Music at Elsewhere

Miles Calder and the Rumours; Miles Calder and the Rumours (Southbound)

7 Nov 2016 | 1 min read | 1

Singer-songwriter Miles Calder and his fellow travellers down these alt.country byways (where “the creek's gonna rise”) have considerable prior form in advance of this debut album. Their Crossing Over EP was nominated for the 2014 Taite Music award and in the NZ Music Awards' country category. Calder has had favourable shortlist mentions in international songwriting... > Read more

Sad Songs

The Lemon Twigs: Do Hollywood (4AD)

31 Oct 2016 | <1 min read

In the world of New York brothers Brian and Michael D'Addario -- who are the core of the Lemon Twigs – it is forever 1966-68. And mostly British. On this debut album they indulge in eccentrically Brit-psychedelia which has its reference points in Lennon's tripped-out acid-pop, the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, something of the Monkees in their later days when the reins were... > Read more

I Wanna Prove To You

IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases

31 Oct 2016 | 3 min read | 1

With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column which scoops up releases by international artists, in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks up New Zealand artists. Comments will be brief. Matt Butler: Reckless Son (mattbutlerofficial.com) Music as personal therapy can be treacherous territory: Oversharing comes off as... > Read more

Various Artists; Let It Be; Black America Sings Lennon, McCartney and Harrison (Ace/Border)

31 Oct 2016 | 2 min read | 1

Given just how much black music – Motown, girl groups, Chuck Berry, Little Richard etc – influenced the early Beatles, it's no surprise black Americans would find Beatle songs to adopt and adapt. A few years ago the James Hunter Six (white band out of Britain, of course) took the Beatles' It Won't Be Long of '64 and -- with barely a flick of the wrist -- turned it into a sassy... > Read more

It's Only Love, by Gary US Bonds

SHORT CUTS: A round-up of recent New Zealand releases

28 Oct 2016 | 3 min read

Facing down an avalanche of releases, requests for coverage, the occasional demand that we be interested in their new album (sometimes with that absurd comment "but don't write about it if you don't like it") and so on, Elsewhere will every now and again do a quick sweep like this, in the same way it does IN BRIEF about international releases. Comments will be brief.... > Read more

Richard Walters: AM (pilotlights)

28 Oct 2016 | 1 min read

This emotion-driven English singer-songwriter who works in the world of electronica-cum-balladry delivered one of Elsewhere's favourite albums in 2010, The Animal. His milieu is an area which has been opened up increasingly over the past few years, but Walters was there early in the game and although there's a smidgen more self-pity here ("lovers are meant to lose"/"truth... > Read more

Where Were You?

Greg Fleming and the Working Poor: To Hell With These Streets (bandcamp)

25 Oct 2016 | 2 min read

Constructed like a song-cycle about the urban struggle and real world in New Zealand's emotional and physically assaulting 21st century, this is a short but finely focused collection by Auckland singer-songwriter Greg Fleming. It is just 10 songs in fewer than 40 minutes . . . and it opens with the already weary-sounding City's Waking Up. This isn't some golden dawn in the... > Read more

Sick of This Shit

Anna Coddington: Luck/Time (Loop)

25 Oct 2016 | 1 min read

If the Volume exhibition at the museum in Auckland shows us nothing else it is that – from Fifties rock'n'roll to contemporary r'n'b – New Zealand musicians have been adept at adopting and adapting imported genres. So it is with post-r'n'b electro-pop. But where Electric Wire Hustle, for example, get by on Mara TK's soulful vocals and ethereal synth-psychedelic sonic... > Read more

Too Far Gone

ONE WE MISSED: Electric Wire Hustle; The 11th Sky (Loop)

24 Oct 2016 | <1 min read

This new installment of Electric Wire Hustle's ethereal, neo-psychedelic electronica-soul arrived when we were diverted by pressing (and thankfully) paying work some weeks back . . . but it provided a useful soundtrack in the background. Closer attention reveals its many intricate details where faux-strings swell and race like clouds over the looped beats and aching soul vocals of Mara TK.... > Read more

I Light a Candle

Norah Jones: Day Breaks (Blue Note)

21 Oct 2016 | 1 min read | 1

Although some suggest Jones has been making variants of her Come Away With Me debut for some time, little could be further from the truth. No, she is not going to suddenly turn into Kate Bush, Yoko Ono or LeAnn Rimes but within her idiom of crafted jazz with discreet country influences she gently pushes sideways. Check out Elsewhere's user guide to her back-catalogue. However much... > Read more

And Then There Was You

Graveyard Love: The Sentiment of Escape (bandcamp)

17 Oct 2016 | 1 min read

Graveyard Love is New Zealand synth-pop artist Hamish Black and we single this album out for a couple of reasons: first of all he works an interesting area which takes as its starting point the Eighties when bands like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, the early Cure and various British gloom-rock bands were exploring the sonic textures and invented landscapes of synths and darkly... > Read more

Encore to the Absurd

RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Public Image Ltd: Metal Box Super Deluxe (Universal)

17 Oct 2016 | <1 min read

When the Sex Pistols imploded, John Lydon with bassist Jah Wobble and guitarist Keith Levine emerged as Public Image Ltd (PiL). Their '78 debut First Edition announced a new direction but the following year they delivered Metal Box (three records tightly packed into a film canister). Once you finally prised them out you were treated to – challenged by – sprawling,... > Read more

Graveyard

THE BARGAIN BUY: The Pogues; Original Album Series

17 Oct 2016 | 1 min read

Odd isn't it, how artists who were once so important and perhaps even defined their era – Talking Heads, REM and Oasis come to mind – quietly disappeared and barely make it into a conversation these days. So seems the fate of the Pogues also whose boozy, sentimental, political and often moving songs and poetry spanned the Eighties. The lyrics of Shane MacGowan and the... > Read more

Kitty

Rats on Rafts/De Kift: Last Day on De Zon (Fire)

16 Oct 2016 | <1 min read

Yes, it's true we probably don't hear enough homegrown Dutch post-punk here. But despite the name of our country . . . why would we? Here from the country which houses the province of Old Zeeland – which actually just down the road from Rotterdam – comes what we at a distance might consider a Rotter-supergroup. Because longtime local noise-punk-pop-rockers RoRafts team... > Read more

Voorbij

Princess Chelsea: Aftertouch (Lil' Chief)

14 Oct 2016 | 1 min read

The longtime joke about rock bands was they had three years to write their first album and three months to write their second (which would have some new songs and the left-overs from the first). The third album – usually required by the demanding record company – was either a bunch of songs about hotel rooms/the road (because that had become their life) . . . or the live... > Read more

Can't Help Falling In Love With You

IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases

14 Oct 2016 | 3 min read

With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column which scoops up releases by international artists, in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks up New Zealand artists. Comments will be brief. Beth Hart: Fire on the Floor (Provogue) On the back of her excellent, largely autobiographical album Better Than Home played an... > Read more

Van Morrison: Keep Me Singing (Caroline/Universal)

10 Oct 2016 | 2 min read

Although the past decade has been a little wobbly for the former Celtic soul genius that is Van Morrison, it is Elsewhere's contention that your man really has undergone a late career resurrection. It started with Keep It Simple of 2008, some four decades on from his self-directed purple patch with the still-engrossing Astral Weeks. Back in the collective memory of that Sixties... > Read more

Let It Rhyme

IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases

10 Oct 2016 | 4 min read

With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column which scoops up releases by international artists, in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks up New Zealand artists. Comments will be brief. Bon Iver: 22, A Million (Jagjaguwar) For hipster beardies, young and sensitive retro-cardie women and old guard greyhair folkies who... > Read more

RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Howe Gelb; Sno Angel Like You (Fire/Southbound)

10 Oct 2016 | 1 min read

The astonishingly prolific Howe Gelb (Giant Sand, the Band of Blacky Ranchette, numerous albums under his own name) has yet another new one coming in late November. But meantime there is the 10th anniversary reissue of this album which seems to come in various formats including a double gatefold LP as Sno Angel Like You/Sno Angel Winging It. We here just have the original 16-song... > Read more

Love Knows No Borders

IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases

26 Sep 2016 | 2 min read

With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column which scoops up releases by international artists, in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks up New Zealand artists. Comments will be brief. The Green Pajamas: To The End of The Sea (Green Monkey) The mainman of Seattle's Green Pajamas, Jeff Kelly, has long had connection... > Read more