The Album Considered

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TERRY RILEY: SHRI CAMEL, CONSIDERED (1978): Listening is easy with eyes closed

25 Nov 2024  |  2 min read

For most people, even if they haven't heard a note by him, their reference point for the career of Terry Riley is often distilled into just two words: In C. That was the title of his breakthrough, Sixties minimalist album (recorded for the first time in '68), a composition which allows for infinite flexibility. It has been performed by musicians from China and Mali, by Indian musicians... > Read more

SYBIL: SYBIL, CONSIDERED (1989): An album to walk on by

16 Sep 2024  |  1 min read

Pulling this album off the shelves at random has been an education. It is beautifully unplayed and of course there is no rational explanation for how it came to be on the sagging shelves at Elsewhere. But perhaps here might be an answer. This US r'n'b singer might not have done any serious chart damage in her homeland or the UK with this second album (#75 in the US, #21 in Britain) but... > Read more

Bad Beats Suite

VARIOUS ARTISTS: OUT OF THE CORNERS, CONSIDERED (1982): Sisterhood was doing it for itself

19 Aug 2024  |  3 min read

When the New Zealand Herald wrote about this independent album of female artists released by the Web Women's Collective – which included the Topp Twins, Mahina Tocker, Di Cadwallader, Val Murphy and others – the article appeared on the Mainly Women page. To be fair to the Herald, it didn't have entertainment or album review pages at the time and so at least it did cover this... > Read more

DORY PREVIN, REFLECTIONS IN A MUD PUDDLE, CONSIDERED (1971): Death, pain, disasters and really nice songs

15 Jul 2024  |  4 min read

Any number of women artist from the Sixties and Seventies – Vashti Bunyan, PP Arnold, Doris Troy and others – have undergone a career revival or rediscovery in recent years. But Dory Previn – who died in 2012 aged 86 – still seems to be overlooked. Could it be because she wrote lyrics which even by today's hip-hop and r'n'b standards would be considered... > Read more

PORTSMOUTH SINFONIA: PLAYS THE POPULAR CLASSICS, CONSIDERED (1974): So bad it's . . . just bad?

24 Jun 2024  |  3 min read  |  1

In the liner notes to this hilariously unlistenable and sometimes punishingly painful album, the producer Brian Eno notes that “it is important to stress the main characteristic of the orchestra, that all the members of the Sinfonia share the desire to play the pieces as accurately as possible”. Well, they might try. But they can't . . . and in fact their renditions of In... > Read more

YOKO ONO: BETWEEN MY HEAD AND THE SKY, CONSIDERED (2009): And Yoko got the band to play

17 Jun 2024  |  4 min read

When Yoko Ono released her artistically packaged Onobox in 1992 -- a six CD retrospective of a solo career which had ceased in the mid Eighties -- that would seemed to have been it from the most famous widow in the world. She was almost 60; had stopped recording because as she wryly noted "there seemed no great call" from the public for any more albums by her; and her attention... > Read more

Higa Noboru

THE BEE GEES: ODESSA, CONSIDERED (1969): All at sea in separate lifeboats

27 May 2024  |  4 min read  |  2

In 16 months from early 1967 when they returned to Britain after a trip back home to Australia, the Bee Gees cracked out a remarkable six hit singles and three albums. Their writing, recording and touring schedule was extraordinary, perhaps only matched by the Beatles' work ethic who were, for a time, their real chart rivals. But for a group which crafted tight radio pop there was a... > Read more

Melody Fair

TOM WAITS. THE HEART OF SATURDAY NIGHT, CONSIDERED (1974): Drunk on the moon again

20 May 2024  |  3 min read

Unlike other albums considered for this on-going column, this one by Tom Waits didn't come off the shelf at random. Although it sort of did. As mentioned previously, during the floods of 2022 Elsewhere's office was awash and so we lost around 800 albums and scores of CDs, books, travel journals and family photos. Among those so damaged were about 20 albums by a longtime favourite... > Read more

Shiver Me Timbers

ROD STEWART. SMILER, CONSIDERED (1974): All the way to the bank

12 May 2024  |  1 min read

When Rod Stewart's Smiler album came off the shelves at random for this on-going column it was probably the first time it had been on the stereo for 20 years, if not more. And it is a surprising album. Surprising in how lazy it was. Stewart as a songwriter steps back for an album of mostly covers and – in the case of Paul McCartney's lyrical lame but pleasant Mine for Me... > Read more

VARIOUS ARTISTS. ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK, CONSIDERED (early 1970s?): Travels in the time tunnel

6 May 2024  |  1 min read

Among the many good things about what Bob Seger called “old time rock and roll” is that you get more of it for less. Like on this album which boasts “24 terrific rock'n'roll tracks” and cost just $5 secondhand. That's about 20 cents a song. But this cobbled together collection for New Zealand's Music for Leisure Ltd is bizarre in what it considers rock'n'roll and... > Read more

THE BEATLES. BEATLES FOR SALE, CONSIDERED (1964): Cashing in and the start of cashing out

29 Apr 2024  |  3 min read

With a cynical title and a great cover photo, the Beatles' fourth album in 20 months was a mixed bag of excellent and different new songs alongside filler pulled from the back-pocket of their Hamburg trousers. It was a shameless cash-in for the Christmas market – recorded in October but not released until early December – and it was clear the songwriting team of Lennon-McCartney... > Read more

No Reply

CURVED AIR. PHANTASMAGORIA, CONSIDERED (1972): And now to the matter at hand

22 Apr 2024  |  3 min read

While there are plenty of songs about sex, there are fewer specifically about masturbation. We can readily think of Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark, Vanessa Daou's Long Tunnel of Wanting You and the Divinyls' I Touch Myself. But, with a few exceptions, songs about that touchy subject are often coded. Welcome then to a band who just got straight down to the job in hand: Britain's... > Read more

Over and Above

THE TREMELOES. THE TREMELOES, CONSIDERED (1971): Guitar group not on the way out

8 Apr 2024  |  3 min read

When the Beatles broke through in 1963 there were any number of other groups poised to ride in their wake. Many of them, in the manner of Fifties artists, put the name of the singer out front: Gerry and the Pacemakers, Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Derry and the Seniors (in '61 the first Liverpool band to record an album) and others, like . . . Brian Poole... > Read more

Here Comes My Baby

MINNIE RIPERTON: PERFECT ANGEL, CONSIDERED (1974): La la la la da da bee doo . . .

17 Mar 2024  |  2 min read

When Minnie Riperton died in 1979 many were shocked, and not just that she should be taken so young at 31. Nor was it that she looked so full of cheeky life on the cover of her hit album Perfect Angel which contained the extraordinary single Lovin' You. It was that she died of breast cancer which was probably the first time many of her young soul/r'n'b followers had encountered that.... > Read more

RIP RIG + PANIC: GOD, CONSIDERED (1981): Post-punk demented dervish heart-attack jazz'n'rock funk

4 Mar 2024  |  3 min read

When you name your post-punk debut after an album by the great jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk you have really upped the stakes and expectation. And when the band is formed around Mark Springer, Bruce Smith and Gareth Sager of the anarcho-punk Pop Group with guests Neneh Cherry and Ari Up of the Slits, then you know things are going to be . . . at very least, interesting. And the... > Read more

MARK WILLIAMS, SWEET TRIALS, CONSIDERED (1976): It was drag, and a drag

25 Feb 2024  |  2 min read

A bit later in life Mark Williams, originally from near Dargaville, could accept that the way he dressed – feminine clothes he'd made himself, eye-liner and make-up beneath a teased Afro bouffant – “almost looked like drag". "It was drag actually”. But that was later. At the time in the early Seventies when he started having hits, was on TV and... > Read more

Sweet Wine

ALBERTA HUNTER: WITH LOVIE AUSTIN'S BLUES SERENADERS, CONSIDERED (1961): And the blues shall not weary them

19 Feb 2024  |  5 min read  |  2

In 1961, the blues singer Albert Hunter – who'd been born at the end of the 19thcentury and had recorded with Fletcher Henderson, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Eubie Blake and many others – went into Rudi Van Gelder's studio to record with Victoria Spivey and Lucille Hegamin for the Prestige label. It was the first time she'd been in a studio in almost 20 years. She was 67... > Read more

CAT MOTHER AND THE ALL NIGHT NEWSBOYS. THE STREET GIVETH … AND THE STREET TAKETH AWAY, CONSIDERED (1969): The musicians not the music?

15 Feb 2024  |  4 min read

For the moment let's not worry about the music on this old album pulled from the shelves at random for consideration in this on-going series. The music will make itself known to us as we go. Let's instead just concentrate on the names involved, who they were, where they went and who they became. There is a story worth telling right there. The co-producer of this debut album by the New... > Read more

MARC RIBOT AND CERAMIC DOG. CONNECTION, CONSIDERED (2023): Wrecks small speakers . . . .

8 Jan 2024  |  2 min read

Although avant-guitarist Marc Ribot has appeared at Elsewhere under his own name, he is perhaps best known for his work on albums by Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Laurie Anderson and with Robert Plant and Alison Kraus. We profiled him as a "cosmopolitan guitarist without portfolio" here. Like fellow traveller Bill Frisell, Ribot can fit in. But in Ceramic Dog with... > Read more

Connection (title track)

THE SEEKERS: THE BEST OF THE SEEKERS, CONSIDERED (2023): You say goodbye, then wave hello

27 Dec 2023  |  4 min read  |  1

At some point in the late Nineties I interviewed Judith Durham of the Seekers, the Australian band which had half a dozen memorable hits in the Sixties. Their album The Best of the Seekers seemed to be in everyone's home at the time and is now readily found in charity shops and secondhand stores alongside Neil Diamond's Hot August Night. I can't remember if Durham was touring under her... > Read more

The Carnival is Over