Music at Elsewhere
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BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Gin Wigmore: Gravel and Wine (Universal)
19 Dec 2011 | 2 min read
Although the remarkable Gin Wigmore mostly co-wrote here, you'd have to say it is her voice -- not just her musical voice -- which comes through with utter clarity. And yes, this extraordinary album is full of her stylistic vocal signature . . . but there is something much more interesting and exciting going on here. These days many young artists drown themselves in references: the... > Read more
If Only
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Adele: 21 (XL)
19 Dec 2011 | 1 min read
Adele's debut album of two years ago -- 19, when she was 19 -- announced the arrival of a great British soul voice even if some of her original material wasn't quite as strong as it could have been. Still, she was only 19 -- but she hardly deserved to be lumped in with the new breed of British women singers coming through (notably Amy Winehouse, Duffy et al). Not that she needed to worry,... > Read more
Adele: Someone Like You
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Rumer: Seasons of My Soul (Atlantic)
19 Dec 2011 | 1 min read
There are a lot of wonderful new soul singers around these days -- Mayer Hawthorne, Adele, etc -- and any number of artists who have you reaching for a historical reference in the same territory (Dusty Springfield and Sandie Shaw in the Sixties for the first Duffy album). It is almost to easy to do the same for this British singer-songwriter. So let's do it anyway: Karen Carpenter, Dionne... > Read more
Rumer: Come To Me High
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Lucinda Williams: Blessed (Lost Highway)
19 Dec 2011 | 1 min read
Although Lucinda Williams admits things are going well in her life (see interview here), she also adds that no one is ever permanently happy and she lives in this world with all its sadness and misery. And she has had a few encounters with those things herself, notably the estrangement of her brother after the death of their mother, and the death by suicide of Vic Chesnutt a few years back.... > Read more
Lucinda Williams: Ugly Truth
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Micah P. Hinson and the Pioneer Saboteurs: Micah P. Hinson and the Pioneer Saboteurs (Full Time Hobby)
19 Dec 2011 | 1 min read
Recorded over a two year period and soaked in strings, this folksy rumination on the state of his nation takes its inspiration from Walt Whitman's poem Pioneers! O Pioneers!, a kind of literal and metaphorical reverse-mirror Times They Are A' Changin' of its day when the young America was flexing its muscles across the continent. Hinson uses this starting point to consider, in places, how... > Read more
Micah P. Hinson and the Pioneer Saboteurs: Seven Horses Seen
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Elbow: Build a Rocket Boys! (Universal)
19 Dec 2011 | 1 min read | 1
It's interesting to read the comments at Elsewhere after the previous Elbow album The Seldom Seen Kid in 2008 (which won them the Mercury Award that year): essentially the thread was, how come these guys aren't bigger? Good question, and maybe this one -- more reflective but still as gorgeously delivered as their previous outings -- will rectify the oversight. Guy Garvey here looks... > Read more
Elbow: Ticker Tape (non album track)
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Howe Gelb and a Band of Gypsies: Alegrias (Fire)
19 Dec 2011 | 1 min read | 2
The enormously prolific Howe Gelb (interviewed here in depth) is behind the Tucson band Giant Sand (from which Calexico became a more commercially successful split-off) and has also recorded a dozen albums under his own name. And as a reissue programme of about 30 Sand/Gelb albums starts to filter through he also releases this, a beguiling project which saw him taking his dark vocals,... > Read more
Howe Gelb and A Band of Gypsies: The Hangin' Judge
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Tiny Ruins: Some Were Meant for Sea (Spunk)
19 Dec 2011 | 1 min read | 1
Tiny Ruins is the nom de disque of Bristol-born, Auckland-raised (from the age of 10) singer-songwriter Hollie Fullbrook who recorded these songs in "a diminutive [sic] hall, once the local school of South Gippsland's Morraya, Australia" (which doesn't appear on any map of that region south east of Melbourne that I can see, unless they mean Moyarra). No matter, that perhaps adds... > Read more
Tiny Ruins: Old as the Hills
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Juju: In Trance (Real World)
19 Dec 2011 | <1 min read
That alt.world between late 60s psychedelic blues-rock, frantic village folk, and fiery world music is a strange place. It's where LedZepp, speedmetal-folk, Afro-blues, the Mississippi Delta and a fiddle-playing Jimi Hendrix (who isn't Nigel Kennedy) come together and live in . . . if not harmony, then at least the same bar where they drink moonshine and palm wine. This album is... > Read more
Nightwalk
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Iron and Wine: Kiss Each Other Clean (4AD)
19 Dec 2011 | 2 min read | 1
The previous album The Shepherd's Dog by Texas' Iron and Wine (Sam Beam) was fully three years ago and was one of the Best of Elsewhere 2007 albums. So anticipation is high for this -- although might have been higher a year ago, but I guess he works at his own pace. And we forgive him because he delivered the excellent Around the Well collection of unreleased song and rarities in mid '09.... > Read more
Iron and Wine: Half Moon
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Kimbra: Vows (Warners)
19 Dec 2011 | 1 min read
For most people flicking the music channels and being confronted the relentless and facile bump'n'grind r'n'b or ever-so-serious young men with guitars, the clips by Kimbra -- formerly of Hamilton, now based in Melbourne -- come as delightful surprises. They look fresh and eye-catching, intelligent in the face of the sexed-up drivel (her musings on married life in Settle Down) and just... > Read more
Good Intent
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Azam Ali: From Night to the Edge of Day (Six Degrees)
19 Dec 2011 | <1 min read
Nominally lullabies from around the Middle East, this breathy and exceptional album by the Iranian-born Canadian-resident Ali -- singer in the band Niyaz -- becomes something much more hypnotic as here keening voice explores those delightful microtones common in the music of the region. Very much the global citizen -- she lived in India as a child, relocated to LA with her mother in '85,... > Read more
Dandini
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Glen Campbell: Ghost on the Canvas (Inertia)
19 Dec 2011 | 1 min read | 2
Alongside his Alzheimer's diagnosis and a farewell tour comes this self-announced “final studio album” by the 75-year old legend whose career spans from LA session guitar work in the late 50s as one of the famous Wrecking Crew on Phil Spector productions, to being a touring Beach Boy, solo hits with Jimmy Webb songs and movies all before the close of the Sixties.... > Read more
Hold on Hope
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Blitzen Trapper: American Goldwing (Sub Pop)
19 Dec 2011 | <1 min read
Still sounding like they were breast-fed equal parts Grateful Dead, early Neil Young, White Album-era Beatles and Elton John's country-flavoured Tumbleweed Connection-gone-grunge, Blitzen Trapper -- an always interesting outfit from Portland -- constantly defy expectation but shift easily from songs about drinkin' whisky in a car to casually psychedelic country, and aren't ashamed to kick... > Read more
Girl in a Coat
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Ryan Adams: Ashes and Fire (Sony)
19 Dec 2011 | 1 min read | 1
Those with a passing interest in Ryan Adams' highly productive career -- which most recently stretched to published books of poetry -- will be understandably bewildered that there is a new album, given he announced his retirement in '09 . . . and subsequently kept releasing albums from his not inconsiderable song vaults. This solo album however is a return to his career with an album... > Read more
I Love You But I Don't Know What To Say
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 The Bats: Free All the Monsters (Flying Nun)
19 Dec 2011 | 1 min read
The rolling, aural signature of the Bats' guitars and locked-in rhythm section has always sounded at its best when it drops the tempo and engages with a romantically woozy sound which -- when married to lyrics of optimism and gentleness -- just brings a smile. This lovely album - which doesn't stray far from their template -- will have you smiling with recognition and warmth as it unveils... > Read more
When the Day Comes
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Fatoumata Diawara: Fatou (World Circuit)
19 Dec 2011 | <1 min read
Yet another artist out of Mali who confirms that country -- alongside only Jamaica perhaps -- seems to have more gifted and distinctive performers per head of population than any other country on the planet. This debut from the ear-pleasing, hypnotically melodic and folk-framed Diawara is given subtle, warm and clean studio production by label boss Nick Gold in conjunction with Diawara and... > Read more
Bissa
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 The Checks: Deadly Summer Sway (Pie Club)
19 Dec 2011 | 2 min read
Auckland's Checks could easily have sat on their Sixties rhythm and blues-based style (think young Stones, Yardbirds, Who etc) and won themselves a wide audience, but they were always destined for something bigger than the familiar. Now 10 years on from their first but enormously impressive gigs as teenagers (I think I first saw them in a kitchen at a flat?) they have shifted their ground... > Read more
Winter Sun
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Jonathan Besser: Campursari (Rattle)
19 Dec 2011 | 1 min read
Since coming to New Zealand more than 30 years ago, the pianist-composer Jonathan Besser has enjoyed a highly successful and diverse career, first with violinist Chris Prosser in the Besser and Prosser duo, with electronic artist Ross Harris in Free Radicals, then his own ensemble and latterly with the small group Bravura. His works have been performed by the NZSO, the New Zealand String... > Read more
Shine
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2011 Wire: Red Barked Tree (Pink Flag)
19 Dec 2011 | 1 min read
In the late Seventies Wire delivered a trifecta of classic post-punk, minimalist and arty albums -- Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154 – then called it a day. In subsequent decades they reformed dropping drummer Robert Gotobed to appear as an alt.electro-rock outfit (not much cop), in the past decade their sound became more aggressive and impressive, Gotobed returned -- and now Bruce... > Read more