Music at Elsewhere
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Dead Famous People: Ballet Boy (digital outlets)
10 Jun 2023 | 1 min read
For about 30 years we didn't heard anything from Dead Famous People who disappeared off to London in the Eighties . . . and then in 2020 their debut album “Harry” appeared on Britain's Fire label, delivering a glistening collection of joy-filled Seventies power pop and straight-ahead Sixties jangle-pop. Singer-songwriter Dons Savage must have been cheered by the critical... > Read more
Come Back Liar
Bob Dylan: Shadow Kingdom, The Early Songs of Bob Dylan (digital outlets/vinyl/CD)
10 Jun 2023 | 1 min read
During lockdown tireless old Bob Dylan released his exceptional double album Rough and Rowdy Ways (yep he was old, 79 at the time) and also -- in a typical sleight of visuals – presented a 50 minute black'n'white concert film (by Israeli director Alma Har'el) where he went way back in his catalogue for songs like Tombstone Blues, It's All Over Now Baby Blue, The Wicked Messenger and Just... > Read more
Tombstone Blues
The Cosmic Debris: The Cosmic Debris (Carnival Din/digital outlets/limited vinyl)
9 Jun 2023 | 1 min read
About six years ago Alan Perrott (who DJs as House of Bamboo) and music archivist John Baker pulled together a fascinating Heed the Call compilation of New Zealand soul-funk and disco from various obscure albums and the vaults of musicians. It was a rare one because these were idioms which largely went by most artists. Hats off then to Auckland's Tony Richards who here presents 10... > Read more
Floating in the Air
Bad Taste: Bad Taste II (digital outlets)
6 Jun 2023 | 1 min read
We'll admit immediately we had never heard of Bad Taste until this album arrived, but we were certainly aware of David Alphabethead from the enjoyably noisy Wellington band All Seeing Hand. Alphabethead is here (on samples and electronics) with rapper Young Gho$t on a doom-laden collection of downbeat electro/hip-hop which delivers thrusts and slaps at the state of contemporary society,... > Read more
Looks Wrong
The Barnestormers: The Barnestormers (digital outlets)
3 Jun 2023 | 1 min read
Yes, the cynical might say he's done rock, soul and even a Christmas album . . . . so why wouldn't Jimmy Barnes do a rockabilly album? Fair point, but to hear him tell it he's been a fan of the pre-rock'n'roll style since growing up with it through his older brother John's collection, and then in Cold Chisel days listening repeatedly to a cassette of the Johnny Burnette Rock and Roll Trio in... > Read more
Gerald Cleaver: 22/23 (Positive Elevation/577 Records/bandcamp)
3 Jun 2023 | <1 min read
New York's 577 Records has popped up at Elsewhere a few times, but so far for edgy free jazz. The label now has an interesting imprint Positive Elevation which is dedicated to electronic sounds and avant-soul. And that first category certainly suits Detroit's Gerald Cleaver who comes from the home of house music and musical innovation. On this, his third album for the Positive... > Read more
Leon Russell: Signature Songs (Dark Horse/digital outlets)
2 Jun 2023 | 1 min read
Bill Janovitz of Buffalo Tom has a fine parallel career as a music writer with his work appearing in The Observer, at esquire.com and his books on the Rolling Stones getting very favourable reviews: Rocks Off through St Martin's Press and his analysis of Exile on Main St through Bloomsbury 33 ⅓. His most recent work is the massive Leon Russell: The Master of Space and Time's Journey... > Read more
Delta Lady
Various Artists: New Zealand @ 33⅓, Volume One (Frenzy CD)
29 May 2023 | 2 min read
Just when you thought archivist Grant Gillanders couldn't find any new material to excavate from the Sixties he taps another vein of local nuggets. More on that recent discovery as it comes to hand – it's a cracker and unexpectedly raw. But meantime here's an interesting repackaging of deep cuts and obscurities: 33 tracks lifted from albums by the likes of the Merseymen,... > Read more
Dream Lover, by Dinah Lee
Rose City Band: Garden Party (Thrill Jockey/digital outlets)
27 May 2023 | <1 min read
Elsewhere almost missed the delightful 2020 album Summerlong by this band which is a vehicle for multi-instrumentalist Ripley Johnson (Wooden Shjips) until we heard a glorious track of a compilation. Then we jumped on it for its lazy country stylings of steel guitar, bluegrass and Byrdsian jangle (think Wasn't Born to Follow and Ballad of Easy Rider). But dammit we missed their... > Read more
Anna: Intentions (Mercury KX/digital outlets)
22 May 2023 | <1 min read
Brazilian-born Lisbon-based DJ electronica producer Anna's debut album Intentions is a gloriously warm collection of shimmering ambience which features the longtime Elsewhere favourite Laraaji on the spacious, seven minute Receiving. As with Laraaji, Anna's ethereal and layered electronica has something of a spiritual aspect, a kind of meditative situation created for transformative... > Read more
I See Miracles Everywhere
Terrible Sons: The Raft is Not the Shore (digital outlets)
21 May 2023 | 1 min read
Behind the somewhat misleading band name is a measured folk duo from Ōtautahi Christchurch whose 2018 Half Awake, Half Asleep EP sprung the unexpected hit Tears Don't Fall, clocking almost 21 million Spotify streams. Gentle, philosophical and steeped in natural imagery, this debut album is better understood by its title referencing the difference between perception and reality,... > Read more
Sunset Swimming
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Pitch Black: Ape to Angel (Dubmission/digital outlets)
20 May 2023 | 3 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes as a remastered double album in a gatefold sleeve (with an additional rare track), the first vinyl release of Pitch Black's 2004 breakthrough album. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . When, in 2004, Elsewhere interviewed Mike Hodgson... > Read more
Like Angels: Your Time Will Come (Failsafe/digital outlets)
17 May 2023 | 2 min read
From his longtime home in Japan, Rob Mayes oversees the extensive reissue of albums on his Failsafe label, now celebrating 40 years of independent releases. And he's not beyond new releases either: witness this beautifully packaged double CD in a gatefold cover with a booklet of brief explanatory notes and pertinent photos. Like Angels is in fact the one-man project of Robert McLean... > Read more
Year Zero
The Winebox Inquiry: Liquid Air (bandcamp)
15 May 2023 | <1 min read
You'd have to concede this about Wellington's William Daymond: he moves on and can't be put in any convenient box. In the late 2000s he was drummer in the indie-rock band Terror of the Deep and as he admitted in 2014, “We like to keep things fun and interesting. We just play what we want. We started kind of poppy, then went psych, now we’re doing prog and almost garage... > Read more
Downpour
Maxine Funke: River Said (Disciples/digital outlets)
14 May 2023 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes with a lyric sheet and a digital download. Makes sense to get it on vinyl given it is, as you may read, an album of two distinct sides. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . Esoteric, sepia-toned and skeletal folk goes back to before the recently... > Read more
Willow White
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Jonathan Bree: Pre-Code Hollywood (digital outlets)
14 May 2023 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes as a classy package of white vinyl inside a shiny silver insert sleeve and with a lyric sheet. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte's 1928 painting Two Lovers had the kissing couple's heads swathed in... > Read more
Ingrid and the Ministers: Boofhead (digital outlets)
14 May 2023 | <1 min read
Enthusiasm at recent shows for the briefly re-formed D4, reductively absurd Guitar Wolf and the Schizophonics confirmed raucous, guitar-injected punkish rock'n'roll still provides ear-scouring retro-pleasure for a broad demographic. On this second album – collecting six previous singles – the capital's Ingrid and the Ministers marry T. Rex and Joan Jett to wheel-spinning ZZ Top... > Read more
The Lemon Twigs: Everything Harmony (Captured Tracks/digital outlets)
12 May 2023 | 1 min read
To be frank, on the basis of two of their three previous albums we have heard, we've been seriously underwhelmed by the fashionable and hip Lemon Twigs, two gifted New York brothers who do have a unique ability to tap into pop's rich history. But they certainly captured the attention of influential critics who – like us – enjoyed train-spotting their way through their songs (oh... > Read more
Nabihah Iqbal: Dreamer (Ninja Tune/digital outlets)
11 May 2023 | <1 min read
Very much an artist's artist – she was commissioned to compose music for the Turner Prize, an exhibition at the Tate Modern and a Basquiat retrospective – this London-born child of Pakistani parents has also worked as a broadcaster, lecturer and in the field of human rights. This belated second album following her acclaimed 2017 debut Weighing of the Heart was conceived during... > Read more
The Church: The Hypnogogue (digital outlets)
8 May 2023 | 1 min read
Among the many hundreds of albums Elsewhere lost in the January 2023 floods were a few much loved Australian albums, among them two terrific double albums by the Easybeats taking them from chart-toppers to the decline into psychedelic music and a compilation of the early Church which carried them through their Paisley Underground years. These were albums which were the domain of obsessive... > Read more