Music at Elsewhere
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Jas Josland: See What You Did There (bandcamp/iTunes etc)
1 Feb 2018 | 1 min read
The opening bracket of songs here by newcomer and world traveller Josland are very much in the frame of buzzing and catchy indie guitar-driven pop-rock. This debut album was recorded in Lyttelton by the estimable Ben Edwards and early up harks back to a point between the Breeders, shoegaze and elevating, hook-filled power-pop of the Eighties. If you haven't heard of her... > Read more
Money
Arran Fagan: Weight of Time (soundcloud)
29 Jan 2018 | 1 min read
Portland remains the home of an acoustic, often downbeat singer-songwriter tradition some 15 years after the death of Elliott Smith who made his name and reputation there before moving into a larger and more damaging world. Singer-guitarist Arran Fagan, here three albums into a career, offers deeply personal observations in songs of depth – and sometimes an elegant simplicity... > Read more
The Well
Circuit Des Yeux: Reaching for Indigo (Drag City)
27 Jan 2018 | 1 min read
If we were brutally honest we'd say that most albums don't break new ground. They simply conform to genre tropes, be they in alt.country, hard rock, trip-hop, r'n'b or whatever. Artists seldom step beyond the genre or style they are identified with – so few you can almost list them: Bowie, Bjork, for a while U2, Radiohead, Kate Bush etc – and it is an even more rare album... > Read more
Falling Blonde
Various Artists: How is the Air Up There? (Frenzy/RPM)
26 Jan 2018 | 3 min read
Given how assiduously Grant Gillanders has been compiling New Zealand pop and rock from the Sixties – at least a dozen, probably closer to two, CDs – you'd think the well would be running dry. But this superbly packaged three CD set subtitled “80 Mod, Soul, R'N'B & Freakbeat Nuggets From Down Under” manages to include a couple of dozen tracks which haven't... > Read more
No More Now by the Smoke
Khruangbin: Con Todo El Mundo (Night Time Stories/Southbound)
26 Jan 2018 | <1 min read
In very late 2015 Elsewhere shone the spotlight on the hypnotic, summery and almost wistfully psychedelic debut album – which rejoiced under the title The Universe Smiles Upon You – by this trio originally out of Texas. Something in those wide open spaces combined with the ambience of a beach in Thailand and gentle wafts of soul-funk made for a delightful opening... > Read more
August 10
Salad Boys: This is Glue (Trouble in Mind/Southbound)
26 Jan 2018 | <1 min read
When Elsewhere reviewed the debut album Metalmania by this Christchurch band helmed by Joe Sampson we felt obliged to reference early Flying Nun bands like the Clean, because they certainly did. This time out however things turn blacker and harder in places, and they get away a terrific power pop-cum-hard rock droning opener Blown Up which immediately hooks you in. Later Psyche... > Read more
Right Time
Tune-Yards: I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life (4AD/Rhythmethod)
22 Jan 2018 | 1 min read
At some indiscernible moment in time (possibly in the early Seventies when the antennae were high) someone posited the notion that “the personal is political”. And a generation prepared to believe any slogan embraced it. And its converse position. The political is personal? Yep. Because that seems more true in the US at this moment than in era since . . . Well,... > Read more
Heart Attack
Gun Outfit: Out of Range (Paradise of Bachelors/Southbound)
20 Jan 2018 | <1 min read
The bleached image of Monument Valley on the cover of this fifth album by a now LA-based five-piece gives you the physical and metaphorical reference for their spacious, slightlydelic desert rock of jangle'n'slide guitars, dusty vocals from Dylan Sharp and the keening folk sound of Carrie Keith, the deep mythology of literature considered on peyote perhaps . . . There is something of... > Read more
Sally Rose
IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases
19 Jan 2018 | 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 and Yasmin does with EPs. Comments will be brief. . The Selecter: Daylight (DMF/Southbound) One of the great bands of the 2-Tone era and with... > Read more
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
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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