The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
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THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE WORLD MUSIC QUESTIONNAIRE: Marina Satti
26 Feb 2020 | 2 min read
One of the highlights – probably unexpected – at this year's Womad (see details below) will be Greek singer/performer Marina Satti and her polyphonic group Fones. They play on the opening and closing nights. Satti has a deep love of theatre, design and song. Her upbeat track Mantissa became an anthem of hope in the Northern summer of 2017 and the accompanying... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE WORLD MUSIC QUESTIONNAIRE: Francis R Cambuzat of Ifriqiyya Electrique
25 Feb 2020 | 3 min read
As Womad arrives on the doorstep of Taranaki in March (dates and details below) we are pleased to introduce another group playing there, Ifriqiyya Electrique who bring the sounds of the electric sub-Sahara in their hypnotic trance music. Formed in southern Tunisia and recording now for the wonderful Glitterbeat label, they are bound to be one of the highlights of the weekend. As they... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE HIGHLY PERSONAL QUESTIONNAIRE: Marina Bloom
26 Jan 2020 | 5 min read
Here's a thought, if Marina Bloom's new album Back Where We Started had come out 20 or 30 years ago half the songs would be all over Classic Hits radio these days. She taps that same classic rock/big ballad/Taupin and Elton well of songs which have big choruses, memorable hooks, rock plus orchestration and so on. Bloom comes with an interesting backstory, some of which she tells us... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE HIGHLY PERSONAL QUESTIONNAIRE: Jackie Bristow
23 Jan 2020 | 6 min read
Singer-songwriter Jackie Bristow has appeared at Elsewhere many times for her consistently strong albums which exist comfortably in the country-rock/alt.country territory. Hardly surprising given she has lived and worked in Nashville, Texas for so long that perhaps many people wouldn't recognise her as a New Zealand artist. But her song Rollin' Stone from her excellent Shot of... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE WORLD MUSIC QUESTIONNAIRE: Seckou Keita
9 Dec 2019 | 2 min read
The extraordinarily gifted kora player Seckou Keita from Senegal has delivered a couple of Elsewhere's favourite albums on that warm instrument, notably 22 Strings of four years ago. In recent times he has paired with the Welsh harp player Catrin Finch for award-winning music which bridges the geographic divide by finding common space in beautiful melodies. The duo are scheduled to... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Olivia Foa'i
11 Nov 2019 | 4 min read
Some people rebel against their parents and become musicians, the only way a young Olivia Foa'i could have rebelled would by saying she was going to be a real estate agent. She grew up with music in the Te Vaka family of singers, dancers and songwriters, the waka/vaka helmed by her father Opetaia Foa'i. The Te Vaka story is extraordinary: taking a vision of pan-Pacific music to the... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE HIGHLY PERSONAL QUESTIONNAIRE: Pikachunes
31 Oct 2019 | 4 min read
The cleverly named Pikachunes is handsomely named Miles G McDougall originally from Christchurch who admits that his new EP wittily entitled PE (Physical Education) comes after a period of self-exploration following “peak drug and alcohol consumption” around the time of his 2017 album. So there a feeling of joy and catharsis about PE, but the quirky pop is still bent into... > Read more
Don't Cry
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE HIGHLY PERSONAL QUESTIONNAIRE: Vorn Colgan
28 Oct 2019 | 8 min read
Many years ago we threw a mainstream Questionnaire at the enormously gifted multi-instrumentalist Vorn Colgan of the band Vorn because not only did he make great music but we guessed he'd have something intelligent and/or witty to say. And he didn't disappoint. What is disappointing though is the announcement that after eight albums and about 20 years Vorn (the band) seem to be... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Byron Asher
28 Oct 2019 | 3 min read
New Orleans-based jazz saxophonist/composer Byron Asher arrives with his new album Skrontch Music trailing considerable credits. A quick look through press comments about his previous work compares him with the melodic invention of Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman with flavours of Dexter Gordon. Although raised in Maryland and having performed in Europe (Germany,... > Read more
Elegy
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE HIGHLY PERSONAL QUESTIONNAIRE: Sneaky Bones
26 Oct 2019 | 6 min read
The US singer-songwriter Matthew Bean aka Sneaky Bones has been to New Zealand previously, back in early 2018 he brought his pleasant folk and gentle rock sound to venues on a solo tour. But when he returns in November (dates below) he's out on there on back of a new album Strangers I've Already Met and brings along bassist/guitarist Austin Webb and drummer Marshal Wildman. The title of... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITERS' QUESTIONNAIRE: Joshua Hedley
10 Oct 2019 | 3 min read
Although only his mid Thirties, fiddle player Joshua Hedley who appears at this year's Southern Fork Americana Festival at the Tuning Fork in Auckland (see details below) has got a lot of road miles on him already. He got his first violin when he was 8 and at 12 was playing with older country musicians around his hometown of Naples in Florida. Before he was 20 he'd relocated to... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Mousey
4 Oct 2019 | 2 min read
Mousey is Sarena Close from Christchurch and even before the release of her pop-rock debut album Lemon Law (out today) she was someone many people were talking about. Not long after the release of her debut single Extreme Highs – which is on the 12 song album alongside her three subsequent singles – she found herself on the long list for Silver Scroll nominees and she was a... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE INNOVATOR'S QUESTIONNAIRE: Che Chen of 75 Dollar Bill
30 Sep 2019 | 5 min read
Since the week after our review back in July, one album has lodged itself in our Favourite Five Recent Releases page. That is the longest any album has remained there in lifespan of Elsewhere, which now reaches beyond 15 years. The album is I Was Real by 75 Dollar Bill, an innovative, genre-denying group from New York around guitarist Che Chen and percussion player Rick Brown. In... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE HIGHLY PERSONAL QUESTIONNAIRE: Aly Cook
30 Sep 2019 | 4 min read
Two years ago New Zealand singer-songwriter and self-starter Aly Cook from Nelson picked up the International Country Music Artist of the Year award . . . in Tasmania. Yes, she she has been nominated for a number of awards in New Zealand (five country music awards, won one, an APRA Silver Scroll nomination) but Australia has really embraced her. The same year she picked up that... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITER QUESTIONNAIRE: Danny McCrum
30 Sep 2019 | 4 min read
Auckland singer-songwriter Danny McCrum has plenty of notches on the neck of his guitar: opening for Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck among them. But rather than bore you again with all his accolades and experience, or mention his three previous albums under his own name (which Elsewhere has reviewed starting here), let's just cut to the chase. He has a new album out Hustle Bustle, which we... > Read more
Skin
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE HIGHLY PERSONAL QUESTIONNAIRE: Angie McMahon
29 Sep 2019 | 4 min read
Melbourne's Angie McMahon won a few awards before she even releasing her first single. In her late teens she won a competition to open for Bon Jovi and then a mentorship for an unsigned musician in 2017. Five of her six singles (her first Slow Mover in '17 certified gold in Australia and nominated for the APRA song of the year) appear on her impressive debut album Salt about which we said... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE TEACHERS' QUESTIONNAIRE: Jane Egan of Gisborne Girls High School
21 Sep 2019 | 4 min read
When the organisers of last year's annual Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards were considering the landscape of local music they wanted the awards to acknowledge the past, the present and the future. The past is taken care of with the winner of the Legacy Award, the present is acknowledged on the night and the future is . . . Well, that is largely in the hands of the... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE SONGWRITER QUESTIONNAIRE: Timothy Blackman
13 Sep 2019 | 2 min read
Singer-songwriter Timothy Blackman has appeared at Elsewhere previously with an EP and then the album I've Never Lived. We missed another album but he's back again with a new album Brightest Days, his first in eight years and written on the East Cape and then back in Wellington. It was recorded and mixed in a DIY manner by Brooke Singer (French for Rabbits) in her Brooklyn, Wellington... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Tamara Murphy of Spirograph Studies
30 Aug 2019 | 4 min read
Melbourne bassist Tamara Murphy is the writer/leader of the jazz group Spirograph Studies. In 2011 she won the inaugural PBS Young Elder of Jazz Commission for the creation and presentation of the work Big Creatures and Little Creatures with her ensemble, Murphy’s Law. On release in 2012 it was nominated for The Age's Genre Music Awards and Murphy’s Law also... > Read more
Kindness Not Courtesy
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE INNOVATORS' QUESTIONNAIRE: Gianmarco Liguori
23 Aug 2019 | 4 min read
Guitarist/composer Gianmarco Liguori is also the prime mover behind Auckland's Sarang Bang record label which has released a startling array of everything from left-field pop-rock to out-there improvised music by the late Murray McNabb. The Sarang Bang catalogue (see here, much of it available on vinyl) embraces music which challenges and rewards in equal measure, and the most recent... > Read more