Music at Elsewhere
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Shelby Lynne: Just a Little Lovin' (Lost Highway)
2 Mar 2008 | <1 min read | 1
Quite why anyone would get excited over the over-emoting 19-year old Adele's debut album when Shelby Lynne conveys more depth of ache in one line is beyond me. This exceptional album sees country singer Lynne go down a very difficult route: taking on songs made famous by the late Dusty Springfield (and offering one stunning original). And rather than try to out-gun Dusty in terms of pushing... > Read more
Shelby Lynne: You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
Jeffrey Foucault: Ghost Repeater (Signature)
2 Mar 2008 | <1 min read
Not sure where this album has been -- it was recorded in 2005 and released in the rest of the world the following year - but it has just turned up in my letterbox. Produced by Bo Ramsey (a hallmark of quality) these are troubadour country songs grounded in a dark America of lonesome travellers, the search for a place, ghosts of the past and the freedom of the open landscape. And plenty of... > Read more
Jeffrey Foucault: Appeline
Supreme Beings of Leisure: 11i (Elite)
1 Mar 2008 | <1 min read
So, whatever happened to chill-out music? About a decade ago the world was lousy with the stuff and you barely move for people raising martini glasses and trying to look like they'd stepped out of a 1960 Pan Am ad. But the cooler-than-thou crowd seemed to fade away quietly (into mortgages and kids maybe?) which is a pity because some of that hip'n'cool music was pretty darn good. Among... > Read more
Supreme Beings of Leisure: Mirror
BB King, Live (Geffen)
1 Mar 2008 | <1 min read
This may not be the best live album King has made -- there is a case made for another under Essential Elsewhere, see tag -- but from his comments in the tie-in DVD bonus footage it will be his last. In interviews King is breathless and wistful, and he has, at 82, all but retired. He speaks now about when he is gone . . . These concert -- before predominantly white audiences -- were... > Read more
BB King: Key to the Highway
Billy Bragg, Mr Love and Justice (Cooking Vinyl)
1 Mar 2008 | <1 min read | 1
This is the album that famously wasn't released in time for Bragg to promote at this year's Big Day Out appearances. Not that he seemed to mind (much), he noted that he was flown to the other side of the world, there was an all-day backstage bar, he got to hang out with great musicians, and he only had to play for about 30 minutes. "We call it the Big Day Off, " he laughed. This... > Read more
Billy Bragg: I Keep Faith
Various: Song of America (Split Rock/Southbound)
1 Mar 2008 | 1 min read
This beautifully packaged 3-CD set (with explanatory booklet) is doubtless very useful as a teaching aid in American schools: it is a chronological collection from a Lakota dream song through colonial period and Civil War songs, to Depression Era laments for the parched land and Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? then into the civil rights period and up through hip-hop to Bettye LaVette soulfully... > Read more
Old Crow Medicine Show: Deportee (words by Woodie Guthrie)
Okkervil River: The Stage Names (UN Spin)
1 Mar 2008 | <1 min read
At his most dramatic, OkkRiver singer Will Sheff sounds like a heavily caffeinated Richard Thompson (the ripping opener Our Life is Not A Movie) or Morrissey with a very nasty attitude (on Unless It Kicks which is like a seriously angry Smiths). His voice is pushed to its upper register and he sings with a passion that is rare. That both of those connections are English may seem surprising... > Read more
Okkervil River: Unless It's Kicks
Willie Nelson: Moment of Forever (Lost Highway)
29 Feb 2008 | 1 min read
Whether he's singing sentimental songs (like the Kristofferson-penned title track here), evoking some kind of outlaw mentality or harking back to history (his take on Randy Newman's Louisiana here lightly updated to make it more relevant post-Katrina) there is still something magical about Willie's vocals. He slides behind a beat to give a lazy and jazzy quality, his twanging vocal style has... > Read more
Willie Nelson:Over You Again
Jason Isbell: Sirens of the Ditch (New West/Elite)
21 Feb 2008 | 1 min read | 1
True story: an advance CD copy of this album arrived at my place about six months ago and I lost it down the back of the bookcase. A fortnight ago I watched the new Drive-By Truckers album (see tag) slide through the same gap and in the course of rescuing it came upon this -- the debut solo album by a former Trucker who quit last year. Coincidence? I think not. Singer-guitarist Isbell is... > Read more
Jason Isbell: Dress Blues
Eilen Jewell: Letters from Sinners and Strangers (Signature)
21 Feb 2008 | <1 min read
This singer-songwriter from Idaho (originally, then LA and latterly Massachusetts) will be deluding herself if she thinks that no one will say "early Lucinda Williams" when they hear the track In the End here: the same world-weary, vowel dragging delivery . . . But Jewell has much more going for her than that comparison: with a small band (clarinet, upright bass, violin) she... > Read more
Eilen Jewell: Too Hot to Sleep
Gary Louris: Vagabond (Ryko/Elite)
21 Feb 2008 | <1 min read
Louris was a founder of the cornerstone alt.country band the Jayhawks whose career in the 90s saw them weave their way from country-rock to post-grunge rock and sometimes pure pop They were hard to get a bead on but that was the great pleasure of their career. With the Jayhawks seemingly on hold Louris steps out for a debut album under his own name, but manages to get plenty of help from... > Read more
Gary Louris: She Only Calls Me On Sundays
The Eels: Meet the Eels and Useless Trinkets (Geffen/Universal)
16 Feb 2008 | 2 min read
Wherein cult band the Eels get the kind of re-issue/repackage usually reserved for Major Big Name Acts: Meet the Eels is a 24 track compilation of 10 years from 1996 with a 12 clip DVD collection (with commentary option) and an informative booklet; and Useless Trinkets is a 50-track double disc collection of B-sides, soundtrack pieces, rarities and unreleased recordings, a live DVD and yet... > Read more
The Eels: My Beloved Monstrosity
kd lang: Watershed (Nonesuch)
11 Feb 2008 | 1 min read
I read a curious review of this recently in which the writer said if you came to this expecting kd to return to her country roots you'd be very disapppointed. Why anyone would expect that of lang is beyond me: she has barely touched country music (the odd guest spot excepted) since the late 80s and has been consistently the practitioner of a very sophisticated kind of adult pop, which she... > Read more
kd lang: Coming Home
The SteelDrivers, The SteelDrivers (Rounder)
9 Feb 2008 | <1 min read
Some people have (understandably) said to me they didn't quite get this immediately -- and to be honest nor did I. Bluegrass isn't my thing: I find the vocals often nasal and whining, the scraping fiddle gets on my wick after a while, and the songs are either flat-tack upbeat or downright morose. Which makes it a real surprise to me that I should have even played this album, let alone be... > Read more
The SteelDrivers: Midnight Train to Memphis
The Cave Singers: Invitation Songs (Matador)
8 Feb 2008 | <1 min read
Singers don't come with a more appropriate surname than Peter Quirk of Seattle's Cave Singers -- his vocals are indeed quirky. He delivers with nail-hard and assertive confidence, doesn't seem to have much of a range and there is a constant shudder to his sound. Yet in these 10 originals by this three-piece his declamatory style rides over the simple and sometimes primitive rhythms... > Read more
The Cave Singers: Elephant Clouds
Luke Thompson: Here on the Ground (Pure)
8 Feb 2008 | <1 min read | 1
This young singer-songwriter from Tauranga came to my attention a few weeks ago when I was asked if I would write a bio to accompany the release of this, his debut album. I get a few such requests but only ever take on someone whose music impresses me (Miriam Clancy was another) and a quick check at Thompson's MySpace page told me all I needed to know: the guy has a way with an intelligent... > Read more
Luke Thompson: Look the Other Way
Steve Reynolds, Exile (Fulfill/Exile)
3 Feb 2008 | <1 min read
I know nothing of this LA-based Canadian singer-songwriter other than he turned up on that pretty good tribute to the Band, Endless Highway, that came out last year. (He did a fine version of Stage Fright) But this rollicking, often urgent-sounding acoustic driven folk-rock is an excellent showcase of his many talents, from finger-picking to intimate ballads sung in a pack-a-day,... > Read more
Steve Reynolds, Painter and Son
Judith Owen: Happy This Way (Courgette)
3 Feb 2008 | 1 min read
For Jamie Cullum to call Owen "the female Randy Newman" only tells you wee Jamie needs to be more familiar with Randy. But singer-pianist Owen (married to Spinal Tap bassist Derek Smalls aka Harry Shearer) does pen a good tune and weaves her literate lyrics through it in way which only the best can -- and the best like Cassandra Wilson, Richard Thompson (with whom she tours) and... > Read more
Judith Owen: My Father's Voice
Jimmy Buffett: Live in Anguilla (Mailboat/Rhythmethod)
1 Feb 2008 | 1 min read
I have had dinner and drinks at Jimmy's place a couple of times -- in truth at his franchise restaurants Margaritaville which offer a fish platter so huge I have had to take a photograph of it. Buffett is a businessman/pilot/sailor and singer whose lifestyle is enviable: in his world it is permanently sunny, boatshoes constitute dressing up, aloha shirts are the uniform and it is always... > Read more
Jimmy Buffett: Weather With You
Paul McLaney: Diamond Side (Loop)
27 Jan 2008 | <1 min read
Given the critical acclaim rightly accorded his last album Edin, you might have thought this follow-up by the prolific Auckland-based singer-songwriter would have been widely reviewed, but it seems to have slipped out with little fanfare. Possibly there are two problems at work: McClaney is highly prolific (I have half a dozen albums under his name or with Gramsci) and this one arrived just... > Read more