Music at Elsewhere
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Joan Armatrading: This Charming Life (Hypertension/Southbound)
5 Apr 2010 | <1 min read
After the success (critical and saleswise) of her last album Into the Blues, you'd expect attention would be drawn to this new album from one of rock's long distance runners who has long since fallen from media and wider public attention. That said, this outing is much more patchy than the tightly coherent predecessor which roped together various styles of blues. Here Armatrading aims... > Read more
Joan Armatrading: Best Dress On
Josh Rouse: El Turista (Bedroom Classics)
5 Apr 2010 | <1 min read
The musically itinerant Josh Rouse has long been an Elsewhere favourite for his musical curiosity (Seventies singer-songwriters, Nashville, indie-rock and so on) and he doesn't disappoint here as he gets his passport stamped and takes off for the tropical pleasures of Brazilian moods and music (in Portuguese mostly) which come subtlely orchestrated or deliciously understated. And yes, by... > Read more
Josh Rouse: Duerme
The Imagined Village: Empire and Love (ECC/Southbound)
5 Apr 2010 | 1 min read
Every now and again the English music press gets infatuated by traditional folk (to make amends for hailing Gay Day and other such rubbish Britrock?) and embarks on a brief essaying of various musicians and artists who would otherwise languish in finger-in-ear folk clubs. The Imagined Village -- a changing line-up of folk and elsewhere musicians -- is the most recent to receive such... > Read more
The Imagined Village: Cum On Feel the Noize
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: Beat the Devil's Tatoo (Abstract Dragon)
5 Apr 2010 | 1 min read
When I saw the BRMC in their early days at the Troubadour in LA I came away convinced they were, if not the future of rock'n'roll, then they would have at least a lot of interesting noises to make until the future arrived. They roared and rocked, swapped instruments, played psychedelicised rock'n'roll with references to a few other marginal styles and . . . I fell for them. Ours has... > Read more
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: Mama Taught Me Better
Pop Mechanix: Now-Then; One Hit Windows (Failsafe)
5 Apr 2010 | 1 min read
It would be fair to observe that when the countback of Kiwi bands of the Eighties is done the name "Pop Mechanix" comes up much less frequently than it should. Yet here was a hard-working and thoroughly entertaining live band from Christchurch which cracked urgent singles like Radio Song ("my music, I want to hear it on the radio") at a time when radio programmers were... > Read more
Pop Mechanix: Jumping Out a Window
Various artists: Nowhere Boy soundtrack (Sony)
5 Apr 2010 | 1 min read
This is the music from the film which traces the life of John Lennon from a child to . . . Well, to where the film Backbeat picks up actually. And as with the soundtrack to Backbeat which featured The Backbeat Band (Greg Dulli, Dave Grohl, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth and others playing rock'n'roll of the era) so too this album has material by the Nowhere Boys (the film's cast of... > Read more
The Nowhere Boys: In Spite of All the Danger
Carol Bean: Crossing the Dirty River (carolbean.com)
4 Apr 2010 | <1 min read
This album by peripatetic British-born, LA-raised country-blues rocker singer-guitarist Bean -- now resident in NZ -- has been around the stereo for perhaps so long I forgot to post it. With a tight, revolving door band which includes slippery and earthy guitar by Mike Petrie, Robbie Duncan, Mark Laurent and Ray Ahipene-Mercer, Bean delivers some serious messages (although the Pacific... > Read more
Carol Bean: Evidence
Jeff Beck: Emotion and Commotion (Atco)
2 Apr 2010 | 1 min read
Jeff Beck's career has certainly seem some troughs -- usually by virtue of his absence from playing when the mood didn't take him -- but latterly he has enjoyed some great highs. His recent touring reminded again of what a colourful palette he commands -- from fusion rock to great delicacy, often within the same piece -- and that he does this with such self-effacement. His most recent... > Read more
Jeff Beck: I Put a Spell on You (featuring Joss Stone)
Her Make Believe Band: AM Radio (Old Oak)
1 Apr 2010 | <1 min read
This delightful album by two expat Kiwis Cy Winstanley and Vanessa McGowan has been quite rightly picking up favourable notices in the UK where they are now based as part of the group Her Make Believe Band. Certainly the references to Paul Simon (for lightness of touch and literacy in places) make sense but there is as much pop here as folk which tips it right into that category which hooks... > Read more
Her Make Believe Band: Thats Why I Like You Best
Drive-By Truckers: The Big To-Do (Pias)
29 Mar 2010 | 1 min read
The Truckers inspire great loyalty, but fans may be tested by this outing which was knocked off quickly and suffers for it. Certainly it rocks like Pearl Jam with Neil Young or Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers on a three-day drunk, but songs like the otherwise excellent stripper’s story of Birthday Boy stumble to a halt and others just sound undercooked, if bruisingly effective.... > Read more
Drive-By Truckers: Drag the Lake Charlie
The Unthanks: Here's the Tender Coming (Shock)
29 Mar 2010 | 1 min read
Mercury Prize nominated or not, the previous album The Bairns by these Geordies -- then under the name Rachel Unthank and the Winterset -- did not do it for me, and hence didn't get posted at Elsewhere. It sounded far too finger-in-the ear gloom-folk and of marginal interest to anyone outside the English folk circle (and Mercury panels) which embraces such things. Even Rachel now considers... > Read more
The Unthanks: Sad February
The Coosters: Worn Out Libertines (Coosters)
28 Mar 2010 | 1 min read | 1
First some background to this one. As you might guess Elsewhere gets music and requests for reviews from many and various places -- but this was a first from Toledo, Ohio. When guitarist/singer Steven J Athanas sent an e-mail asking if I would be interested in their album he seemed smart and witty - and when I replied along the lines of "sure, why not?"I also added that all I knew... > Read more
The Coosters: Anyone Guess
John Hiatt: The Open Road (New West)
22 Mar 2010 | 1 min read
For my money John Hiatt never sounds better than when he gets a rocking band behind and sounds a little venomous or angry. The back-porch Hiatt never much appealed to me -- so this, his 19th album, suits me just fine. With his tight little touring band and at age 57, he (mostly) writes about hitting the highway and some of the songs seem perfectly crafted for top-down driving with a strip... > Read more
John Hiatt: Haulin'
The Eastern: Arrows (Social End Product/Rhythmethod)
22 Mar 2010 | 1 min read
The Eastern out of Christchurch are new to me although for the past few months their name has been mentioned a lot, always along the lines of, "Oh, you gotta hear the Eastern." Now I have and I too am saying, "Oh, you gotta hear the Eastern". Part arse-kickin' Steve Earle (for whom they have opened), part reflective old time country, part Old Crow Medicine Show (for... > Read more
The Eastern: The Steeple
Various Artists: Introducing Townes Van Zandt via the Great Unknown (For the Sake of the Song)
22 Mar 2010 | 1 min read
The late Van Zandt is hardly the little-known cult artist he once was: there are many tribute albums (Steve Earle most recently) and his estate must coin it in from all the covers alt.country artists do. Most of Van Zandt’s originals were spare, lowkey and acoustic -- so the surprise here is what an embellishing or reconfiguring approach some of these largely unknown artists or cult... > Read more
Loophole and Ciaran Kirby: Lungs
Graham Parker: Imaginary Television (Bloodshot)
22 Mar 2010 | 1 min read
In Britain’s post-punk era Parker and the Rumour emerged with an urgent, often angry sound that owed as much to pub-rock and venomous Bob Dylan as it did to American soul, r’n’b and rocked-up country. They were real contenders and their early albums still sound full of bile’n’fire. Parker’s solo career became more measured when he relocate to the US and... > Read more
Graham Parker: Weather Report
Fionn Regan: The Shadow of an Empire (Inertia/Border)
21 Mar 2010 | 1 min read
On the cover he may look like one of the more camp American Idol finalists, but Irish singer-songwriter Fionn Regan occupies that appealing musical territory between Dylan in '66, Pete Molinari and lo-fi Chris Knox with his urgent, lyrically twisting songs which are punctuated by ear and heart-gripping lines. Catacombs here suggests a story in just a few lines: "I've been noticing... > Read more
Fionn Regan: Protection Racket
The Watson Twins: Talking to You, Talking to Me (EMI)
21 Mar 2010 | <1 min read
This album might be surprisingly short -- a mere 33 minutes -- but it represents a significant and reasonably impressive shift in direction for Chandra and Leigh Watson who here call on friends from My Morning Jacket and Everest for an album that is by turns moody bluesy and soulful, all delivered with a pop economy. The folk and rootsy blues which was their hallmark on Southern Manners... > Read more
The Watson Twins: Midnight
Hayseed Dixie: Killer Grass (Cooking Vinyl)
21 Mar 2010 | <1 min read
You might have thought the Hayseed Dixie joke -- a band from the fanciful Deer Lick Holler playing bluegrass treatments of (mostly) rock songs, interviewed here -- would have run its course by now. But eight albums in they are still going. And of course it is still kinda fun: here they knock off Queen (Bohemian Rhapsody), Black Sabbath, Mozart, The Prodigy and others (as well as seven... > Read more
Hayseed Dixie: Won't Get Fooled Again (the Who)
Eden Mulholland: Music for Dance (Isaac)
21 Mar 2010 | <1 min read
Probably this shouldn't work. Music for dance pieces have to be special to exist without the moving images -- and yet in theory they should be able to do exactly that. These do. Eden Mulholland has written for numerous New Zealand dance productions and is the singer-songwriter in the rock band Motorcade, but here he collects 23 discreet, mostly electronic pieces which utilise backward... > Read more