Music at Elsewhere
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BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 The Beatles Remasters (EMI)
17 Dec 2009 | <1 min read
Much as it is possible to love every crackle and piece of surface noise on the original vinyl albums which some still have or have inherited, the remastering brought out an energy and vitality in the Beatles catalogue which was undeniable. The music (and the Beatles Rock Band game) was much essayed at Elsewhere on release (I heard the recordings in Abbey Road back in June) but the truth is... > Read more
The Beatles: Happiness is a Warm Gun (from "The White Album", mono version)
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Lawrence Arabia: Chant Darling (Rhythmethod)
17 Dec 2009 | 1 min read | 3
In a blog at publicaddress.net about the 2009 Big Day Out I hailed the pop acts on the day while noting that in New Zealand we like pop music, but prefer it to come from somewhere else. We're a little suspicious of it when one of our own starts to make it. At least critics and radio programmers seem to be, other people just get on and enjoy it. We like our pop with a vinegar lyric or... > Read more
Lawrence Arabia: Look Like A Fool
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Bonnie Prince Billy: Beware (Spin)
17 Dec 2009 | 1 min read | 2
The previous album by Bonnie Prince Billy -- aka Will Oldham -- was the uneven but enjoyable Lie Down in the Light which found our former melancholy fellah in a somewhat more upbeat mood. It was bound to divide longtime listeners, most of whom probably preferred his "I see a darkness" side, or his wonderful The Letting Go which made the Best of Elsewhere 2006 list. A consumer... > Read more
Bonnie Prince Billy: You Can't Hurt me Now
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Leonard Cohen: Live in London (DVD, Sony)
17 Dec 2009 | 1 min read | 1
Those who saw Cohen's New Zealand concerts earlier this year -- and even those whose wallets couldn't stand the cruel gouging -- will find much to enjoy in this, almost exactly the same show, here filmed live in London's O2 Arena last July. Musically this was an interesting concert (again, what you see here is almost identical, jokes and all, to what he did everywhere on that tour) and his... > Read more
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Bob Dylan: Together Through Life (Sony)
17 Dec 2009 | 2 min read
Bob Dylan doesn't exactly make easy listening music, but Together Through Life finds him in a musically mellow mood and although darkness lurks in the lyrics (guns, death, danger, songs of love and loss) there is something relaxed and almost settled about most of these 10 songs. Where its superb predecessor Modern Times (his first number one Billboard album since Desire 30 years... > Read more
Bob Dylan: I Feel A Change Comin' On
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 The Puddle: The Shakespeare Monkey (Fishrider/Yellow Eye)
17 Dec 2009 | 2 min read | 1
Dunedin's The Puddle should have been bigger (and perhaps better) than they were during New Zealand's vibrant indie-rock scene in the Eighties and early Nineties. But they were sometimes "indisposed" during the heyday of their famous label Flying Nun -- although they still managed to release a couple of interesting and almost excellent albums (and probably a single or two, who... > Read more
The Puddle: One Romantic Gesture
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Wild Bill Ricketts: John Dryden (Ricketts)
17 Dec 2009 | <1 min read
Certainly not what you might expect: an outlaw reading the poems or plays of Dryden. The Ricketts here is the percussion player (and songwriter) in the wonderful Phoenix Foundation (Dryden was an ancestor apparently) and here he coaxes various members of Trinity Roots, Opensouls, Fat Freddys and the Black Seeds to assist on an album of gently Pacific-flavoured songs which are gorgeously... > Read more
Wild Bill Ricketts: New J
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Bill Callahan: Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle (UK Spin)
17 Dec 2009 | 1 min read | 2
At a time when yet another Neil Young album and a truly dire Stevie Nicks live outing command major media attention, it could be slightly depressing that this one by the great Bill Callahan will probably go straight past most reviewers, and his potential audience. Often appearing under the name Smog, Callahan has always appealed to people attuned to Bonnie Prince Billy, the Handsome Family... > Read more
Bill Callahan: The Wind and the Dove
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Miriam Clancy: Magnetic (Desert Road/Rhythmethod)
17 Dec 2009 | 1 min read | 1
Elsewhere is pleased to say it discovered the gifts of Miriam Clancy very early in the piece and hailed her debut album Lucky One of 2006 as one of the best of that year. At Elsewhere there is also an interview with Miriam done in advance of that album. Since then she has toured to much acclaim, took time out to have a baby, and now is back with this new album -- and a lot has changed.... > Read more
Miriam Clancy: Ghost Town
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 An Emerald City: Circa Scaria (Banished/Border)
17 Dec 2009 | <1 min read | 1
Because the previous EP by this Auckland-based group was widely hailed at Elsewhere, and that there is now a profile of the band posted under Absolute Elsewhere, this will be brief. For my money this band is the most interesting, musically ambitious and creative I have seen in this country in many years. They possess that rarity in New Zealand music, an aesthetic sensibility -- and it... > Read more
An Emerald City: Reindeers Running
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 The Flaming Lips: Embryonic (Warners)
17 Dec 2009 | 1 min read
Anyone coming to this sprawling and musically diverse (not to say sometimes bewildering) 80 minute album because they were seduced by the Lips' earlier album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (with that sublime hit Do You Realise) might want to take a big breath. This is different in many, many ways. This is the Lips' fascinating and eccentrically intellectual Wayne Coyne... > Read more
The Flaming Lips: Powerless
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Various: Stroke; Songs for Chris Knox (Rhythmethod)
17 Dec 2009 | 3 min read | 2
There's an unstated but obviously very sensible practice that most critics adopt: you never review a show or album which is raising money for a good cause. If the show is lousy and you say as much then that can be misread as you not supporting the cause. Same goes for an album. Didn't like the kiddie choir at the Plunket show means you are anti-motherhood, right? That kind of thing. The... > Read more
The Mountain Goats: Brave
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 M Ward: Hold Time (4AD)
17 Dec 2009 | 1 min read | 2
The previous album by M Ward, Post-War, was one of the Best of Elsewhere 2006 albums for its dark hues, free-range musical approach (blues, alt.rock, indie-folk, Americana etc) and the fact it had something to say. At that time I noted his musical magpie tendencies (a good thing) and because of its layers said it would stand the test of time. It has round my way, and although I missed his... > Read more
M Ward: Epistemology
Gordon Gano and the Ryans: Under the Sun (YepRoc)
14 Dec 2009 | 1 min read
While the solo career of multi-instrumentalist Brian Ritchie has been the most rewarding of the Violent Femmes because of his interest in world music and the jazz of Sun Ra, as the Femmes vocalist Gano was always going to have a more distinctive profile. With the Femmes effectively disbanded -- Ritchie lives in Tasmania -- Gano steps out under his own name with the Ryans (guitarist Billy and... > Read more
Gordon Gano and the Ryans: Home
Various Artists: Ten Guitars, the New Zealand Heartland Soundtrack (Universal)
14 Dec 2009 | 1 min read | 1
Walking in to a CD/DVD store recently I heard the most unexpected song playing, it was Amigo by Black Slate, a British reggae band which had a brief fliration with the charts at the dawn of the Eighties with this pop-reggae crossover single. They came to Auckland and played a Town Hall gig with Herbs and my recollection, seared in my memory actually, was of going to the gig and being one... > Read more
Patea Maori: Poi E
Tom Waits: Glitter and Doom Live (Anti/Shock)
14 Dec 2009 | 2 min read | 1
Barney Hoskyn's recent useful but flawed Waits biography Lowside of the Road ended with the writer going to see Tom Waits in concert on this brief tour which was widely acclaimed as the best of 2008. Waits hadn't been out live in some while (11 years since he'd last appeared in the UK) and as a result his cachet had grown and expectation was high. And Waits -- ever the entertainer -- didn't... > Read more
Tom Waits: The Part You Throw Away
Linda Ronstadt: Hand Sown . .. Home Grown/Silk Purse (Raven/EMI)
13 Dec 2009 | 1 min read
Long before she was a country-rock cover star and dating California governor Jerry Brown in the late Seventies, Linda Ronstadt was a singer struggling to find her forte. Her albums with the Stone Poneys showed her folk-rock chops and their cover of Mike Nesmith's Different Drum gave them a hit but also signalled a solo career beckoning for Ronstadt. Her first two solo albums from '69... > Read more
Linda Ronstadt: Lovesick Blues (from Silk Purse)
Baskery: Fall Among Thieves (Glitterhouse/Yellow Eye)
13 Dec 2009 | 1 min read
Recently I flipped on yet another faux-country alt.folk album and listened to university educated people pretending they were Appalachian mountain dwellers imbued with a rural spirit and old time religion. I thought, "Spare me much more of this!" And then comes this album to reinvigorate my interest in a mighty crowded genre -- and of course they are the furtherest thing from... > Read more
Baskery: Haunt You
Them Crooked Vultures: Them Crooked Vultures (Sony)
13 Dec 2009 | <1 min read
This will be brief for a couple of reasons: this genuine supergroup of Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters), Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) has already been given wide-exposure, and that in this instance Elsewhere has been running a bit late. (Got waylaid by a Guy Clark album or somesuch) So the short of it is that this is usefully mature and loud hard... > Read more
Them Crooked Vultures: Spinning in Daffodils
The Phoenix Foundation: Merry Kriskmass EP (Phoenix Foundation)
13 Dec 2009 | <1 min read
If you believe the anti-hype, this isn't exactly the Phoenix Foundation's cash-in on Christmas but has been inspired by The Krisk who is -- and I am just quoting here -- "a small stuffed white man who rides a reindeer". It is he who appears on the cover, has inspired this six-song EP (plus uncredited but uninteresting soundscapes buried away at the end) and is the subject of the... > Read more