Music at Elsewhere

Noah Aire: Shine Brightest in the Dark (Distinction)

19 Jan 2018 | <1 min read

Nigerian singer-writer and engineer/mixer here steps out with slightly dark and brooding “mixtape” debut album which however manages to bring together electro-pop, serious soul, synth-pop and trip-hop into a very listenable amalgam. He describes it as opening with a more chaotic and angry feel which morphs into a more confident tone . . . and certainly by the brittle... > Read more

U Don't Know My Story

Van Morrison: Versatile (Caroline)

18 Jan 2018 | 1 min read

Every couple of years Van Morrison delivers a new album and Elsewhere tunes in just to hear what he is up to. Usually it is looking back in the company of an excellent band and the material touches on r'n'b and jazz with a blues edge. Some of the albums are good, a few excellent and many – like this one of jazz standards and some originals – just pass by enjoyably but... > Read more

Start All Over Again

Bruce Cockburn: Bone on Bone (True North Records/Southbound)

15 Jan 2018 | 1 min read | 1

In an amusing Facebook post last year someone noted that this great Canadian singer-songwriter and classy guitarist hadn't come back to New Zealand since I wrote a somewhat unfavourable review of his late Eighties concert at the Powerstation. That rather over-estimated the power of the press but did remind me of how much I had championed him (album reviews and a massive front page... > Read more

False River

ONE WE MISSED: Modern Studies: Swell to Great (Fire)

15 Jan 2018 | <1 min read

As a measure of how release schedules mean very little these days, this debut album by this Scottish-cum-Lancashire band came out via bandcamp (and presumably the tiny Toad Records label) in September 2016 and picked up a top 20 best-of-the-year slot in Mojo magazine's annual countback. It was subsequently reissued by Fire Records late last year . . . and deservedly so, although it... > Read more

The Sea Horizon

Pete International Airport: Safer With Wolves (A Recordings/Southbound)

15 Jan 2018 | <1 min read

The “Pete” here is singer/guitarist/bassist Peter Holmstrom, co-founder of the Dandy Warhols who takes his nom-de-disque from an old Dandy's track (on their '96 album The Dandy Warhols Come Down) and it appears on the A Recordings label out of Berlin run by Brian Jonestown Massacre's enormously prolific Anton Newcombe. Like some of Newcombe's work in recent years,... > Read more

Happens All the Time

Alex Lipinski: Alex (A Recordings/Southbound)

15 Jan 2018 | <1 min read

And also out of Anton Newcombe's Berlin studio comes this British fish of a very different colour, an acoustic throwback to folk-rockabilly, angry young Dylan and across to the darker edges of recent fellow travellers like Jake Bugg (you can hear why Bugg-fan Noel Gallagher likes Lipinski) and Pete Molinari. Recorded in just six hours apparently with Lipinski on an old acoustic... > Read more

Sophie's Song

New Telepathics: The End of War (Our Records)

15 Jan 2018 | 1 min read

Elsewhere has previously acknowledged the work ethic, diverse musical projects and sheer energy of Auckland multi-instrumentalist Darryn Harkness (who also does his own artwork, produces books and writes poetry etc). He is particularly enthusiastic about this outing from his long-running New Telepathics (more a project than a stable band) and this perhaps is in part because it is a... > Read more

Can't Fault Me

THE BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2017: THE READERS' PICKS

18 Dec 2017 | 8 min read | 4

As editor of the one-man band Elsewhere I had my say on the best albums I wrote about this past year -- while freely conceding I did not, could not, hear everything. Doubtless you heard some music which moved you and wish to tell others about. Here was – and still is -- your chance. You could look at what Elsewhere covered in 2017 if you need some... > Read more

THE BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2017: THE EDITOR'S PICKS

11 Dec 2017 | 10 min read | 5

As subscribers to Elsewhere's weekly newsletter know, this has been a busy year for us. There was time-consuming paying work which allows Elsewhere to continue to follow its wayward path and the tune of this one-man band/vanity project. And there was overseas travel. And there was something called “having a life”. That said, it seems we wrote about 120 or so albums, did... > Read more

Daniel Gadd: as if in a dream I drifted at sea (107/Southbound)

11 Dec 2017 | <1 min read

With a similar downbeat melancholy, emotionally focused and intense lyrics, and simple but memorable melodies picked out on acoustic guitar, Cape Town-born and London-based singer-songwriter Gadd taps into the spirit and style of the early Leonard Cohen albums. Classically trained (in composition, he's done film scores and music for contemporary dance companies), Gadd recorded this... > Read more

Siri Linn

Howe Gelb and Lonna Kelly: Further Standards (Fire)

10 Dec 2017 | 1 min read

The always interesting Howe Gelb does exactly what he wants and in recent years that has seen the man behind desert psych-rockers Giant Sand work with Spanish musicians, write albums of piano music and on his last outing Future Standards explore the idea of new original material which are in the vein of piano jazz classics. Future Standards was interesting enough (not to Giant Sand... > Read more

Ownin' It

THE BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2017: THE YEAR IN REISSUES

9 Dec 2017 | 7 min read | 1

The past is another country, but sometimes it still sounds interesting. Half a century after the Beatles' Sgt Peppers, debut albums by Jimi Hendrix, the Doors and others . . . and a decade more back to the emergence of rock'n'roll, there have been many anniversary reissues to be repackaged, remastered and reissued . . . many of which are just credit card gouging exercises. So... > Read more

Various Artists: The Kiwi Pop Music Scene 1967 (Frenzy)

8 Dec 2017 | 1 min read

As this interesting anniversary year in rock culture draws to a close – and every year for the past decade or so seems to have been a milestone anniversary – the estimable and assiduous Kiwi music compiler Grant Gillanders pulls together a double CD of 60 songs which reflects on the music scene here half a century ago. They admirable range from those which are perhaps by... > Read more

The Principals, I'll Be Around

The Rolling Stones: On Air DeLuxe Edition (Universal)

4 Dec 2017 | 4 min read | 1

There are two glaring problems with this release of these Stones' songs recorded live for British radio from 1963-65. The first is they are unnecessarily non-chronological: a version of their first single, Chuck Berry's Come On, followed by the mature Satisfaction of two years later then it's back to Berry's crowd-pleasing Roll Over Beethoven. That's just stupid. And that... > Read more

Crackin' Up (1964)

Neil Young and Promise of the Real: The Visitor (Warners)

4 Dec 2017 | 2 min read

You have to go a long way back to find a truly great and new – not just a “pretty good” – Neil Young studio album. As Elsewhere has noted, much of his best stuff has been – like the recent Hitchhiker – pulled from his vaults, a never-ending process it seems. This one of new material – with the excellent Promise of the Real who bridge... > Read more

Almost Always

L.A.B.: L.A.B. (Loop)

1 Dec 2017 | 1 min read

Opening like a classic and spiritually inclined Santana album or one of David Gilmour's refined moments in Pink Floyd with guitar by Joel Shadbolt (Batucada Sound Machine), then morphing into a slinky reggae groove, the seven minute-plus She's Gone is as ambitious as it accomplished . . . and sets the tone for what is something of local supergroup. LAB are drummer Brad and Stu Kora on... > Read more

Jimmy Boy

Rob Ruha and the Witch Dr: Survivance (Border)

1 Dec 2017 | 1 min read

One of Elsewhere favourite artists is one we've never actually written about, the great Garland Jeffreys who is one those interesting mixed-race New Yorkers (African American/Puerto Rican) who effortlessly synthesised folk, reggae, soul, r'n'b and rock (and more) into something unique . . . and he had something to say. We lost touch with him until this year's 14 Steps to Harlem (his... > Read more

Black Letters

RECOMMENDED REISSUE: The Byrds, Sweetheart of the Rodeo

1 Dec 2017 | 1 min read

Although not the first country rock album – Gee, even Britain's r'n'b rockers the Downliners Sect had done a country album three years previous – this '68 album by former folk-rockers the Byrds (now with a much changed line-up from their classic early period) certainly made the case for the emerging genre. Although it's fair to observe that this was more country than... > Read more

One Hundred Years From Now

Troy Kingi: Shake That Skinny Ass All the Way to Zygertron (AAA)

30 Nov 2017 | 1 min read | 1

Elsewhere was quick out of the gate to acclaim last year's enjoyable and diverse double album by singer/guitarist (and actor) Troy Kingi. With his Electric Haka Boogie band on Guitar Party at Uncle's Bach, Kingi delivered what was almost a compilation album of styles, none of which outstayed their welcome and provided the perfect summertime listening (but with important messages woven... > Read more

Aquarii B

Various Artists: Heed the Call (Vostok)

27 Nov 2017 | 2 min read

I'm sure this has been mentioned previously at Elsewhere, but some years ago the conversation turned to prog-rock and I sagely said there hadn't been much made in New Zealand. My wiser friend disagreed and not long after a double CD compilation of Kiwi prog-rock he'd put together – entitled Taniwha from Topographic Oceans – turned up and I was suitably chastened. I... > Read more