Music at Elsewhere
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Shana Cleveland: Manzanita (digital outlets)
2 Apr 2023 | 1 min read
Reviewers of this intimate folk album by California-based Shana Cleveland invariably mention she leads the indie surf rock band La Luz, implying she's moved from the twang'n'tremolo sound of West Coast surf groups as she embraced British folk artists of the late 60s and early 70s. However 2021's self-titled La Luz album was a thoughtful affair, some distance from their earlier sound and... > Read more
Van Morrison: Moving On Skiffle (digital outlets)
2 Apr 2023 | <1 min read
The master of Celtic soul from the late 60s into the 80s subsequently alienated his audience with decades of disappointing albums. More recently his curmudgeonly, often spiteful, persona morphed into conspiracy nonsense and bizarre pronouncements about Covid restrictions, so it's hard for many to return to him with goodwill. Van Morrison is best when reaching for the spiritual sky or... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Aftab, Iyer and Ismaily: Love in Exile (Verve/digital outlets)
31 Mar 2023 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes as a double album in a gatefold sleeve. No download code unfortunately. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . When Arooj Aftab's album Vulture Prince appeared in 2021 it so utterly seduced Elsewhere that we made one of our year's best albums (we... > Read more
To Remain To Return
Andy White and Tim Finn: AT (Floating World/digital outlets)
31 Mar 2023 | 1 min read
Tim Finn's past has been very present in recent years: the 2021 album Caught by the Heart with Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera (who produced Split Enz' '76 album Second Thoughts); the '22 expanded double vinyl reissue of the 1995 Finn Brothers album (which reminded what a fine collection it was and important in both Neil and Tim's separate careers) and the Forenzics' Shades and Echoes... > Read more
Extra Virgin Orchestra: Dust of Angels (digital outlets)
30 Mar 2023 | 1 min read
Behind this amusingly whimsical band name are some serious talents: multi-instrumentalists David Bowater and Rob Sinclair were in Schtung in the late Seventies then Big Sideways and 3 Voices in the Eighties and much more recently delivered the quirky Price of Fish album. Also here are classical composer Helen Bowater (piano, vocals) and lyric writer Andrew Caldwell. Needless to say... > Read more
Humans Are Stupid
Unknown Mortal Orchestra: V (digital outlets)
26 Mar 2023 | 2 min read
To begin at the far end. The final track, Drag, on Ruban Nielson's Unknown Mortal Orchestra album V is a loose, six minute jam. It's of the kind you'd expect to hear on a bootleg of the early 80s Stones in a New York studio as Nielson, his brother Kody on drums and bassist Jake Portrait close this double album with a lazy, funky bluesy shuffle. It's a wayward journey to this point, the... > Read more
Lankum: False Lankum (Rough Trade/digital outlets)
25 Mar 2023 | 1 min read | 1
One of Elsewhere's best of 2019 albums was The Livelong Day by Ireland's exceptional trad-cum-alt-folk outfit Lankum. And that's from one who doesn't naturally gravitate towards the folk genre. But Lankum's compelling drone (closer to Velvet Underground than hey-nonny songs) and their pulling apart of the traditional Wild Rover was, and remains, enthralling. That Velvets... > Read more
The New York Trader
An Arrow Made of Air: An Arrow Made of Air (digital outlets)
20 Mar 2023 | 2 min read
We wish luck to those trying to keep up with the output of Auckland-based musician and facilitator Paul McLaney. Aside from albums under his own name, those with his band Gramsci (their first three albums just released on enticing vinyl), his online project as The Impending Adorations and whatever else, now comes An Arrow Made of Air, a duet with Wellington's Oscar West... > Read more
A Slow Burning Flame
Guy Wishart: Where the Water Runs Through (Rattle/digital outlets)
20 Mar 2023 | 1 min read
Auckland's Rattle label has had more than 30 years of releasing innovative contemporary classical and avant-garde music, taonga puoro albums as well as jazz, innovative electro-acoustic sounds and . . . Easier perhaps to say what Rattle hasn't released (rock, reggae). Singer-songwriters haven't been in the label's orbit, but then in 2021 it went with the 9 Rooms album by... > Read more
Someday Soon
Surf Friends: Sonic Waves (Flying Nun/bandcamp)
17 Mar 2023 | 1 min read
When we reviewed Surf Friends' 2010 debut album Confusion – by Auckland's Brad Coley/Mark Westmoreland duo – we noted their unashamed influences from the Clean and the Chills (“whose sound they effectively hijack completely for some tracks”) although concluded “there is also more than enough hints and suggestions of various possible directions... > Read more
Dreaming
Mice on Stilts: I Am Proud of You (digital outlets)
13 Mar 2023 | 1 min read
Ben Morley of this Auckland-based band is honest enough to admit it's been a while since their last album. True, we wrote about their previous Hope For a Mourning back in 2016 and were very impressed by it's gentle folk-prog aspects and musical ambition. The band (and singer-writer Morley) were exceptionally accomplished with a guiding intelligence which kept the worst tendencies... > Read more
Devotion Decline
The Loving Arms: Dreaming Over You (Ghost Records/bandcamp)
13 Mar 2023 | 1 min read
In a recent Facebook post an enthusiastic fan described this Auckland band as “the National meets Neil Young meets the Magic Numbers”. For those who only got two of those three references, the Magic Numbers were an excellent, melodic British band who enjoyed considerable popularity and acclaim in the early-to-mid 2000s and, although still out there, have seen diminishing sales... > Read more
Running Club: Beach Glass (digital outlets)
10 Mar 2023 | 1 min read
The duo who are Running Club quickly come up for attention because of who they are and what they've done so far: they are Steve Reay (of the sonically dense Subliminals, the dark but short-lived Americana band The Haints of Dean Hall) and artistic polymath Blair Parkes (All Fall Down, The Letter 5, Creeley and others, plus solo projects). This debut album is a fascinating... > Read more
Some Distance
US Girls: Bless This Mess (4AD/digital outlets)
6 Mar 2023 | 1 min read
Meg Remy (aka US Girls) offers an aural history lesson as she once again – on this, her eighth album – taps into a smart and immediately enjoyable selection of historical genres and makes them fresh and fun. So here -- following her terrific Heavy Light of three years ago – we have echoes of the Seventies beamed in for some smooth R'n'B yacht-rock (Only... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: The Veils: And Out of the Void Came Love (digital outlets)
6 Mar 2023 | 2 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes as a double album set on clear vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with lyrics. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . Many musicians delivering post-lockdown albums tell of enduring emotional isolation during Covid and being unable to earn from live... > Read more
ONE WE MISSED. Wayne Gillespie and Famous Blue Raincoat: Frazz (digital outlets)
6 Mar 2023 | 1 min read | 3
We missed this album when it was released last year because, if memory serves, we were felled by a long-Covid hangover and RSV. Getting up was hard enough, getting to the stereo and desk almost impossible. But no matter because Australia-based Gillespie – a former Kiwi with a fine reputation as a singer-songwriter – is touring here in June. So we're pleased now to be able to... > Read more
Slow Down (with Brendan Power)
Joe Henry: All The Eye Can See (digital outlets)
26 Feb 2023 | <1 min read
Although singer, songwriter and producer Joe Henry hasn't won as many Grammys as his sister-in-law Madonna (three for his production work, to her seven), he enjoys wide acclaim from illustrious peers and those he's produced, a diverse list which includes Joan Baez, Bonnie Raitt, Allen Toussaint with Elvis Costello, Billy Bragg, Salif Keita and Solomon Burke. Although often described as... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Young Fathers: Heavy Heavy (Ninja Tune/digital outlets)
26 Feb 2023 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes as a single album with a large fold-out poster with the (necessary) lyrics. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . Trying to decode Edinburgh-based trio Young Fathers' third album is akin to peering into a kaleidoscope and attempting to describe... > Read more
Drum
Julian Reid: Julian Reid (digital outlets)
25 Feb 2023 | 1 min read
In the many decades I wrote for the New Zealand Herald – as a freelancer, then on staff for 17 years, then freelancing again – I never wrote about my three sons' various bands, even though they toured with Shihad, were regulars at places like Pod and the Powerstation, recorded for Wildside and so on. More fool me, I thought journalistic integrity meant I shouldn't be seen to be... > Read more
Break the Sun
Scalper: The Shine (digital outlets)
24 Feb 2023 | 2 min read
Many years ago when his name was well known, I did an interview with the very funny and smart Thomas Dolby who'd enjoyed a hit with the catchy She Blinded Me With Science. He'd abandoned England to live and work in the States and gave an interesting reason: in England people expect Morrissey to be miserable all the time but in the US they know the difference between the artist and the act.... > Read more