Music at Elsewhere
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Darkstar: North (Hyperdub/Southbound)
21 Nov 2010 | <1 min read
By happy coincidence I mistook this band's name for that of a prog outfit I was once curious about -- maybe if I had heard the words "dubstep electronia" (which is how they are sometimes described) I might not have so enthusiastically pulled it out of the pile. Not that prog is my thing, but the Darkstar I was thinking about had a curiously ambient take on it. And by... > Read more
Darkstar: In the Wings
Surf Friends: Confusion (SF)
21 Nov 2010 | 1 min read
Auckland two-piece Surf Friends -- guitarist/singer/drum machine handler etc Brad Coley and bassist/keyboards/singer Pete Westmoreland -- are starting out in almost exactly the same place as the early Clean and Chills whose sound they effectively hijack completely for some tracks on this interesting . . . and eventually quite convincing album. Produced by Mark Howden -- who keeps things... > Read more
Surf Friends: No Oil
The Trons: The Trons (Pieplate CD/DVD)
15 Nov 2010 | 1 min read
A few decades ago Devo advanced the idea of "devolution", that Mankind wasn't going forward but actually regressing and you could see that in the behaviour of the mob. Regrettably it seems they might have been right if idiot postings on Facebook and You Tube are anything to go by, not to mention the guy who will hold up store at gunpoint for a packet of cigarettes and small change.... > Read more
The Trons: Attack of the Mute Ants
Dudley Benson: Forest, Songs by Hirini Melbourne (Golden Retriever)
15 Nov 2010 | 1 min read | 1
Those many of us seduced by Dudley Benson's previous album (and EPs which preceded it) might not have anticipated the manner of this new one, an entirely a capella art music project based on the poems (birds, the spider) by the late Hirini Melbourne who, with Richard Nunns, led the revival of taonga puoru (tradional Maori instruments) . . . and it is sung almost entirely in te reo (Maori).... > Read more
Dudley Benson: Tirairaka. Fantail
Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg: Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg (Light in the Attic)
14 Nov 2010 | 1 min read
Sex sells. It certainly sells the idea of maturity when former popettes decide to ditch the little sister look and get into barely-there leathers. Adults of course find this tasteless and the kids being manipulated, but it's nothing more than sex selling a product just like any other. Sex gets people hot under the collar (as in outraged) and you can guarantee to get a rise out of some when... > Read more
Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg: 69 Annee Erotique
Various Artists: The Rarest Rockabilly Album in the World Ever! (Chrome Dreams/Triton)
14 Nov 2010 | 1 min read
As with the blues, rockabilly is always out there, but only occasionally gets its time in the spotlight when artists such as the revivalist Stray Cats or -- more recently -- the great original Wanda Jackson get some serious attention. Expect then for rockabilly -- the up-tempo white country-based music which was a precursor to rock'n'roll in the mid Fifties -- to come to the fore then in... > Read more
Don Willis: Boppin' High School Baby
Mark Howden: Horizons (Waht)
14 Nov 2010 | <1 min read
Auckland singer-songwriter Howden appeared previously with two short albums: one of him in rock band mode, the other more of the acoustic persuasion, both under the name The Black Leaf. This new album (Horizons may be the title or the nom de disque) is an extension of the acoustic direction in dreamy, literate songs which recall the atmospheric folk-pop of Neil Halstead's wonderful... > Read more
Mark Howden: Pattern Blue
Greg Johnson: Secret Weapon (JMA)
14 Nov 2010 | 1 min read
That Greg Johnson seeded funding for this album by a pre-order subscription shows he has a loyal audience in this country – especially as he hasn't lived here for almost a decade and he's getting close to 10 albums under his own name, not counting a couple of best of/hits packages. In part that's because he's an endearing and often amusing entertainer whose shows are always worth... > Read more
Greg Johnson: No Weapons in the Bar
The Vaselines: Sex with an X (SubPop)
14 Nov 2010 | 1 min read | 1
The little-known Vaselines out of Scotland got their sudden time in the spotlight when Nirvana covered a couple of their songs, notably Jesus Doesn't Want Me For a Sunbeam on their MTV Unplugged session. By that time ('93) the Vaselines - formed around Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee -- had already broken up but they'd reformed to open for Nirvana in 1990. So that connection gets... > Read more
The Vaselines: The Devil's Inside Me
Paul McCartney and Wings; Band on the Run Remastered. (Universal)
8 Nov 2010 | 7 min read
It's sad in a way, but great albums often are a result of bad situations: death, divorce, betrayal, litigation and debilitating substance abuse seem to make for better and more interesting music than cheery times with the family on holiday. Think about it: Neil Young's Tonight's the Night (death, drugs); John Martyn's Grace and Danger (divorce, drink); Marvin Gaye's Here My Dear and In... > Read more
Paul McCartney and Wings: Picasso's Last Words
Elvis Costello: National Ransom (Universal)
8 Nov 2010 | 1 min read
The prolific Costello's last album – Secret, Profane and Sugarcane of last year – was his most interesting in years with its mix of rock, raw country, edgy ballads and bluegrass, all helmed by co-producer T Bone Burnett. Although Costello is not one to jog on the spot, this new one – in a cover by the same artist, Tony Millionaire – feels like a companion volume... > Read more
Elvis Costello: You Hung the Moon
Brian Eno: Small Craft on a Milk Sea (Opal)
8 Nov 2010 | <1 min read
In the early Seventies the ambient albums by Brian Eno -- sometimes soundtracks for quiet, imagined films -- ushered in a kind of intelligent ambient music and the music on his Obscure label brought people like Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman and others to a wider audience than they might have otherwise enjoyed. Eno's own Music for Films series, later his Apollo soundtrack and even his... > Read more
Brian Eno: Lesser Heaven
The Puddle: Playboys in the Bush (Fishrider)
7 Nov 2010 | <1 min read
For those many of us who lost touch with Dunedin's the Puddle in the Nineties, last year's album The Shakespeare Monkey (a 2009 Best of Elsewhere album) came as quite a revelation for its literary lyricism and captivating alt.pop. This one might not have that same frisson of (re)discovery, but it is no less an album for that: there is a skewed angularity to the music (from mock-pop to bent... > Read more
The Puddle: Weight of the Stars
Neil Diamond: Dreams (Sony)
7 Nov 2010 | 1 min read
After trying for the same late-career revival as Johnny Cash with producer Rick Rubin - to lesser commercial and critical success -- Diamond now delivers the album he has said he's always wanted to do: a collection of covers, including his own early song I'm A Believer made famously a hit by the Monkees. Diamond is a man who always seems to take himself, and a lyric, seriously and often... > Read more
Neil Diamond: Midnight Train to Georgia
Various Artists: Viva Elvis, The Album (Sony)
7 Nov 2010 | 1 min read
Let's be very clear here, this astonishingly awful album has very little to do with Elvis Presley -- the man, as these people have forgotten, who recalibrated popular music and culture. This has a whole lot to do with a Cirque du Soleil show which sampled Elvis' vocals and then pasted them over backings which, in most instancers, sound like they have been created by someone with a Sandy... > Read more
Elvis and others: Blue Suede Shoes
Elton John and Leon Russell: The Union (Mercury)
7 Nov 2010 | 1 min read | 1
The story of how much Elton has admired Leon Russell for many decades (and who was a profound influence on his playing in the early Seventies) is well known, as is how Russell's star fell slowly from that peak when he was helming Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, then appearing with George Harrison, Dylan and others at the concert for Bangladesh. Russell delivered some terrific... > Read more
Elton John and Leon Russell: Gone to Shiloh
Various Artists: . . . Featuring Norah Jones (Blue Note)
7 Nov 2010 | <1 min read
Those who dismiss Norah Jones as some kind of aural wallpaper clearly aren't listening carefully enough. Her albums have been quietly progressive as they step deftly betwen lounge jazz and alt.country -- and the lady constantly defies expectation. Not the least by putting herself about a bit, in a professional way. This 18 track album may be something of a stop-gap as it collects some... > Read more
Norah Jones and Q-Tip: Life is Better
Black Country Communion: Black Country Communion (J and R/Southbound)
7 Nov 2010 | <1 min read
Some don't fall too far from the tree that Led Zeppelin planted, and this outfit -- a kind of second tier hard-rock supergroup -- certainly reference Jimmy Page's riffery and powerhoue attack. And the drummer is Jason Bonham, son of the late John from Zeppelin. But with guitarist Joe Bonamassa, keyboard player Derek Sherinian (Alice Cooper) and singer/bassist Glenn Hughes (Black... > Read more
Black Country Communion: No Time
Bob Dylan: The Witmark Demos 1962-64 (Sony)
1 Nov 2010 | 5 min read
There's a case the most important person in Bob Dylan's early career wasn't his inspiration Woody Guthrie (the folk singer he traveled to New York to meet and whose style he adopted), nor Suze Rotolo (his girlfriend who appeared on the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in '63 ) or even Joan Baez (his muse, lover and champion). The key figure – until they bitterly parted... > Read more
Bob Dylan: Ballad For a Friend
Emma Paki: Trinity (Heartmusic)
1 Nov 2010 | <1 min read
It has been an astonishing decade and a half (and a bit) since Emma Paki's remarkable System Virtue, Greenstone and her debut album Oxygen of Love. And since then mostly silence on the recording front. And she's in no hurry to rush back, this EP is just three songs in acoustic versions (two produced by Bic Runga), then mixed and remixed by various people (including Bryson Campbell of Dam... > Read more