Music at Elsewhere
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Penguin Café: The Imperfect Sea (Erased Tapes/Southbound)
12 May 2017 | 1 min read | 1
The former Penguin Café Orchestra under the baton of the late Simon Jeffes were never for just anyone, they were for everyone. Their string minimalism and quirkiness (try the odd Telephone and Rubber Band from their self-titled second album in ’81) found them labelled as classical, avant-garde, indie.folk, ambient . . . Jeffes – who died in ‘97 -- even... > Read more
Ricercar
IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases
8 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. . Willie Nelson: God’s Problem Child (Sony) At 83 and with the passing of recent companions and fellow musicians... > Read more
Fazerdaze: Morningside (Flying Nun)
5 May 2017 | 2 min read
There’s a gentle and typically thoughtful pop song Take It Slow at the midpoint of this excellent debut album. In it Auckland singer-writer Amelia Murray (aka Fazerdaze) sings, “It seems so far already, seems so far to go, I don’t know if I’m ready . . . I’ll take it slow”. It could be a song about reticent commitment in a relationship but anyone... > Read more
Take It Slow
Slowdive: Slowdive (Dead Oceans/Rhythmethod)
5 May 2017 | 1 min read
We’ve said it before but it does bear repeating: there seems to be a (welcome) return of shoegaze . . . and when we essayed the absolutely terrific retrospective box set Still in a Dream we specifically mentioned UK band Slowdive with singer Rachel Goswell and “the great Neil Halstead”. As singer/guitarist Halstead observed some years after Slowdive broke up in the... > Read more
Don't Know Why
Clap Clap Riot: Dull Life (CCR)
3 May 2017 | 1 min read
Elsewhere’s penchant for classic pop-rock with allusions to punk bristle and power pop elevation gets another shot of pleasure from CCR (our one, who previously appeared in one of our best of the year lists). And again they deliver a vinyl-length collection of smart and memorable songs (11 in 38 minutes). In their bag of memories (conscious and unconscious) they have bits of Big... > Read more
Tired of Getting Old
IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases
30 Apr 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. . Rhiannon Giddens: Freedom Highway (Nonesuch) As America turns even more deeply divided along lines of race and class... > Read more
SHORT CUTS: A round-up of recent New Zealand releases
28 Apr 2017 | 2 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 BRIEFabout international releases. Comments will be brief.... > Read more
David Dallas: Hood Country Club (Universal)
25 Apr 2017 | 1 min read
Davis Dallas is one of the most important artists in contemporary New Zealand because he broadcasts from a deep culture and articulates important ideas from within it. His song Southside (with Mareko and Sid Diamond) from his last album Falling Into Place four years ago title is essential listening and a voice that demands to be heard. This time out on... > Read more
Don't Rate That
Paul Gurney with The De Sotos: Shadow of Love (Tailgator/Aeroplane)
24 Apr 2017 | <1 min read
On this third album by the long-running De Sotos out of Auckland, their singer-songwriter gets his name out front for the first time but their gentle country-rock with pedal steel (by guest Janek Croydon) remains largely intact. Singer, guitarist, banjo and mandolin player Gurney writes understated and melodic songs and the band deliver them with sensitivity. There's also a modesty... > Read more
Trace
Tinie Tempah: Youth (Warner)
24 Apr 2017 | 1 min read
To hear London-based, award-winning grime master Tinie Tempah tell it, after his stunning debut Disc-Overy and then the lesser follow-up Demonstration he struggled to reconnect with the source of his initial inspiration. So he says he went right back to hip-hop/synth-pop and dubbed up style . . . and yet for this outing four years on from Demonstration he also hooks in Jake Bugg, Guy... > Read more
Girls Like (w Zara Larsson)
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Dave Dobbyn: A Slice of Heaven; 40 Years of Hits (Sony)
24 Apr 2017 | <1 min read
Not really a reissue and not his first such collection, but here are 21 familiar songs -- one apiece from Th'Dudes and DD Smash, with a few in their 2009 versions – and an acknowledgement of a remarkable and productive career. From rock (Be Mine Tonight) to ballads (the gorgeous blue-eyed soul of You Oughta Be in Love) to experiments in pop (Lap of the Gods, Blindman's Bend) to... > Read more
You Oughta Be in Love
The Jesus and Mary Chain: Damage and Joy (Warner)
14 Apr 2017 | 1 min read | 1
One the interesting things about post-punk bands like Wire is how they acknowledge and sometimes even refer to their past, but use it as a platform to push into other areas. You can’t really say that about too much of this new JAMC album, their first in almost 20 years. Their take on fuzzed-up classic but often downbeat pop remains intact – if recorded a... > Read more
Facing up to the Facts
Jen Gloeckner: Vine (jengloeckner.com)
14 Apr 2017 | <1 min read
Pitched somewhere between ethereal ambience, appealingly drone-like minimalist folk songwriting and astral electronica, this album by Iowa’s Gloeckner – recorded in her bedroom – also includes some eerily evocative sonic backdrops (the disconcerting Firefly) and nods towards economic prog-rock (Prayers) courtesy of her loops and programmes, guests like guitarist John... > Read more
Row with the Flow
IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases
10 Apr 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. Coco Montoya: Hard Truth (Alligator/Southbound) Longtime rock and blues fans know that John Mayall was a very good picker when... > Read more
Lord Echo: Harmonies (Soundway/The Label)
9 Apr 2017 | 1 min read
One of the more shamelessly enjoyable acts at the recent Womad was Lord Echo (aka Wellington producer/multi-instrumentalist Mike Fabulous) and his band. Their astute melting pot of many Kiwis' favourite styles – reggae, dub, soul and r'n'b – had all the right groove-riding components welded together into interesting, danceable shapes for such a festival . . . and proved... > Read more
In Your Life
Levi Patel: Affinity (Marigold)
7 Apr 2017 | 1 min read
Elsewhere has had such a long love affair with the restful and imaginative qualities of intelligent ambient music that we hesitate to mention just how long . . . but there are articles about Brian Eno's definitive statements in the Seventies here and as recently as here, just four months ago. And we reference much more “ambient” music elsewhere. But we accept that... > Read more
What Will Become of Us
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Bob Dylan: Triplicate (Sony)
3 Apr 2017 | 4 min read
In his long career Bob Dylan has previously delivered albums in threes: the acoustic into electric no-turning-back trilogy of Bringing It All Back Home/Highway 61 Revisited/Blonde on Blonde in an astonishing 14 months in the mid Sixties; the Christian series Slow Train Coming/Saved/Shot of Love which started in the late Seventies . . . and we might even include the opening salvo in his... > Read more
Wire: Silver/Lead (Pink Flag/Southbound)
3 Apr 2017 | 1 min read
While many of their UK post-punk peers trade on their former (in)glorious past or re-form to trot out the old tropes and phlegm for fans, Wire have rarely looked back and moved on from those three cornerstone albums in the late Seventies: Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154. They might have faltered from time to time, and reduced then expanded their membership, but they never really... > Read more
Short Elevated Period
Daniel Brandt: Eternal Something (Erased Tapes/Southbound)
3 Apr 2017 | <1 min read
On our favourite arthouse-cum-ambient label Erased Tapes comes this instrumental debut by the percussionist/multi-instrumentalist Brandt who is also the co-founder of Germany's Brandt Brauer Frick, an electroacoustic group which brought their classical music sensibilities to their sonic landscapes. For this project Brandt says his initial idea was an album purely on cymbals –... > Read more
Casa Fiesta
The Map Room: Weatherless (themaproomband.com/Aeroplane)
3 Apr 2017 | 1 min read
Elsewhere embraced the debut All You'll Ever Find by the Map Room – Brendon Morrow and Simon Gooding – two years ago for being that rare thing in New Zealand's musical landscape: adult and crafted songs which were intelligent, memorable and floated past on keen-eared pop structures and acoustic guitars. In our world of indie.alt.quirky bands trying to find their point of... > Read more