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.
Subscribe to my newsletter for weekly updates.
Blair Parkes: Blue Cloud (digital outlets)
11 Nov 2024 | 1 min read
Multi-instrumentalist/producer Blair Parkes has appeared a number of times at Elsewhere under his own name and as part of Running Club. He's not easy to pigeon-hole because he has effortlessly shifted ground from dense alt.rock to motorik pop and sometimes an amalgam of those + noise. This time out with longtime collaborator Miss Mercury (vocals) and bassist Marcus Thomas he announces... > Read more
Umlaut
Goodwill: Kind Hands (digital outlets)
11 Nov 2024 | <1 min read
By happy coincidence Goodwill -- Ōtautahi's Will McGillivray formerly of alt.rockers Nomad , not to be confused with the electronica artist The Nomad -- produced and mixed Mousey's impressive third album Mothers which we also review this week. And here he steps out with a debut album of lo-fi alt.folk pop which spotlights an aching and sometimes anguished vocal delivery atop... > Read more
I Will Never Let You Down
Mousey: The Dreams of Our Mothers' Mothers! (digital outlets)
11 Nov 2024 | 1 min read
Ōtautahi Christchurch's Sarena Close (aka Mousey) has appeared at Elsewhere for all of her albums, no surprise given we said of her debut Lemon Law, “even just a cursory listen would tell you there is a great depth of lyrical, vocal and songwriting talent here” We interviewed her at the time and subsequently published her thoughts on the making of her second album My... > Read more
Dog Park
Gurrumul: Banbirrngu – The Orchestral Sessions (digital outlets)
9 Nov 2024 | 2 min read
When the late Aboriginal artist Gurrumul (now referred to as Dr G Yunupingu) from the small and remote Elcho -- an island off the north coast of Australia near Darwin (population 2300 at the time) – emerged as a solo artist in the 2000s he was a great story, in part because he was blind and rarely spoke to the media. He was shy as many Aboriginal people are, and even though writing... > Read more
Wiyathul
Tom Irvine Band: Under the Wharf (digital outlets)
5 Nov 2024 | 1 min read
For many decades – from Warren Cate and Warren Love back in the Nineties and early 2000's to Danny McCrum more recently – we've noted a strong thread of accomplished, mainstream pop-rock writers and performers who get very little traction at radio. In part that may be because they are often undemonstrative artists although their music would fit playlists on stations which play... > Read more
Love Gone Bad
Springloader: Just Like Yesterday (Failsafe, digital outlets)
4 Nov 2024 | 1 min read
The excellent, on-going Failsafe reissue/release programme continues with this bright, blazing collection of disciplined, assertive and loud power pop with hooks so huge you could haul out a Great White with one. The band is a vehicle for Failsafe's Rob Mayes whose guitar playing here is something quite extraordinary. There's an interesting backstory to this album: the original band of... > Read more
All That I Want
Fat Freddy's Drop: Slo-Mo (digital outlets, vinyl)
4 Nov 2024 | 2 min read
In late September a column at Elsewhere titled The Groove In The Middle of the Road concluded with a consideration of the new album Waves by Toi, we noted how local artists seem to avoid contentious issues in favour of blandishments wrapped in a reggae-soul vibe and with uncontroversial lyrics. We said, “It is populist music which is undeniably popular because it doesn't provoke or... > Read more
Slo Mo
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 well-meaning PR people might... > 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 themselves. Bands like U2... > Read more
Our Hometown Boy
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 you smile if not... > 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 town. Almost a... > 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 – neatly told... > Read more
Dance All Around the World
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 the album Hold My Gun... > Read more
Lost at Sea
Delaney Davidson and Barry Saunders: Happiness is Near (digital outlets)
14 Oct 2024 | 1 min read | 1
Delaney Davidson has been enormously prolific in the past decade: at least half a dozen albums under his own name, production work for Marlon Williams, Tami Neilson and Troy Kingi, guest appearances and collaborations. He fitted all these in around touring and appearances in television documentaries. Davidson's collaboration with Barry Saunders' on 2019's Word Gets Around brought... > Read more
Man of Few Words
Goodspace: Let's Talk About Death (digital outlets)
7 Oct 2024 | <1 min read
We saluted Goodspace/Jefferson Chen for his inventive album launch at a foodhall which we wrote about. Now lets turn attention to what's on the menu. Recorded at the Lab, Roundhead and his own studio, this album reflects Chen's considerable abilities and musical interests from the lightly boiling bass and percussion which drives She Don't Need You (which also gets away a serious guitar... > Read more
Nests
Memorials: Memorials Waterslide (digital outlets)
7 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
This impressive debut by Britain's Verity Susman and Matthew Simms cleaves close to classic, upbeat pop heading towards psychedelia with Susman's seductive vocal delivering venturesome lyrics which compliment the twisting melodies: “Turning back to an imaginary hearse, two white horses pulling towards the door. You’re too late to write the book” on the opener Acceptable... > Read more
Horse Head Pencil
Thurston Moore: Glow Critical Lucidity (digital outlets)
7 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
When Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth separated after more than 20 years of marriage, for the indie.kid generation it was as if their own parents had broken up. Moore and Gordon seemed to have had it all: a life together making music and art, being creative, hanging out with the hippest of the hip and so on. Well, infidelity rarely plays out well as Moore discovered, and... > Read more
Hypnogram
Dam Native: Kaupapa Driven Rhymes Uplifted
7 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
It's interesting to look at how this classic New Zealand album fared on release in late 1997: it just scraped into the top 40 and only lasted four weeks on the charts. That doesn't sound impressive at all until you consider that today we have a separate chart for local artists (actually a few) and so Dam Native was up against the best the world was throwing at us: Portishead, Bjork, the... > Read more
Bright Eyes: Five Dice, All Threes (digital outlets)
7 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
Here's an interesting and somewhat relevant comparison: bear with us. John Lennon's 1970 God on his Plastic Ono Band album was a renunciation of previously held beliefs (Elvis, Kennedy, mantra), the litany ending with “I don't believe in Beatles”. It was his farewell to Beatle John, the 1960s and being reborn. It was hard for many to take, but he was optimistic:... > Read more
El Capitan
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Geordie Greep: The New Sound (digital outlets)
4 Oct 2024 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out an album we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes as a double album in a gatefold sleeve with the all the lyrics (which are necessary, there's a lot of them!). Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . Most genres of music have their identifiers: in country it can be beer, Jesus, Elvis and/or a pick-up... > Read more