Music at Elsewhere

Jessica Lea Mayfield: Tell Me (Nonesuch)

15 Feb 2011 | 1 min read

With a languid delivery not dissimilar to Lucinda Williams but with a whole swag more alt.rock in her system, Mayfield certainly keeps excellent company: she appeared on the Black Keys' album Attack and Release (the Keys' Dan Auerbach produced this); she has opened for familiar Elsewhere names such as the Avett Brothers, Ray LaMontagne and Jay Farrar; and came into her current musical location... > Read more

Jessica Lea Mayfield: Trouble

Various Artists: Ihimaera (Universal)

14 Feb 2011 | 1 min read

Following the successful projects setting the poems of New Zealand writers James K Baxter and Hone Tuwhare to music comes this, the words of writer Witi Ihimaera getting musical adaptation by the likes of Warren Maxwell (of Trinity Roots), LA Mitchell, King Kapisi, Teremoana Rapley, Charlotte Yates (prime mover behind these projects) and others. The major point of difference with this... > Read more

Warren Maxwell: Don't Call Me Sir

The Veils: Trouble of the Brain EP (Pitch Beast/Native Tongue)

14 Feb 2011 | <1 min read

Produced in large part by Bernard Butler (Suede etc), this sharp, fat-free six-song EP finds Finn Andrews and band delivering a smart line in slightly dark pop, but in a few places it is pop nonetheless where the reference points are T Rex (the bouncy Don't Let The Same Bee Sting You Twice) and a more folksy but still menacing Nick Cave (the light industrial edge on the cautionary Wishbone, and... > Read more

The Veils: Us Godless Teenagers

Joan As Police Woman: The Deep Field (Liberator)

13 Feb 2011 | <1 min read

After two excellent albums, notably her previous and admittedly dark To Survive in 2008, Joan Wasser has more fully immersed herself in slow and slightly funky soul music with reference points in classic Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder's more introspective 70s songs. And she's pulled it together here with references to that art music of Antony and the Johnsons with whom she once sang. So... > Read more

Joan As Police Woman: Flash

Timothy Armstrong: Portraits (TA)

13 Feb 2011 | 1 min read

Based in Wellington, New Zealand this singer-songwriter is also in the band The Novelist but has run a parallel but separate career as a solo artist. This, the second outing under his own name, appeared in the last quarter of 2010 but has been making its way slowly into the world since, picking up favourable comment from longtime followers but otherwise barely making a ripple in the... > Read more

Timothy Armstrong: Furnaces

Holmes: Stop Go (Yellow Eye)

13 Feb 2011 | <1 min read

Okay, this album came out in 2007 -- which is of course an eon ago in the world of of pop -- but Elsewhere has an unashamed affection for power pop, and this album seems to have just been given distribution on New Zealand so . . . Holmes is a US indie band but really the work of producer Roy Shakked who made his name remixing tracks by Sarah Vaughan, Jimmy Griff, McCoy Tyner and other jazz... > Read more

Holmes: Gray World

Beady Eye: The Roller (Liberator)

13 Feb 2011 | <1 min read | 1

Elsewhere doesn't usually trouble itself with singles -- but this one may be of some interest for longtime Oasis fans, or those just curious to know what's up with the Gallagher brothers since Noel quit. Beady Eye are Liam Gallagher, Gem Archer and Andy Bell (from Oasis) with Chris Sharrock. This is the first single from the forthcoming album Different Gear, Still Speeding. There is a... > Read more

Beady Eye: The Roller

Wanda Jackson: The Party Ain't Over (Third Man)

7 Feb 2011 | 1 min read

The first Jack White-produced single from this album -- a shuddering Shakin' All Over and a discreetly revised version of Amy Winehouse's You Know I'm No Good -- were hints that White wasn't going to simply reheat the career of this 73-year old rockabilly star with some rock'n'roll nostalgia. In an interview with Elsewhere for this album Jackson said that White -- who chose all but three of... > Read more

Wanda Jackson: Like a Baby

British Sea Power: Valhalla Dancehall (Rough Trade)

7 Feb 2011 | <1 min read

After their interesting digression into providing a soundtrack to the 1934 film Man of Aran by Robert J Flaherty (and letting that remarkable and bleak film find a new audience with the CD/DVD set) it is business as usual for BSPower who here pump up the power chords and U2-like chest-and-soul-baring (with more cuss words) for an album that sometimes aims for heroics but comes off too often as... > Read more

British Sea Power: Georgie Ray

The Dead C: Patience (Badabing)

7 Feb 2011 | <1 min read

As with a previous Dead C album posted at Elsewhere (Secret Earth), this will be -- for most I would guess -- and endurance test rather than an album. This time out though the four tracks (16 minutes, one and half, five and 14 respectively) are all instrumentals -- the drone vocals were something of a hinderance on Secret Earth -- and the whole feels much more coherent and cohesive. Much... > Read more

The Dead C: Shaft

Amos Lee: Mission Bell (Blue Note)

6 Feb 2011 | 1 min read

Singer-songwriter Lee's name has been inextricably linked with that of Norah Jones who heard his debut EP and had him open for her. Signed to her label Blue Note by president Bruce Lundvall (who signed him before the Jones connection), Jones' partner and bassist Lee Alexander produced his debut album. He's firmly in that lineage of crafted folk-rock singers like the younger solo Paul Simon... > Read more

Amos Lee: Hello Again

Tom Principato: A Part of Me (Powerhouse)

6 Feb 2011 | <1 min read

Singer-guitarist Principato has some fine friends who line up to help out here. Slide guitarist Sonny Landreth, Wayne Jackson of the Memphis Horns, and Chuck Leavell (Allmans and Stones) on keyboards, keyboard player Brian Auger, bassist Willie Weeks . . . Sort of rootsy superstar session (with people who are rather far below the threshold for "superstar") and Principato's vocal... > Read more

Tom Principato: Down in Lou'siana

Various Artists: Riddim Box (Soul Jazz/Southbound)

6 Feb 2011 | <1 min read

Perhaps just a heads-up for DJs and samplers on this one? Here be a double disc of UK underground and dancefloor tracks which should pull the punters to a spot under the mirrorball: chipping electro-bleep from MJ Cole (Volcano Riddum); lo-tech beat merchant NB Funky with the title piece; the slightly squelchy (Tubby T's Ready She Ready given a Seiji remix); various injunctions to get on the... > Read more

D-Malice: Gabryelle

Tami Neilson: The Kitchen Table Session Volume II (Ode)

31 Jan 2011 | 1 min read | 2

When reviewing her previous album The Kitchen Table Sessions Vol 1, I noted the promise of the title and looked forward to Auckland-based Neilson getting back around the table in her brother's house in Canada to deliver a follow-up. This time she took with her singer-songwriter Lauren Thomson who plays guitar, sings back-up in places here and shares the lead on the rollicking and salty... > Read more

Tami Neilson: This Town

Lauren Thomson: Chanteuses and Shotguns (Ode)

31 Jan 2011 | 1 min read

Auckland singer-songwriter Thomson deservedly struck lucky when she went to Canada with Tami Neilson to assist on Neilson's follow-up to The Kitchen Sessions Vol 1 . . . Thomson got this new album at the same time. As she writes in the liner notes here, "Playing music and hanging out with the Neilson family in the hot Canadian sun was an unbeatable cocktail of banjos and harmonicas,... > Read more

Lauren Thompson: Peter

Red Hot Chilli Pipers: Music for the Kilted Generation (Rel Records)

31 Jan 2011 | 1 min read | 1

This can be brief, and perhaps something of a consumer warning for those who only scan things. Look very, very carefully at the band name here. Yes, this is Scotland's revenge, a group of rock'n'roll bagpipers (Bagrock by any other name), and if you don't like the sound of the pipes then you should pass by rather quickly. It's a weird and rather clever one though, because with so much... > Read more

The Red Hot Chilli Pipers: Baba O'Riley

The Duke and The King: Long Live the Duke and The King (Shock)

31 Jan 2011 | 1 min read

Hilarious. If there's another Austin Power movie and our spy gets dropped into the early Seventies in California -- the time of all those self-centred, earnest singer-songwriters in the Canyon -- then the formerly interesting The Duke and The King already have a few songs here which sound like pitch-perfect parodies of the style. Okay, I get that much of this is about the dislocated... > Read more

The Duke and the King: Children of the Sun

Andrew McKenzie: The Edge of the World (Arch Hill)

30 Jan 2011 | 1 min read | 1

Andrew McKenzie is the singer-guitarist in the New Zealand band Grand Prix which has long delivered a very pointed kind of slightly snarling alt.country with a rock'n'roll heartbeat and a dark, unsettling edge. For this album under his own name McKenzie (who plays almost everything from drums and bass to harmonica and sitar) mines some of that same rich vein, but also steps off into other... > Read more

Andrew McKenzie: The End of Summer

Blonde Redhead: Penny Sparkle (4AD)

24 Jan 2011 | 1 min read

This album by the US-based trio (Italian-born Montreal-raised twins and a Japanese singer, here with a keyboardist and a Moog player) arrived late last year but is timely to now address given they will appear at the forthcoming Laneway Festivals in New Zealand -- and what an enticing, dreamy and dim-the-lights collection this is to persuade you along to see them. Doubtless these songs will... > Read more

Blonde Redhead: There Will Be Stars

Moondoggies: Tidelands (Hardly Art)

24 Jan 2011 | <1 min read

Their name might not inspire much confidence -- the sort of band name 12-year olds think up -- but this rootsy, alt.country and indie-rock outfit from Seattle on a SubPop imprint label have a mainline connection to the same core of music (Neil Young, the Band) as informs the Felice Brothers, early Wilco and Richmond Fontaine. They certainly know their way around a melody (the... > Read more