Music at Elsewhere
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TrinityRoots: Music is Choice (Rhythmethod CD/DVD)
6 Sep 2010 | 3 min read
There was good news for Flight of the Conchords fans this week: Jemaine Clement confirmed, yet again, there wouldn't be another series. Strange as that sounds, some things are so perfectly formed they are best left alone: Fawlty Towers and the English version of The Office . . . or the never-ending Lost and drearily drawn out V? Great bands deserve an enclosed lifespan. Those... > Read more
TrinityRoots: Home, Land and Sea (live, from Music is Choice)
John Prine: In Person and On Stage (Oh Boy)
6 Sep 2010 | 1 min read
The great John Prine falls somewhere between folk and country, but also has a rare downbeat sense of humour and his wry observations have always elevated his albums. Here on a collection of live tracks -- essentially a greatest hits by a man who has rarely had a hit -- he has some grin-inducing anecdotes at times which are kinda downhome'n'aw-shucks country. But don't be fooled -- when he... > Read more
John Prine: Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore
Endless Boogie: Full House Head (Shock)
6 Sep 2010 | 1 min read
In his rock'n'roll essays and fiction collection The Boy Who Cried Freebird, the American writer Mitch Myers traces the notion of “boogie” from its name (having sex, basically) through the blues (John Lee Hooker's Boogie Chillun in 48) and boogie-woogie piano a building block of early rock'n'roll and then into those endless jams which longhaired guitarists get down'n'boogie on... > Read more
Endless Boogie: Tarmac City
The Magic Numbers: The Runaway (Shock)
6 Sep 2010 | 1 min read
By abandoning the pure pop-economy of their terrific, 05 self-titled debut for the more embellished and ambitious sound Those the Brokes in 06, this English outfit of two sets of siblings lost followers, and momentum. But where that debut was a radio/car album, Brokes was a headphones experience. The openers here – a string-enhanced five minutes of The Pulse and the gently... > Read more
The Magic Numbers: A Start with No Ending
Simon Comber: Endearance (CNZ)
5 Sep 2010 | 1 min read
Halfway through this slowly engrossing New Zealand singer-songwriter's album is the gently penetrating song Please Elvis, which opens with the singer asking the King not to make his mother cry as she again plays one of his dusty old 45s, but then the song unfurls into a darker and more deep story of family life: "she's twirling a brandy balloon . . . a family will drive you wild, she's... > Read more
Simon Comber: The Crossroads
Timothy Blackman: I've Never Lived (Home Alone)
30 Aug 2010 | <1 min read
Singer-songtwriter Blackman appeared at Elsewhere previously with his very interesting EP Modern Sprawl, and this is his short (half an hour) nine-song debut album recorded in Berlin in December last year -- which must have been cold. With sole assistance from a drummer in a few places, these are Blackman's naked ruminations (some philosophical, some imagistic) and while there is a... > Read more
Timothy Blackman: Where the Caterpillars Live
Jon Langford and Skull Orchard: Old Devils (Bloodshot/Southbound)
30 Aug 2010 | <1 min read
Langford was in the UK punk-era Mekons way back but has in more recent times embraced a kind of folk-punk Americana and played with the likes of Ryan Adams and Alejandro Escovedo. Chicago-based, he's also a well-known artist (lots of covers for the Chicago label Bloodshot). With Skull Orchard he parlays a rough-edged country-rock with a punk/Clash urgency -- but although he has a way with... > Read more
Jon Langford and Skull Orchard: Book of Your Life
Ben Vaughn: Designs in Music (Vampisoul/Southbound)
30 Aug 2010 | <1 min read
It's not like Ben Vaughn needs a calling card into the world of television soundtracks, his music has apparently been used in That 70s Show and Third Rock From the Sun. But this delightfully referential album -- recorded with the cream of LA session players who are in on the game -- includes nods to everyone from Ennio Morricone to whoever wrote the theme to The Jetsons, Henry Mancini and... > Read more
Ben Vaughn: While We're Here
Leonard Cohen: The Essential Leonard Cohen (Sony)
29 Aug 2010 | 2 min read
The British rock writer Nigel Williamson, considering the career of Leonard Cohen, recently observed, “We often describe singer-songwriters as being 'Dylanesque', a band with great harmonies you might describe as 'Beatlesque'. We even talk about someone being 'Waitsean', after Tom Waits. “But have you ever heard the word 'Cohenesque'? It doesn't exist, and that says it... > Read more
Leonard Cohen: Alexandra Leaving
Dylan LeBlanc: Paupers Field (Rough Trade)
29 Aug 2010 | 1 min read
From the understated openers with their gentle backbeat, soft organ and steel guitar, LeBlanc -- barely 21, out of Louisiana -- announces himself as part of a long lineage which stretches back to the country-soul out of Muscle Shoals studio (where his dad was a session musician) and the country-rock of the early Band, but which also reaches to more contemporary names such as Jim James (of... > Read more
Dylan LeBlanc: Changing of the Seasons
Queens of the Stone Age: Rated R, Deluxe Edition (Universal)
23 Aug 2010 | 1 min read
This, the second album by QOTSA and their first on a major label, was their breakthrough exactly a deacde ago and had critics digging in their superlatives bag. Oddly enough though, it wasn't because it was ground-breaking and innovative but rather it was (mostly) simply no nonsense, no flaffing about hard rock which was grounded in the great tradition of Zepp/Sabbath but with a dollop Meat... > Read more
Feel Good Hit of the Summer
Tom Jones: Praise and Blame (Island)
23 Aug 2010 | 1 min read
The late-career revival isn't uncommon these days (Bob Dylan, Bettye LaVette, Solomon Burke, Johnny Cash et al) but it still comes as a surprise, especially in the case of 70-year old Tom Jones who could have coasted into retirement with albums of interesting standards (in the manner of Rod Stewart) or even just pick up a few contemporary songs which suited his soul-belter style. But, as the... > Read more
Tom Jones: Lord Help
Juliagrace: Beautiful Survivor (Parachute)
23 Aug 2010 | 1 min read | 3
One problem with being identified as a "Christian artist" -- as so many have discovered -- is that there is a resistance to them outside that market, and because of that many simply give up and stay with the audience which has and will support them. The other problem is that it means many outside of Christian circles are denied hearing some exceptional singers and songwriters --... > Read more
Juliagrace: Diamond
Various Artists: The Great New Zealand Songbook Vol 2 (Thom/Universal)
23 Aug 2010 | 1 min read
The previous volume in this series (see here) sold eight times platinum which proved two things: that well packaged and intelligently compiled collections of New Zealand are popular and in short supply, and that a lot of Kiwis living abroad probably got one for a birthday/Christmas. If that set -- 42 tracks over two discs -- came up a little short in the wave of Pacific artists of the past... > Read more
The Veils: Lavinia
Melissa Etheridge: Fearless Love (Island)
23 Aug 2010 | 1 min read | 1
From the opening title track here – a windblown open-road rocker and statement of ferocious independence – Etheridge confirms her credentials as someone who performs open-heart surgery on the emotions while backing it up with powerful songs. As with Springsteen, she also drops into characters (the unfulfilled housewife in The Wanting of You, the lonely inner life of a... > Read more
Melissa Etheridge:Miss California
Hawklords: 25 Years On (Esoteric/Southbound)
22 Aug 2010 | 1 min read
This will be reasonably brief because there is perhaps a limited audience for this double CD reissue of the '78 album and EP by an off-shoot of the sci-fi prog-rock band Hawkwind. Inspired by the science fiction of Michael Moorcock, Hawkwind's Dave Brock and Robert Calvert created Hawklords after Hawkwind briefly fell apart (they are still a going concern in some form or other). And --... > Read more
Hawklords: Flying Doctor
Various Artists: The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle (EMI)
22 Aug 2010 | 1 min read
Although very different, Brian Eno and Malcolm McLaren had one trait in common: after the event both would attribute philosophical and/or political meaning to something they had done. In the case of the late McLaren, the prime mover behind the Sex Pistols -- Johnny Rotten/John Lydon denies he was ever their "manager" -- would have had us believe that the Pistols/punk/anarchy of... > Read more
Johnny Rotten: Stepping Stone
Simon Lynge: The Future (Lo-Max)
22 Aug 2010 | 1 min read
Singer-songwriter Lynge's story may be more interesting than his lowkey acoustic folk-pop: born in Denmark, childhood in Greenland (where his father is the local Bob Dylan apparently), back to Denmark, then to Los Angeles and Nashville, debut album Beautiful Way to Drown recorded in LA in Copenhagen in 2005 . . . Hard to top that in life experience for a 24-year old Inuit-Scandinavian... > Read more
Simon Lynge: Infinitely You
The Erica Miller Experience: Reconsidered (Universal)
17 Aug 2010 | 1 min read | 1
Obviously there is a curiosity factor at work here: 63-year old Erica Miller is the woman Shayne Carter (Straitjacket Fits/Dimmer) calls "Mum" and so the album comes with acquired cachet in some circles. That it is also an album of covers of songs first recorded by Elvis and arrives on the anniversary of Presley's death adds another dimension of interest. The question is... > Read more
Erica Miller Experience: Don't
Brendan Perry: Ark (Cooking Vinyl)
16 Aug 2010 | <1 min read
As half of Dead Can Dance (alongside Lisa Gerrard), Perry was responsible for impressive sonic landscapes which owed a little to a kind of geographically amorphous "world music" and also to cinema soundtracks. Here, more than a decade after his previous solo outing, he embarks on gloomy sounding, authoratively-delivered meditations and thoughts over his swathe of synths which have... > Read more