Music at Elsewhere
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Carnivorous Plant Society: Carnivorous Plant Society (bandcamp)
16 Jan 2014 | <1 min read
Drawing on everything from cool and classic Miles Davis, sci-fi, Mexican music, Spaghetti Westerns and ambient sounds, this large ensemble lead by Auckland horn and keyboard player Finn Scholes (who also did the cover art and animated videos) doesn't exactly try to be all things to all people. But you can imagine listeners with catholic tastes and a disposition to the unexpected would... > Read more
ADND
National Wake: Walk in Africa 1979-81(Light in the Attic/Southbound)
14 Jan 2014 | 1 min read
Although the unearthing of long forgotten -- if ever-known -- bands, genres and marginal artists has become the norm these days (another week, another cult artist you'd "always been into"?) it has to be said every now and again something comes along you sit up and pay attention to. So it is with this mixed-race band which formed and briefly played during South Africa's... > Read more
Mercenaries
THE BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2013: THE EDITOR'S TOP 30
11 Dec 2013 | 9 min read | 8
By my approximate count, Elsewhere has written reviews or overviews on about 200 albums this past year (mostly new releases but also reissues, compilations and so on). Most of those reviews appeared at Music from Elsewhere, but -- given this is Elsewhere -- there were also some others under World Music, Jazz, Reggae and Blues. And when it came to box set reissues or the like, they got some... > Read more
THE BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2013: READERS' PICKS
11 Dec 2013 | <1 min read | 12
Okay, as editor of Elsewhere I have had my say on the 30 best albums I wrote about this past year (here) -- while freely conceding I did not, could not, hear everything. (Yes, yes the Arctic Monkeys didn't get reviewed ay Elsewhere . . . because it came out when I was in India and incommunicado.) Doubtless you heard some music which moved you and wish to tell others about. Here is... > Read more
THE BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2013: THE YEAR IN REISSUES
11 Dec 2013 | 4 min read | 1
So how long is the history of the music which appears at Elsewhere? Well, it has been 60 years since Elvis Presley first crossed the threshold of Sun Studio in Memphis and Charlie Parker played at Massey Hall in Toronto with Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Max Roach and Bud Powell; 50 years since the Rolling Stones started pulling crowds for their British brand of black blues and the... > Read more
Wooden Shjips: Back to Land (Thrill Jockey/Border)
9 Dec 2013 | <1 min read
Someone clever – probably Laurie Anderson or Brian Eno – said every musical style that ever existed is being played somewhere today. Which accounts for Appalachian death ballads, indie.folk, prog-rock, head-down boogie and psychedelic drone rock from decades ago still finding an audience. Of the latter style, San Francisco's Wooden Shjips explore a sound which is partly... > Read more
These Shadows
The Green Pajamas: November (Green Monkey)
8 Dec 2013 | 2 min read
Because Elsewhere has long been convinced of the special musical gifts of Seattle's Jeff Kelly -- whose band Green Pajamas long parlayed a smart twist on the Beatles' Rain/Paperback Writer period, but with some real dreamy psychedelic touches -- we'll always bring you info on his albums, even if our enthusiasm might go into a chasm. But this is an unusual one. Way back in '88 Kelly had... > Read more
Stephanie Barber
Various Artists: The New York Dolls Heard Them Here First (Ace/Border)
4 Dec 2013 | 1 min read
There are quite a number of these kinds of collections available now -- the music on the imagined jukeboxes of George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, the Cramps etc, and in this series the music which inspired Elvis Presley, the Ramones and Cliff Richard. But this one is interesting because the New York Dolls were so reviled by the mainstream music press in Britain when they arrived... > Read more
Too Much Monkey Business
Richard Bennett: New York City Swara (Times Music)
3 Dec 2013 | 1 min read
This unexpectedly delightful album is pleasingly hard to pigeonhole: a classically trained New York pianist inspired by the classical music of India when his jazz vocalist wife Paula Jeanine went to Mumbai/Bombay to study with renowned singer Dhanashree Pandit-Ra. So this album might just as easily appear under classical music or world music -- and when you learn Bennett has also played... > Read more
Raga Puriya Pat 1/Nightfall
William Onyeabor: Who is William Onyeabor? (Luaka Bop/Southbound)
2 Dec 2013 | <1 min read | 1
In some circles Onyeabor's name is one to drop. In part that might be because of this Nigerian funk and psychedelic soul master's obscurity (this is a hard-won collection of late Seventies to mid-Eighties songs he was reluctant to have reissued) as it is to his spaced-out grooves. And although many of these deftly bantamweight pieces stretch past seven minutes and a few beyond 10,... > Read more
Why Go To War
Filthy Boy: Smile That Won't Go Down (Shock)
2 Dec 2013 | <1 min read
This young London four-piece – which includes twins Paraic and Michael Morrissey (no relation to Morrisseys you know) – may not be genuinely dirty but they certainly deliver a neat line in salaciousness where the rubber glove snaps in a darkened room of discipline, a wife conducts an adulterous affair while her husband waits outside and stories explore sex and fantasies over... > Read more
Spiral Eyes
Paddy Burgin and the Wooden Box Band: Old World (Burgin)
1 Dec 2013 | 1 min read
Wellington guitar maker and musician Burgin has recorded some understated and finely crafted albums of what he calls "Kiwi urban folk" or "unoffical Kiwi folk" and after his 2009 album My Sweet Town we had him answer the Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire here to point to his more recent one Gentle Landings. This time -- again with a reliable cast of equals on bass,... > Read more
Step By Step
Trentemoller: Lost (In My Room/Southbound)
29 Nov 2013 | <1 min read
Aside from deftly peeling off shadowland intimacy on his own albums, Danish electronica artist Trentemoller also crafted one of the best selections in the LateNightTales a couple of years ago (see here) and the sheer number of vocal tracks on it suggested he had a keen ear for seductive and singular singers. This time out a full seven of these 12 tracks feature vocals, opening with the... > Read more
Come Undone
Various Artists: Bob Dylan, Constructing the Legend (BDA/Triton):
27 Nov 2013 | 1 min read
As songs from the Sixties come into public domain (after 50 years) we can expect to see more albums like this. Here, alternating, are Bob Dylan's songs from his debut album released in March 1962 with the songs which inspired them. Given that all but two songs on that original album -- Talkin' New York Blues and Song to Woody -- were covers or adaptations of traditional songs (Man of... > Read more
See That My Grave is Kept Clean
T54: In Brush Park (Flying Nun)
26 Nov 2013 | 1 min read
Although it must be irksome for some of the younger Flying Nun bands to find their music constantly being referred to in the context of their predecesors like the Clean, Chills, Bats and so forth, some (eg Surf Friends' Confusion) invariably invite the comparison. And certainly when this excellent album kicks in with the dreamy Nails Painted and there is a pulsing bassline prominent you... > Read more
Biscuit City Sisters
Jake Bugg: Shangri La (Island)
25 Nov 2013 | 1 min read
Although this follow-up to his self-titled debut of a year ago cannot have the same frisson of discovery, there's no denying the sheer energy on display here as Bugg kicks up some gutsy rockabilly and folk-on-speed originals backed by a tight band . . . and manages to sound like no one else but himself. All those overplayed "new Dylan" references which attended his debut are here... > Read more
Pine Trees
James Reid: Saint (Broken Records)
24 Nov 2013 | 1 min read
It's a measure of the enmity some have towards the Feelers that when it was announced their singer-songwriter James Reid (no relation) had this solo album coming out that some took to Facebook to deride it, without even listening to it. Certainly the inconvenience of having to listen to an album must make it easier to review or hold an opinion, but it's an option which does such people... > Read more
No Horizon
The Drab Doo-Riffs; Home Surgery (Liberation)
18 Nov 2013 | <1 min read
Because Elsewhere has had to adopt a policy of not reviewing EPs (just so many full albums without inviting that particular landslide) Auckland's Drab Doo-Riffs -- three EPs and the vinyl-only Aquatic Ape Theory -- haven't had a mention in these pages. We sneakily rectify that because Home Surgery 2009-2013 is a 17 track compilation of songs pulled from their back-catalogue (five from... > Read more
Tesla Girl
The X-Rays; Booze'n'Speed (Cargo/Southbound)
18 Nov 2013 | <1 min read
Umm, you can perhaps guess the sound of the contents here from the album title alone, but if you need more clues then here are some of the titles of the 26 flat-tack, lo-fi songs: Nitro Burnout, Hittin' the Booze, Trashed Out, Good for Nothing, Dragstrip Killer, Arrogant Fucked-Up Shit, Don't Fear the Repoman (that's funny), Grease Monkety Go, Special Agent Whore . . . We could go on (right... > Read more
Trashed Out
Blitzen Trapper: VII (Shock)
18 Nov 2013 | <1 min read
Curiously, the edgy take Portland's Blitzen Trapper brought to Americana hasn't caught on in this country which embraces Neil Young, Led Zeppelin and singer-songwriters like Steve Earle and Townes Van Zandt, all of whom this five-piece have referred to in the past. Their American Goldwing two years ago should have broken them but didn't, and it's hard to see how this one could given... > Read more