country singer-songwriter Matt Joe Gow saw his name suddenly appear in media coverage here recently: he was nominated for best country album at the AMAs in a shortlist alongside Kaylee Bell and the Mitchell Twins. That fine company to be in. Gow is no stranger to acclaim, he has released five solo albums with two of them winning Music Victoria Awards and has a... > Read more
Whirlwind
Pearl Jam: Dark Matter (digital outlets)
8 May 2024 | 2 min read
More than 20 years ago I had one of the more interesting interviews of my career. It was in 2002 in Seattle when I sat down with the members of Pearl Jam, and had a lengthy one-on-one with singer/writer Eddie Vedder who was serious at times and funny at others. The complete transcript of the Vedder interview is here . . . and against the odds Pearl Jam are still here. Think about it.... > Read more
Got to Give
Maliheh Moradi and Ehsan Matoori: Our Sorrows (Arc Music/digital outlets)
6 May 2024 | 1 min read
While the world's attention is rightly on Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon and Israel, the plight of many people in Iran – especially women whose lives are severely restricted – remains. As we are aware, Iranian women have clothing, behavioural and career impositions, and since the revolution in '79 been prohibited from singing solo in public. US-based singer Maliheh... > Read more
Six Doors
The Lemon Twigs: A Dream Is All We Know (digital outlets)
5 May 2024 | 1 min read
When the brothers Michael and Brian D'Addario emerged with their band Lemon Twigs with their album Do Hollywood in 2016 they were, in some circles, given the same kind of enthusiastic reception the Strokes had enjoyed. What critics heard was a terrific tick-list of influences from the Beatles and Beach Boys to British acid pop. We said for the D'Addario brothers, “it is forever... > Read more
My Golden Years
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Fuemana: New Urban Polynesian (Urban Pacifica/digital outlets)
4 May 2024 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this album released for the first time on vinyl but now appears with an insert essay/overview by Martin Pepperrell. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . Deep in our archives there is an interesting interview with Phil Fuemana and Sisters Underground which... > Read more
Beat Rhythm Fashion: Critical Mass (Failsafe/digital outlets)
4 May 2024 | 2 min read
Beat Rhythm Fashion would be very familiar to anyone going to gigs in Wellington around 1980 but for many they were more spoken of than heard, despite some excellent singles. However their story was far from over after they disbanded in 1982 . . . although there was a fairly lengthy hiatus. About 36 years of hiatus in fact, until singer/writer/guitarist Nino Birch and drummer Caroline... > Read more
What We've Become
The Church: Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars (digital outlets)
27 Apr 2024 | 1 min read
Since Elsewhere's interview with the Church's Steve Kilbey in 2018 – now the sole remaining member of the original line-up after the departure of Marty Willson-Piper in 2013 and Peter Koppes in 2019 – he has nudged the band into areas which appeal to him. In our interview a great deal of the conversation was about myth and magic, esoteric books and art, Lewis Carroll and... > Read more
Amanita
Black Keys: Ohio Players (digital outlets)
26 Apr 2024 | 1 min read
Because Black Keys have appeared so often at Elsewhere, we feel we know them well. Although to give credit where it's due, the duo haven't settle on a style for long. When we first saw them a couple of decades ago in a gig at Auckland's now-closed Kings Arms, Dan Auerbach (guitar, vocals) and drummer Patrick Carney were a ragged, blues-rock garage band but – like the early White... > Read more
Beautiful People (Stay High)
THE VERLAINES' WAY OUT WHERE, REISSUED (2024): So many choices out there
24 Apr 2024 | 3 min read
In a recent interview Graeme Downes of the Verlaines – for these past four years retired from music and academic life while recovering from a cancer operation – spoke proudly of their 1993 album Way Out Where. He'd written all 12 songs while under considerable pressures: a deadline from the American label Slash, while completing his master's thesis, and knowing this was going to... > Read more