THE MAGAZINE FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE
Elsewhere is a concept and a place, and for many years Graham Reid has been going there for his wide angle travels, writing, music review columns and interviews with writers, musicians and artists.
Elsewhere is an ever-expanding on-line magazine for people curious about new music, different travel, interesting arts and much more. This site is dedicated to the diversity and possibilities of Elsewhere. It is an equal opportunity enjoyer. Subscribe here (it's free) for a weekly newsletter. Welcome . . .
Latest posts
Mdou Moctar: Afrique Victime (Matador/digital outlets)
12 Jun 2021 | 1 min read
Remarkably, it has been more than 15 years since Elsewhere started to write about what has been called “desert blues” or “Sahara blues” out of the Tuareg (and beyond) musicians from the sub-Sahara (and beyond) region of West Africa. Back then we picked Etran Finatawa and Tinariwen albums among our best of the year (and twice more since for the... > Read more
THE GREAT JB HI-FI VINYL MARKDOWN (2021): Darling, can I borrow your credit card?
11 Jun 2021 | 2 min read
And now a word from our sponsor. Not exactly, but JB Hi-Fi has been longtime supporter of Elsewhere and as readers would know we were invited to write a couple of magazines for them: The 2011 Cornerstone Collection of 101 (and more) CDs essential in any decent collection, and then the sequel late last year The JB Hi-Fi Guide to Essential Vinyl. With Record Store Day... > Read more
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The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE HIGHLY PERSONAL QUESTIONNAIRE . . . Louis Baker
11 Jun 2021 | 3 min read
Louis Baker has been one of the country's most feted, awarded and successful artists of the past decade, despite only one album and one EP in that time. He was nominated for three Silver Scroll (songwriting) awards, a couple of Tuis (New Zealand Music Awards) and won a Red Bull scholarship to New York. His smart, sophisticated and soulful style has won him a huge... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Pitch Black: Futureproof (Dubmissions/double vinyl)
11 Jun 2021 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one . . . The electronica duo of Mike Hodgson and Paddy Free have done a remarkable job of keeping their pretty damn wonderful catalogue alive despite Hodgson longtime domiciled in the UK and Free still in Auckland. They have released new albums, rarities and remixes,... > Read more
Elsewhere Art . . . Bob Dylan
10 Jun 2021 | <1 min read
It's hardly surprising that Bob Dylan gets dozens of articles at Elsewhere, he's 80 after all and that means not just six decades of music but reviews, overviews and that on-going and sometimes terrific Bootleg Series. Most in that series are interesting if not revelatory, although the Basement Tapes thing has never had me once replay it. However much to my... > Read more
ONE WE MISSED: Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Way Down in the Rust Bucket (Reprise/digital outlets)
10 Jun 2021 | 1 min read | 1
Elsewhere readers will know we blow very hot and bitterly cold on Neil Young's output. So yet another album from his bottomless archive? Hmm. Let's be honest, there have been so many live and home-recorded albums just in the past few years pulled from dusty archives, most of which don't leave much of a lasting impression beyond their playing time. So when we are... > Read more
NBQ: New Bop Quintet (Manu/digital outlets)
9 Jun 2021 | 1 min read
Although jazz morphs and changes as it assimilated other styles and sources, there are few key places it pivots back to, notably the classic bebop era of Monk, Miles and others. That style – born in the Forties and dominant for two decades thereafter – threw out geniuses like Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins and... > Read more
3Up/3Down
Penelope Trappes: Penelope Three (Houndstooth/digital outlets)
8 Jun 2021 | <1 min read
This final installment of an electronica-cum-ambient trilogy by Australian-born, briefly New York-based and current resident in Brighton, doesn't require knowledge of the first two parts. This dark, emotionally cool and sometimes glacially romantic album is about love, reconciliation and closure, and – given that over-arching theme – it floats easily into the... > Read more
TIMO LASSY and TEPPO MAKYNEN, INTRODUCED (2021): A jazz journey in the far north
7 Jun 2021 | 3 min read
A man walks into a record store . . . and that is his first mistake. My excuse was to buy the new Crowded House album on vinyl (always curious to hear what those Finns are up to) and ending up with even more Fins . . . a single album and a double live by the free jazz duo of saxophonist Timo Lassy and drummer Teppo Makynen from Helsinki. Also on handsome vinyl. It... > Read more
EPS by Yasmin Brown
7 Jun 2021 | 5 min read
With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column by the informed and opinionated Yasmin Brown. She will scoop up some of those many EP releases, in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks up albums by New Zealand artists, and IN BRIEF does for international artists. You can read... > Read more
Yoko Ono: Plastic Ono Band (1970)
7 Jun 2021 | 6 min read
Elsewhere has been of the unwavering opinion, ever since this album was released, that is one of the great avant-garde rock'n'roll albums. That's not an opinion widely shared and indeed from the time of its release most others have roundly damned it as being unlistenable. Well, they said that about a lot of great albums so . . . Released as a companion to... > Read more
Why?
Chrissie Hynde: Standing in the Doorway (digital outlets)
7 Jun 2021 | 2 min read
Those wondering about the current tributes to Bob Dylan – who signed his first record contract 60 years ago – needn't look too far for the reason: The man whose self-titled debut album in 1962 sold a paltry 5000 copies just turned 80. Dylan was the poetic songwriter who changed the coordinates of popular music when he introduced contemporary issues (civil... > Read more
KITA, INTRODUCED (2021): The sophisticated pop-jazz continuum
7 Jun 2021 | <1 min read
Wellington's KITA have had a steady upward trajectory since their formation 18 months ago which comes to fruition on their self-titled debut album. They are Taiwan-born, Auckland-raised, soulful singer-songwriter Nikita Tu-Bryant who grew up on rock and R'n'B, studied jazz and has a mainline to intelligent lyrics; DJ, keyboardist and mini-Moog player Ed Zuccollo... > Read more
TEEKS, REVIEWED (2021): Soul to soul, heart to heart
6 Jun 2021 | 4 min read
Sometimes when we're on a long journey we can be so distracted by what's around us that we forget to look back and see how far we've come. So it might be said of this sold-out concert by Teeks at Auckland's Civic Theatre which drew an enormously wide demographic from young Maori and Pasifika to the middle-aged, and even older, Pakeha. Some in that latter group could... > Read more
Elsewhere Art . . . the Beatles
6 Jun 2021 | 1 min read
Because there is a finite number of studio recordings by the Beatles, just for my amusement I sometimes make up my own and write about them under the Absurd Elsewhere page. Given the title of that page and the uttery improbable albums I invent (not all by the Beatles as you may see if you look: Taylor Swift, Lorde and Jimi Hendrix are not immune) it always surprises me... > Read more
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . LORRAINE CROSBY: To Hell, and back to the bingo halls
6 Jun 2021 | 3 min read
When Simon Cowell kicked Lorraine Crosby off the second round of the UK X Factor competition in 2005 saying she lacked “star quality”, he may well have been right. But she could certainly sing. Well, she could back in '93 when she'd been a key voice on the biggest selling single of that year, and was the voice – but not the face – in... > Read more
GERRY MULLIGAN. IF YOU CAN'T BEAT 'EM, JOIN 'EM, CONSIDERED (1965): Through the smoke rings of his mind . . .
5 Jun 2021 | 3 min read
When the much respected jazz writer Gene Lees asked the great baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan if he had any comments he'd like to make for the liner notes to this album Mulligan said, “No. I don't think so”. “I said what I have to say in the music. All I can tell you is to have fun writing [the liner notes]. “We sure had fun... > Read more
ROBERT FINLEY, INTRODUCED (2012): The hope and the homecoming
4 Jun 2021 | 4 min read
A decade or so ago the soulful blues singer Robert Finley might have appeared on the Fat Possum label out of Mississippi. As a venerable and seasoned figure who had toured with gospel groups and played Southern blues, Finley was certainly the kind of authentic artist the label had specialised in. But Fat Possum was getting out of the Southern soul-blues game (as we... > Read more
Dalvanius: Chudka Popoy Ugh Cha Cha (1993)
4 Jun 2021 | 1 min read
Here is further proof – if any more were needed – of what a musical genius Dalvanius Prime was. Perhaps best (and only known?) by hundreds and thousands of New Zealanders for Poi E by Patea Maori Club, there was so much more to the man, not the least his Sydney-based showband Dalvanius and the Fascinations. And by chance this 12” single was pulled... > Read more
BOB DYLAN: THE STORIES BEHIND THE CLASSIC SONGS 1962-69 by ANDY GILL
1 Jun 2021 | 1 min read
With Bob Dylan's 80thbirthday recently we could have anticipated the slew of books which is just starting to arrive, many of them academic and full of discourse, interrogations and other such high-falutin' words. This book however comes with a usefully narrow focus: from just before the debut album up to Nashville Skyline, that decade of change . . and the decade which... > Read more