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
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Nico: Chelsea Town Hall, Live (digital outlets)
14 Mar 2025 | 1 min read
Recorded in 1985, released in '92 as Chelsea Girl/Live and now reissued (CD and vinyl), this often startling concert caught the Velvet Underground chanteuse three years before her death and, although having been ravaged by the effects of heroin, in remarkably fine form. In her own way. Her final album Camera Obscura (produced by longtime supporter John Cale) provided... > Read more
Tananore
THE PATRON SAINT OF HUMMINGBIRDS: Environmental Music Vol 1 (digital outlets)
13 Mar 2025 | <1 min read
This Californian artist – who prefers to remain anonymous – appeared at Elsewhere last year with her ambient Environmental Music Vol 2 and promised Vol 1 would follow. And here it is, a collection of atmospheric pieces recorded during the lockdown era and a restful response to the stresses that some were feeling. Well, stress didn't just evaporate at the... > Read more
Meditation V
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT (2025): The rise and return of Nothing At All!
11 Mar 2025 | 1 min read
In those ancient days before the internet made self-promotion easy and lazy, artists had to create their own audience through live shows. Anticipating the emergence of garageband rock'n'roll bands like the Datsuns, Hellacopters, Von Bondies, Detroit Cobras, Guitar Wolf and others, the Nothing At All! trio out of Auckland's North Shore took their punk-fuelled rock'n'roll... > Read more
GET UP, STAND UP AGAIN (2025): The resurrection of All Fall Down
10 Mar 2025 | 2 min read
It was long ago and, from where we sit, far away: Christchurch in the Eighties to be specific. There were a lot of bands around at the time and with just the EP My Brand New Wallpaper Coat released on Flying Nun in 1987 it seems almost inevitable that All Fall Down should be one of those here-today-and-gone bands from that era. But All Fall Down were – as we... > Read more
Star Sign (live)
The Tubs: Cotton Crown (digital outlets)
10 Mar 2025 | <1 min read
This London-based Welsh band come off as a smart marriage of REM's indie.rock jangle, slightly yobby British post-punk pop and a revved up version of Scotland's Proclaimers. In other words, they make smart and memorable folksy power-pop. And there's a real sense of desperation in places (the nervy Illusion, the Pogues-punky Chain Reaction). Singer Owen Williams has... > Read more
Illusion
COLE WILSON AND HIS TUMBLEWEEDS: COUNTRY SONGS VOL 1 and 2, CONSIDERED (1952): That old time C'n'W religion. Yodel-eh-ee-hoo.
10 Mar 2025 | 3 min read
Pulling albums from the shelves at random for this column is, of course, not without its risks. Sometimes you get to greet a familiar friend, other times you encounter barely known strangers. And then . . . Then you pull out Cole Wilson and His Tumbleweeds' first album of country songs, and so you might as well listen to the second volume which was right beside... > Read more
Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
THE LAST HURRAH (2025): Martin Phillipps' last Chills album
10 Mar 2025 | 3 min read
David Bowie knew his end was coming and so his final album blackstar – released on his 69th birthday and just two days before he died – contained references to his impending departure. Leonard Cohen's posthumous Thanks for the Dance in 2019, released three years after his death, may come with a title like a farewell note but the songs were part of his... > Read more
Juicy Creaming Soda
The Rolling Stones, The Unstoppable Stones (1965)
10 Mar 2025 | 4 min read | 1
The early albums by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones appeared in different versions in Britain and the States. New Zealand being a colony thankfully got the UK versions for the most part, just as the gods intended. But in some instances we got something different from both -- and in this case, better. The album The Unstoppable Stones only ever appeared in... > Read more
You Can't Catch Me
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Jaki Byard: Blues for Smoke (Candid/digital outlets)
10 Mar 2025 | <1 min read
This 1960 solo album by pianist Byard gets a welcome remastering and reissue because Byard seems a largely forgotten figure. His powerful playing and inventiveness showed him capable of working in an almost barrelhouse style as well as playing with Charles Mingus (notably on Black Saint and the Sinner Lady), Art Blakey, Roland Kirk, George Benson and in big bands. His... > Read more
Jake's Blues Next
Mavis Rivers: Farewell Samoa (1950)
10 Mar 2025 | 2 min read | 1
Because her career as singer was mostly in the United States -- where Sinatra apparently called her the purest voice in jazz -- Mavis Rivers was for many decades after 1953, when she made the first move from Auckland, more respected in New Zealand than actually heard. Yet in her brief period in Auckland -- the family originally from Apia, Samoa arrived in Auckland in... > Read more
GUEST MUSICIAN PAUL McLANEY backgrounds his new album Know Return
7 Mar 2025 | 3 min read | 1
When the first Gramsci album Permanence was released 25 years ago, at the turn of the millennium, I had the notion that I was embarking on a body of work and I decided that the first letter of each album title should create the overall title. Sophomore album Object followed two years later. As it turned out, by the time Dave Holmes - my original partner in crime - and I... > Read more
The Point of No Return
Bunchy's Big Score: Happy Birthday, Daniel Johnston!!! Don't Be Afraid (digital outlets)
5 Mar 2025 | 1 min read
The album title's reference to the late American eccentric and somewhat emotionally damaged pop artist Daniel Johnston – and the childlike cover art – flag that this album is a kind of left-field inspired amateurism by this self-described art-rock trio from Otepoti lead by singer/writer Max White. As with Johnston's often bizarre and sometimes very moving... > Read more
Harold Budd
THE TAITE PRIZE FINALISTS (2025): The envelope please . . .
4 Mar 2025 | <1 min read
Now in its 16th year, the Taite Prize (named for journalist Dylan Taite) celebrates creative talent on independent record labels. This year saw a record 80 entries, the finalists voted on by Independent Music NZ members, musicians and an invited group of industry professionals. The winner picks up a tidy $12,500 and will be announced in an event at the Q Theatre,... > Read more
THE LONG TWILIGHT IN LIVERPOOL (2025): After the legends left
3 Mar 2025 | 2 min read
Many years ago an interesting but hardly essential compilation What About Us? pulled together material by Liverpool bands (the Chants, Koobas, Johnny Sandon etc) and also-rans like Tommy Quickly in the years of Beatle-led Merseybeat. It was a bit of fun but few of the songs leaped to attention as lost classics from the era. A more recent collection compiled Bob... > Read more
Imagination, by Clayton Squares
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Riki Pirihi and Abigail Aroha Jensen: Tūpiki (Audio Foundation/digital outlets)
3 Mar 2025 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this reissue which comes in a gatefold sleeve by artist Susan Te Kahurangi-King, with a download code and with an insert sheet which outlines the steps of Maui and how these performers pulled them together into the concept.. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks .... > Read more
Rangi-tauru-nui
HARMONIA AND ENO '76; TRACKS AND TRACES REISSUE, CONSIDERED (2009): The quiet revolution
3 Mar 2025 | 2 min read
Even during his days in Roxy Music, Brian Eno professed an admiration for not just the music coming out of the German electronic movement (Can and so on) but for their collective spirit. They often lived communally and kept outside the mainstream, and (the commune thing excepted) so did he. That they had so many musical interests in common meant it was inevitable at some... > Read more
Harmonia and Eno: Vamos Companeros
Farewell Spit: Castaway (iiii/digital outlets)
3 Mar 2025 | 1 min read
Although released at the end of last year it's likely this album of improvised, experimental music recorded at Wellington's Meow last June went past many, just as it did us. We forgive ourselves however because the iiii label is among the most productive in the country. At bandcamp you can buy a package of all 68 albums (so far!). Here are many of the label's... > Read more
Judy Henske: Wade in the Water (1963)
3 Mar 2025 | <1 min read
One afternoon somewhere in the early Nineties a terrestrial TV channel played the 1963 movie Hootenanny Hoot, a lousy film cashing in on the folk music phase but full of cameo performances by the likes of Johnny Cash, The Gateway Trio, George Hamilton IV and . . . Some forgettable others. I walked out of the room at one point to make a cup of tea but was pulled back... > Read more
Squid: Cowards (digital outlets)
3 Mar 2025 | 2 min read
When Edith Sitwell – no slouch herself in the peculiarity stakes – wrote her 1933 book The English Eccentrics she wasn't short of material. Britain has long had a lineage of the mad, strange, amusing or inventive eccentrics. And they are often celebrated. Being different – even if you are difficult – is more accepted in Britain than, say, in... > Read more
Building 650
Favourite Five Recent Releases
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy: The Purple Bird (digital outlets)
3 Mar 2025 | <1 min read
What has Beyonce wrought? Seems everyone is going country, everyone from octogenarian Ringo to young kids putting their first single into the world and hoping to be the next Kaylee or Luke. Will Oldham (AKA Bonnie 'Prince' Billy) has sailed close to country music many times in the past three decades, most obviously on his 2004 Sings Greatest Palace Music recorded in... > Read more