Music at Elsewhere
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Mimi and Rivers: Simple Lives (digital outlets)
16 Nov 2018 | 1 min read
The Rivers here is Chris Baigent who is the singer-songwriter for the neo-folk band Rivers Edge and Mimi is his ex-partner Aimee Belton who here harmonise beautifully on these nine originals. There is delicacy here (Love Kills Fear brings extraordinary passion and acceptance to the threadbare phrase “I love you”) but these folk-pop songs also have real sinew: In the Light buoyed... > Read more
Rising Up
The Wooden Box Band: Far Far Away (woodenboxbandmusic.com)
11 Nov 2018 | <1 min read
Formerly Paddy Burgin and the Wooden Box Band but now projecting the new band members and allowing Wellington guitar-maker Burgin to step back a little, this small ensemble recorded these 10 originals at Lee Prebble's Surgery studio. This is dialed down folk (trumpet, violin, mandolin, lap steel etc) where there sheer pleasure is evident in material like the softly jaunty but lyrically pointed... > Read more
Pitchfork
Tui Mamaki: Fly (digital outlets/tuimamaki.com)
10 Nov 2018 | <1 min read
Singer-songwriter Tui Mamaki was central to the slightly confusingly named Mamaku Project (subsequently just Mamaku) but with their two albums seven years apart and this solo project under her own name four years on from the last – and her having lived in Bulgaria for the past three years – most would be forgiven for not knowing her. Pity because this quietly poetic, deftly... > Read more
Same Sun
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ONE WE MISSED: George Ezra; Staying at Tamara's (Sony)
10 Nov 2018 | 1 min read
Somehow we missed this album when it came out way back in March, which is odd given we were so impressed by this British singer's showing at the Auckland City Limits festival just weeks earlier. At a festival – and indeed in a music culture in general – where most artists try to amplify their point of difference this 24-year old (he's 25 now) cleaved to simple old values such as... > Read more
Saviour (ft First Aid Kit)
Racing: Real Dancing (digital outlets)
9 Nov 2018 | 2 min read
Elsewhere always hails pop-rock/whatever delivered by musicians who feel they've just invented it. Their enthusiasm is infectious and worth a dozen by weight of music from more senior and crafted writers. Auckland band Racing -- whose members have been around a couple of years – have released four singles, and here hit the sweet'n'energetic spot between excitement and craft because... > Read more
Orchestra of Spheres: Mirror (Fire/Southbound)
8 Nov 2018 | 1 min read
Although the Wellington progressive, psyche-improve ensemble Orchestra of Spheres have not previously been consistently impressive in their recordings, they have certainly refined their focus since their first outings. And here you have to admire their courage in opening with 10 minute drone-based piece which has a backdrop sounding evocatively Tibetan with chant poetry lyrics and a... > Read more
Black and White
Barbra Streisand: Walls (Sony)
7 Nov 2018 | 2 min read
Despite what many might wish to think, President Trump has actually managed to achieve a lot in his reign . . . like inspiring 76-year old Barbra Streisand to start writing her own songs again. As we noted previously, this remarkable voice has mostly been in the service of other writers but every now and again – and far too infrequently – she has written her own material.... > Read more
Don't Lie To Me
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Jane Weaver; The Silver Globe (Fire/Southbound)
5 Nov 2018 | <1 min read
British folkadelic singer-songwriter first came to attention at Elsewhere last year with her sixth (sixth?) album Modern Kosmology – one of our Best of Elsewhere 2017 choices – which had its feet in the past (Krautrock, Sixties psychedelic drones and alt.folk) but seemed to be gazing at the stars through electronica-tinted glasses. This reissue of her 2014 album shows how... > Read more
Arrows
Symmetrix: Being There (digital outlets)
3 Nov 2018 | <1 min read
Marita Ryan from Melbourne delivers her self-produced indie-pop electronica music as Symmetrix. With guitars, keyboards and programmed beats, she hits a mid-ground between her chosen genres, erring more towards the alt.pop-rock end of the spectrum (the crackling Confide, the snippy pop-rock of The Others with precision guitar passages) in songs which are snappy and self-contained. Her... > Read more
Where Have You Gone
Quimper: Perdide (Soft Bodies/digital outlets)
2 Nov 2018 | <1 min read
This UK outfit had me when they mentioned The Cleaners From Venus in their modest approach to Elsewhere. If you don't know that band then immediately seek out Giles Smith's Lost in Music which is hilarious and a somewhat true story about his time in that unsuccessful but now cult band: It is “one man's journey into the world of rock and then back to his Mum's.” In truth, one... > Read more
Christ in a Field of Caravans
Superturtle: Student Flat Reunion (Sarang Bang)
23 Oct 2018 | 1 min read
Superturtle is the project of Darryn McShane who has had a considerable career in various bands (Chainsaw Masochist and Figure 60 the most notable), as a bFM host, sometime music writer and producer/engineer. The last time we spotted him/Superturtle was back in 2013 with the Beat Manifesto album and then – as with the previous album About the Sun – we noted how much pop history... > Read more
Hit the Floor
MC Tali: Love and Migration (Fokuz)
22 Oct 2018 | 1 min read
Those who follow the great turning wheels of popular music taste may be surprised by a drum'n'bass album at this time. In many ways it seems almost anachronistic given that, to the casual passerby, drum'n'bass was an idiom from the mid Nineties and ran at its peak for about a decade or so thereafter. The many off-shoots kept the exciting and often staccato electronica alive but as a genre... > Read more
Various Artists: Baby I've Got It! More Motown Girls (Ace/Border)
22 Oct 2018 | 1 min read
The Motown sound is as distinctive as a fingerprint, but that's what happens when you have the same musicians, the Funk Brothers, on just about every session and a quality control panel before the songs are released. And songwriters like Holland-Dozier-Holland, Marvin Gaye, Ashford-Simpson, label boss Berry Gordy and others (not represented on this particular 24-song collection) contributing... > Read more
I'm Willing to Pay the Price, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas
Wild Sonic Blooms: Where We Overlap (Rattle)
21 Oct 2018 | 1 min read
Where We Overlap seems a very apt album title for a collection of pieces which brought together New Zealand sonic artists Megan Rogerson-Berry, Jeremy Mayall and Kent MacPherson with drummer/composer Reuben Bradley, taonga puoro by Horomona Horo and Japanese singer, composer and sound artist Haco from Japan. The artists' name however might be a little unrepresentative because while... > Read more
Pulse Arc
ONE WE MISSED: Macy Grey: Ruby (Mack Avenue/Southbound)
15 Oct 2018 | 1 min read
Strange how a great artist can arrive with fanfare and then there is an attrition of interest even if they maintain a consistently high standard. Think Alicia Keys. The extraordinary Macy Grey – here on her 10thstudio album – doesn't seem to get the attention she continues to deserve, especially for this album which is uplifting and joyous, witheringly accurate in... > Read more
Over You
Hater: Siesta (Fire/Southbound)
15 Oct 2018 | <1 min read
With 14 songs running close to an hour this second album by a breezy and thoughtful Swedish band doesn't so much outstay its welcome as perhaps offer to much of a good thing. The result is the delectable individual flavours – shimmering guitar pop, electro-pop, indie-pop etc – can be easily lost over the full running time. There's a kind of autumnal ennui to much of this... > Read more
All That Your Dreams Taught Me
Various Artists: Make Mine Mondo (Ace/Border)
14 Oct 2018 | 2 min read
There's not a lot of fun and frivolity in pop and rock these days. You wouldn't expect U2, Coldplay, Radiohead, Beyonce or Taylor Swift, for example, to release anything as juvenile as Yellow Submarine or as dumb as Neanderthal Man. It's true that a gimmick song can make you a bit of money but can also kill a career. It's hard to come back after one, especially if you have something more... > Read more
The Thief, by Motion
Loretta Lynn: Wouldn't It Be Great (Sony Legacy)
14 Oct 2018 | 1 min read
About 14 years ago while traveling around the US for a few months we went to Loretta Lynn's estate at Hurricane Mills in Tennessee -- Loretta Lynn's Dude Ranch, the sign said. This was where she used to live in the antebellum mansion, had replicas of the crude home she grew up and her Daddy's coal mine, and a museum of dolls, gold discs and memorabilia. Not long before she'd worked with... > Read more
Ain't No Time To Go
Connan Mockasin: Jassbusters (Mexican Summer/Southbound)
13 Oct 2018 | <1 min read
Best to be honest. Elsewhere has tried to like albums and performances by Connan Mockasin but has mostly found them frustratingly unfocused to the point of being, as we have said, a kind of ADHD experience. This eight song, 35 minute album doesn't come with an inviting either: it relates to the “five-part melodrama film” Bostyn'n'Dobsyn which he has made . . . and many... > Read more
Last Night
Paul Kelly: Nature (Universal)
12 Oct 2018 | 2 min read
The first important things to be said about Nature – Paul Kelly's 24thstudio album – is that the first two singles, With The One I Love and A Bastard Like Me (For Charlie Perkins), are not representative of the rest of the album. Both are Kelly originals, the former an uptempo acoustic-driven number in his unmistakable style and with a lyric open to multiple interpretations, and... > Read more