THE MAGAZINE FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE
Elsewhere is a concept and a place, and Graham Reid goes there for his wide angle travels, writing, music review and interviews with writers, musicians and artists.
Elsewhere is an on-line magazine for new music (we filter out the mundane and spotlight the more interesting albums), different travel, arts and more. It is dedicated to the diversity and possibilities of Elsewhere. It's an equal opportunity enjoyer. Subscribe here (it's free) for a weekly newsletter. Welcome . . .
Latest posts
KINGMAKER by SONIA PURNELL
28 Oct 2024 | 5 min read
Pamela Digby did not marry well but she did, in a way, marry wisely. Everyone warned her off Randolph whom she had only been with a few times before she agreed to his proposal. Both wanted marriage: she because as a plain, dumpy redhead who had been passed over in her coming-out season; he because with the war coming he wanted to sire a son before he was sent off.... > Read more
THE TURTLES REVISITED (2024): Sometimes it ain't them babe
28 Oct 2024 | 6 min read | 1
It hasn't been uncommon for musicians or bands to hide behind another name. The Beatles briefly flirted with the idea for an album before they ran out of energy for it (“We're Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band . . .”) and in the early Seventies the late Leon Russell recorded a very credible country album as Hank Wilson. And, although it was obviously... > Read more
Grim Reaper of Love
The King: Come As You Are (1998)
28 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
Although there aren't Elvis sighting in gas stations and supermarkets any more, there is still no shortage of lookalikes and impersonators around. While there seems no great call for Kurt Cobain and Mama Cass impersonators, those who swish their hair back and sneer a little seem to be always out there. One week I interviewed two of them and within days I had... > Read more
The Smile: Cutouts (digital outlets)
28 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
It only seems like yesterday (it was January) when we wrote about the new album by The Smile -- the band of Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood with drummer Tom Skinner – and acclaiming it as very strong independent entity outside the Yorke-Greenwood's original outfit Radiohead. That album Wall of Eyes (when added to their debut A Light For Attracting Attention) drew us to... > Read more
Instant Psalm
Jim Nothing: Grey Eyes, Grey Lynn (digital outlets)
28 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
It is no exaggeration to say that every week Elsewhere sees half a dozen singles from new young local artists being highly touted and almost the same number of album from those who have just started to make an impression. “It's a hard world to get a break in”, as the song says and unfortunately we'd observe the overselling a young artists' talents by... > Read more
Raleigh Arena
The Hard Quartet, The Hard Quartet (digital outlets)
28 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
It's strange to remember a time when musicians couldn't just guest on other people's albums, like Eric Clapton having to go uncredited on While My Guitar Gently Weeps and George Harrison appearing under a pseudonym on the Eric/Blind Faith album. These days rock is much more like jazz where players move to new bands, configurations or fellow travellers to extend... > Read more
Our Hometown Boy
THOM YORKE, REVIEWED (2024): The master conjures up solo magic
26 Oct 2024 | 3 min read
Just as the internet giveth, so it taketh away. It isn't uncommon for concert-goers to look up an artist's setlist before a show but, in my opinion, that takes away the element of surprise. Big acts doing stadia shows are dependent on co-ordinated lighting and effects, and those crouching guys in black who run on carrying another guitar. So the set list on the tour... > Read more
IS THIS THE MOST ANNOYING SONG EVER? (2024): The horror, the horror
24 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
As we've mentioned previously, there's no point in asking people to name the worst song ever because someone who thinks they are being clever will say “Anything by Taylor Swift”. These are people who generally don't listen to anything by Taylor Swift but recoil from her success. Previous generations have done it with Madonna, U2 and – back in my... > Read more
Favourite Five Recent Releases
Primitive Art Group: Primitive Art Group 1981-1986 (Amish Records/digital outlets)
21 Oct 2024 | 3 min read
From the late Seventies to the mid-Eighties, the Primitive Art Group in Wellington carried the banner for improvised music sometimes, often erroneously, referred to as free jazz. Because they didn't tour and their albums – as well as records from the numerous spin-off projects by the group's five members – were in limited editions (300 copies), they didn't... > Read more
Lannie's Revenge
Duo Falak: Tira-Tira (digital outlets)
21 Oct 2024 | <1 min read
This could look a bit forbidding on paper but this half hour improvisation recorded in Tashkent by Russian guitarist Denis Sorokin and percussionist Shohin Qurbon should have considerable appeal for acoustic guitarists, those who like their jazz a bit different and anyone curious about world music. Some background then: the musicians interpret traditional Falak... > Read more
Tira-Tira Part 6
The Linda Lindas: No Obligation (digital outlets)
21 Oct 2024 | <1 min read
Few would claim this all-women quartet from California -- most of them stall in school -- do much that is original. But their enthusiastic, sometimes bratty, pop is infectious, works some familiar tropes with enthusiasm and they carve out some very good songs, usually with something to say. It's punk, power pop and just enough New Wave (Blondie) in the melodies to make... > Read more
Don't Think
Mr Blackwatch: Mary, Me (digital outlets)
21 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
So why not a concept album in 2024? The idea has been steadily coming back (Steven Wilson and others in the nu-prog arena) and this one by Doug Mackey out of Tacoma is certainly a handsome double CD package in a gatefold cover with a liner note by the “Rev Loren Skaggs” about how the Mary of the title had to escape her family and life on the farm in a small... > Read more
Hampton's Freezer
Corben Simpson: The Collection (Frenzy)
21 Oct 2024 | 2 min read
In some circles singer/songwriter Corben Simpson is best know – and perhaps only known – for his hippie-era hit Dance Around the World based on a Margaret Mahy story and which was a finalist in the Loxene Gold Disc Awards in 1972. Others can add more to that: he was a member of the Blerta and appeared naked at the 1973 Ngaruawahia festival. But his story... > Read more
Dance All Around the World
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Dr Tree, Dr Tree (WallenBink)
21 Oct 2024 | 3 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes as a double with an extra record of previously unreleased material, in a gatefold sleeve with important liner notes and credits. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . Given the resurgence of jazz in the Seventies... > Read more
Revulva: Revulva (digital outlets)
21 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
Even more so than “pop” or “rock” -- and vastly more than “reggae” -- the word jazz is immune to easy definition. It contains multitudes. The form known as jazz has been around more than a century and is constantly changing shape, drawing more threads into its complex weave and is as comfortable at adopting world music as it is... > Read more
Bush Bash
Leonard Cohen: Because of (2004)
21 Oct 2024 | <1 min read | 1
The equation seems simple: Leonard Cohen (the self-described "ladies man") + women + bed = But of course nothing was ever quite that straightforward with a Jewish Zen Buddhist poet-cum-singer and unlikely sex symbol even his mid 70s. Here with amusing self-effacement he confronts aging, his reputation, plays with images of "naked" women... > Read more
Favourite Five Recent Releases
Courtnay and the Unholy Reverie: Mercy (digital outlets)
18 Oct 2024 | 2 min read | 1
Every now and again when Elsewhere discovers an album which has been out there for a little while – up to a month maybe – we review it as ONE WE MISSED. Perhaps we also need to do something similar about those we get to very early, like singer/songwriter and blistering guitarist Courtnay Lowe out of Taranaki. She first came to our attention in March on... > Read more
Lost at Sea
ADDITIONAL PROVOCATIONS OF RATTLES (2024): The wide river of new Rattle releases.
18 Oct 2024 | 2 min read
As we have noted in previous Provocation/Provocations of Rattles columns, the Auckland label releases albums at such a rate it is often impossible to keep up. This year has been a quiet one however, just one or two releases in the first six months, but suddenly a small slew have been released by Rattle, the local label we consider to be one of the most... > Read more
Nubya Garcia, Odyssey (Concord/digital outlets)
14 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
It seems a very long time since this exceptional British saxophonist's 2020 debut album Source, which was in our best of the year releases. Her music has undergone numerous remixes (one by Mark de Clive-Lowe) and she's done guest spots (Nala Sinephro, Ezra Collective among them), but this ambitious album is a step in a different but equally rewarding direction. On... > Read more
Set It Free (ft Richie)
ADVENTURES IN MODERN RECORDING by TREVOR HORN
14 Oct 2024 | 2 min read
Acclaimed and award-winning producer Trevor Horn probably long ago resigned himself to the fact that the first paragraph of his obituaries would invariably mention Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles. It was a massive one-off hit for Horn and others, a studio band which never played live but – with the video which was the first played on the new MTV channel... > Read more