Music at Elsewhere
These pages - sometimes with sample tracks and videos posted - introduce and review music which may otherwise go unheard and unnoticed. Subscribers to Elsewhere (free, here) receive a weekly e-newsletter with updates on what's new at the ever-expanding site. Elsewhere: an equal opportunity enjoyer. So enjoy.
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Daily J: Scatterbrains (digital outlets)
21 Feb 2025 | <1 min read
With a band name designed to induce a knowing smile, guitar-driven pop which is breezily conventional (verse/chorus) and an album which collects together previous singles and frontloads them, this one gets a tailwind straight away. The band of three brothers – Jayden, Johnny and Jeese Paul with their mate Rick Everard – have a keen pop sensibility (Go With the Flow) and,... > Read more
Dead Gowns: It's Summer, I Love You . . . (digital outlets)
17 Feb 2025 | <1 min read
The full title of this debut album by Maine-based singer-songwriter Genevieve Beaudoin is It's Summer, I Love You and I'm Surrounded by Snow. And that dichotomy of sun and snow is apt on album which should appeal to those who like their alt.folk with a bit of grit, darkness and raw-edge electric guitars in places. Beaudois can deliver with an engrossing weariness which is palpable (the... > Read more
Swimmer
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Various Artists: Eccentric Soul; The Cobra Label (vinyl/digital outlets)
17 Feb 2025 | <1 min read
We draw attention to this terrific compilation of sixties Tex-Mex, rock'n'soul music because the 28 songs have been issued across double vinyl and digitally. From the opening Spanish-language Wooleh Booleh by Sonny Ace and the Twisters (more familiar in the Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs version) and Searchin' popular with Merseyside bands (here by Texans Mike and the Belairs with Nyolia... > Read more
I Don't Want No Woman, by Little Henry and the Laveers
Thala: Avalanche (Fire/digital outlets)
17 Feb 2025 | <1 min read
The highly productive and still active Juliana Hatfield (Lemonheads, numerous short-lived bands and projects) might take umbrage with the publicity for this second album by Berlin-based Thala: the songs are described as “like a modern day Juliana Hatfield”. The queen is dead, long live the queen? Other references given are Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star) and Japanese Breakfast.... > Read more
Body to You
Rose City Band: Sol Y Sombra (digital outlets)
10 Feb 2025 | <1 min read
We came upon this band out of Portland – who define the description “mellow” – by chance a while back and their 2023 Garden Party album became a go-to CD for car journeys of some length. This new album of quiet country-rock, pedal steel-coloured material is more of the same if slightly less so in that the pulse is just slightly slower for the most part. But if... > Read more
Radio Song
Matthew Bannister: The Dark Backwards (Powertools/digital outlets)
10 Feb 2025 | 2 min read
No one could accuse Matthew Bannister of lallygagging around. His resume includes albums with Sneaky Feelings, The Dribbling Darts of Love, The Changing Same, The Weather, releases as One Man Bannister and under his own name, a couple of books (his memoir of his Flying Nun days and an analysis of the album Songs from the Front Lawn), various academic papers . . . Much of this in... > Read more
Hearts Don't Keep
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Frank Black: Teenager of the Year (digital outlets/vinyl)
9 Feb 2025 | 2 min read
The programme for releasing albums is much the same as it ever was: a drip-feed of singles, promotion and PR swing into action, interviews . . . The biggest difference between now and five or six decades ago are the use of diverse social media and the number of digital platforms to release on. Two things which cannot be factored in or predicted are . . . timing and luck. The best... > Read more
Sir Rockaby
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Peel Dream Magazine: Modern Meta Physic (digital outlets)
7 Feb 2025 | <1 min read
Because we accidentally stumbled on this LA band's last album Rose Main Reading Room late last year (“a lovely headphones album which embraces you gently”) we have been immediately drawn to this expanded reissue of their 2018 album which includes new songs and half a dozen demos. Somewhere between Stereolab, ambient German bands (Neu!, Can), minimalism and the laidback... > Read more
Deetjens
FKA Twigs: Eusexua (digital outlets)
3 Feb 2025 | 1 min read
Well, if it's good enough for William Shakespeare to make up words then I guess pop stars can do it too. Charli XCX redefined “brat” for us – although it hasn't caught on as widely as Bill's bedroom, fashionable, scuffle, cold-blooded and about 1700 other words. But here comes FKA Twigs who has coined “eusexua” to mean some kind of extremely deep feeling or... > Read more
Drums of Death
The Weather Station: Humanhood (digital outlets)
2 Feb 2025 | 1 min read
This is a much anticipated album given Canada's Tamara Lindeman (AKA The Weather Station) appeared as one of our best of 2021 albums with the beautifully arranged Ignorance which explored literal and existential loss brought on by the disconnect between Nature and humanity. It won considerable critical acclaim but somewhat overlooked was the introspective piano-led companion album... > Read more
Humanhood
Lemonheads: Car Button Cloth (double vinyl reissue/digital outlets)
24 Jan 2025 | 2 min read
Until he became a bit of an embarrassment to himself – I have a story about him trying to score on tour here, a week or so after he'd assured me he was clean – you had to admire Evan Dando of the Lemonheads. He shaped the sound of melodic indie.rock in the Nineties alongside Buffalo Tom, REM, Grant Lee Buffalo and others, and he was kinda fun. When I interviewed him in the... > Read more
I Don't Want to Go Home
Chris Prosser: Tune Spree – On 2 Violins (Rongotai Records/digital outlets)
24 Jan 2025 | <1 min read
With the economy of the Ramones, violinist Chris Prosser – who came to attention as half of Besser and Prosser with the late composer/pianist Jonathan Besser – here manages to get 39 pieces on one CD. Now if that sounds like a lot of short fiddle pieces where he duets and duels with himself you'd be right. But Prosser is smart enough to lean into various dances and... > Read more
Musicking
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Search for Yeti: Dark So Soon (digital outlets/vinyl)
20 Jan 2025 | 2 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one by a three-piece from Wellington/Te Whanganui a Tara which comes in a gatefold sleeve with lyrics and extensive liner notes (including the names of scores of people who joined their PledgeMe fundraising effort) and on coloured vinyl. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record... > Read more
What You Mean to Me
Corrella: Skeletons (digital outlets)
20 Jan 2025 | <1 min read
The Blue Eyed Māori hitmakers return with an album which ticks the boxes between reggae and soul but neatly weaves through social observation and jazzy horns (the smart Power), politics plus yacht rock (the less than subtle Cookie), reggae on the march (War with “I shouldn't want to fight no more, but in the end, it's always been this way”) and moments of quiet reflection... > Read more
War
Mokotron: Waerea (digital outlets/vinyl)
23 Dec 2024 | 1 min read
Many decades ago the great Irish singer-songwriter Christy Moore – no stranger to the bottle – said something like this about the Pogues: “Great, just what the world needs, another bunch of drunk Irishmen”. As someone who'd seen how the world responded -- embracing the image of the chaotically boozy band -- you can understand his frustration. But Moore admired... > Read more
Reo Totahi
Michael Kiwanuka: Small Changes
20 Dec 2024 | <1 min read
In one of those blink-and-miss it cameos, British soul singer Kiwanukahad momentary cameo in the Danny Boyle-Richard Curtis 2019 film Yesterday. Not that he needed the publicity, it arrived the same year his self-titled third album picked up the Mercury Prize. London-born to Ugandan immigrants, he had worked in studio sessions, released a couple of EPs, then came out the gates fast and... > Read more
Follow Your Dreams
Wendyhouse: Puddlekopf (digital outlets)
9 Dec 2024 | 1 min read
More than 25 years ago I heard an album by the slightly challenging but enjoyable avant-garde/literary-cum-music group Wendyhouse out of Wellington which used samples, spoken word and noise. I sent off my $15 and joined their fan club and received some little handmade magazines and such. It was kinda fun. But I lost touch with them until Bryce Galloway (who may be Mr Pudding) got in... > Read more
Meltflakes Pop
Various Artists: Reaction: The Label 1979-1989 (Frenzy Music)
9 Dec 2024 | 2 min read
Alongside the on-going celebration of Flying Nun (through new albums and vinyl reissues), Rob Mayes making more and more albums on his Failsafe label available and Peter McLennan's excellent book on the Deepgrooves label (although the music remains frustratingly unavailable), there are whole areas of New Zealand music being brought back to attention, notably through the independent labels which... > Read more
Forever Tuesday Morning, by the Mockers
Beth Hart: You Still Got Me (digital outlets)
2 Dec 2024 | 1 min read
When the big voiced blues-rock belter Beth Hart came to this country in 2000 on a promotional tour, we pushed her LA Song to the top of our charts, her first number one anywhere. To be honest I don't remember the song that much but I certainly remember her. As I said in my interview at the time, “On what felt like one of Auckland's most humid days of the year, Los Angeles-based... > Read more
Wonderful World
Kim Deal: Nobody Loves You More (digital outlets)
2 Dec 2024 | 1 min read
Many years ago the British music writer Pete Frame would produce meticulously researched Rock Family Trees tracing the various comings and goings in scenes and bands, creating vast branches for groups like Fleetwood Mac. If he ever did the influential Pixies branches would include the career of bassist Kim Deal who later founded the Breeders (with Tanya Donnelly of Throwing Muses), then... > Read more