Music at Elsewhere
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Arcade Fire: Everything Now (Sony)
31 Jul 2017 | <1 min read
Always a band with ambition, this Canadian outfit have previously pushed the parameters and for their previous outing Reflektor went the whole double-CD. As we said at the time, like most double discs it was overlong but you did have to admire their willingness to experiment and, in that instance, throw themselves back into the Eighties. In that regard this more economic and... > Read more
Electric Blue
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Isaac Hayes, Shaft
31 Jul 2017 | 2 min read
It's not widely known, but Isaac Hayes was the first black artist to win the Best Song category at the Oscars, and he did with the memorable theme to the film Shaft which also won him a Grammy and pushed the double album soundtrack to become the fastest selling album on the Stax label to that time. If there's any irony it's that on The Theme, Hayes barely sung at all just did his sort... > Read more
Early Sunday Morning
Valedictions: Pieces (valedictions.co.nz)
3 Jul 2017 | <1 min read
While we might bemoan the balkanisation of radio into tightly proscribed formats, at least from an artist's point of view they at least know where to pitch their music. No surprise then that this three-piece Auckland band got an early single Hey Lady on The Rock FM. (The title alone kinda recommends it, right?) They played a Big Day Out years ago, did some gigs more recently with... > Read more
Queens
Benjamin Booker: Witness (Rough Trade)
26 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
This may only be Booker's second album but he has already proven the capacity to surprise, born out o his punk background in Florida coupled with a love for r'n'b', gospel and classic soul. Throw them into the blender – you can almost hear the blades grinding on the throaty opener Right On You which comes at you out of a thumping pulse and the assertive “I'll be damned if... > Read more
Believe
Stevens, Muhly, Dessner, McAlister: Planetarium (4AD)
19 Jun 2017 | 3 min read
Elsewhere is of the firm opinion that the education system has failed young people if, by the age of 15, they haven't been introduced to some Shakespeare (Julius Caesar is an easy sell to teens), Picasso/Cubism and some start-off classical music (Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Peter and the Wolf perhaps?). These are things in the arts which extend across all cultures... > Read more
Kuiper Belt
Algiers: The Underside of Power (Matador)
19 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
Two years ago the incendiary, distorted and angry self-titled debut album by this US political powerhouse spent some weeks in and out of our Favourite Five Recent CDs column. At that time we wrote: “Out of the torn traditions of America's gospel'n'blues Deep South but shot through with post-punk fury, this trio take a hammer to politics, religion and race but couch it in... > Read more
Cry of the Martyrs
The Miltones: The Miltones (miltones.com/Rhythmethod)
13 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
As we have observed previously, for a very long time in the Eighties and into the Nineties New Zealand musicians shunned the idea of being “pop” when indie was so much more cool, and it often has seemed that since then the idea of appealing to a more mainstream and even slightly older audience was anathema to many. The success of Dave Dobbyn, Brooke Fraser, Bic Runga, Anika... > Read more
Gypsy Queen
Harry Styles: Harry Styles (Sony)
12 Jun 2017 | 1 min read | 2
There is a saying around Elsewhere's way which we deploy against ourselves when confronted with certain kinds of music, and we pass it on sometimes to correspondents who are railing against an artist, usually in the teen pop idiom. It is this: “Just remember, they aren't making music for you”. When Lorde released her new single a few months back, my... > Read more
Carolina
Chris Stapleton: From a Room, Vol 1 (Mercury)
12 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
Because we essayed this superb songwriter and gruff-voiced singer on the back of his debut album Traveller last year we won't revisit that ground . . . only to say here is a guy whose music has been covered by Adele but whose audience would also reach from Springsteen fans to Merle Haggard devotees and those with an appreciation of how he can also touch on something akin to Southern soul.... > Read more
Broken Halos
Infinity, Infinity (infinitymusic.co.nz)
12 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
Infinity are guitarist/bassist, keyboard player Pateriki Hura and drummer Cameron Budge from, I believe, Hastings and this is their all-instrumental debut. And you have to hand it to them, the opener is a spacious 11 minute piece entitled Infinity (they do seem to have a penchant for that word) which is three-part slice of enjoyably free-floating space rock which get tangentially David... > Read more
Caris' Land
Roger Waters: Is This Really the Life We Want? (Sony)
11 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
Elsewhere is of the unwavering opinion that most of Roger Waters' recorded output and ideas – most notably Pink Floyd's The Wall, a demandingly bleak and pretentious concept album – are more an endurance test or aural torture than they are insightful music. Yes, we know that The Wall is HUGE and popular, and knowing that we try sometimes to have another go at it, but to no... > Read more
Picture That
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Bob Marley; Exodus (Universal)
2 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
Rightly considered among Marley’s finest albums, some say the finest, Exodus was released six months after the attempt on his life and was recorded in London where he forced to hole up after getting out of Jamaica. It found him extending his musical palette (the deep martial beat of the title track, the poppy Three Little Birds which was “the most charming and stupidest... > Read more
Dodson and Fogg: Follow The Path (wisdomtwins)
29 May 2017 | <1 min read
In which Elsewhere once again hopes to draw your attention to the very prolific Dodson and Fogg – aka Chris Wade – from Leeds (music, books, artwork, articles, film, see here!) whose releases come wrapped in interesting cover art by his wife Linzi Napier. They are quite the cottage industry . . . and very industrious. On this collection Wade plays everything himself and as... > Read more
Leave (Feel the Wind Blow)
Los Straitjackets: What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Los Straitjackets (YepRoc/Southbound)
29 May 2017 | <1 min read
This classy American instrument outfit from Nashville – who have done three tours with the great Nick Lowe – here undertake 13 songs from his extensive catalogue to offer moody soundtrack-like treatments of ballads (You Inspire, I Read a Lot), Shadows-styled covers (All Men Are Liars, the title track), nods to Ventures and surf instrumentals (I Live on a Battlefield, Heart of... > Read more
You Inspire Me
!!!: Shake the Shudder (Warp)
24 May 2017 | <1 min read
Cali-founded band !!! (aka Chk Chk Chk) – now in their natural home of New York's dance clubs – are not so retro in their disco/funk crossover that they are a signpost to the future. They are just enjoyably channeling the tropes of black and gay clubs in the Seventies and here – with a revolving door of female singers assisting – provide mirrorball movers which... > Read more
Dancing is the Best Revenge
IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases
22 May 2017 | 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. . Arca: Arca (XL/Rhythmethod) People like Bjork, Anohni and this Venezuelan-born and London-based producer (Alejandro... > Read more
Mark Mulcahy: The Possum in the Driveway (Mezzotint)
22 May 2017 | 1 min read
If American Mark Mulcahy is known at all in New Zealand it might only be for his part in the indie.rock outfit Miracle Legion who broke up in '96 after more than a decade and then reformed last year. (Maybe just briefly given a pointed lyric here in The Fiddler). You'd prefer Mulcahy however to be known for his excellent solo album Dear Mark J Mulcahy I Love You of four years ago.... > Read more
Catching Mice
Asgeir: Afterglow (Inertia/Rhythmethod)
22 May 2017 | <1 min read
Given the genre – somewhere between orchestrated electronica, ambient and embellished folk – this second album from Iceland's Asgeir should grip at Elsewhere. But it just doesn't. Because you sense behind some of the glitch-electro and airy vocals this is very familiar and much traversed territory. Where its predecessor Into the Silence had evocative and dream-folk... > Read more
Nothing
Matthew Smith: Matthew Smith (Lyttelton/Southbound)
16 May 2017 | 1 min read
Former rock frontman (of the atmospheric and crunching Von Voin Strum), Matthew Smith here (mostly) gets the knobs turned down and – with a small band, some important and sympathetic colleagues including co-producer and mixer Ben Edwards in the Sitting Room, mastering by Chris Chetland – initially brings an unexpected and intimate low-lights indie.folk voice to the fore on... > Read more
Why Are We Waiting
Larry Morris: Anthology (Frenzy)
15 May 2017 | 1 min read | 1
Larry Morris would be the first to admit that his was a wild ride for a decade after Larry's Rebels gatecrashed the New Zealand music world of the Sixties with a harder edge, a proper rock'n'roll attitude to pop, a string of memorable singles (many of them covers but with their own stamp) and excellent live shows. Morris was only in his mid teens when all that started but a decade on... > Read more