Music at Elsewhere
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Various Artists: To the Moon and Back, a Tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto (digital outlets)
5 Jan 2023 | <1 min read
It probably won't diminish your enjoyment or interest in this tribute album if you aren't familiar with the work of Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto whose career encompassed the Yellow Magic Orchestra, solo work, award-winning soundtracks (The Last Emperor and Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence to the Grammy-nominated The Revenant), numerous collaborations (David Sylvian to Youssou N'Dour) and music... > Read more
The Sheltering Sky: Alva Noto remodel
Jimi Hendrix Experience: Los Angeles Forum, April 26 1969 (Legacy/digital outlets)
4 Jan 2023 | 1 min read
While there's certainly no paucity of Jimi Hendrix Experience live albums, this previously unreleased one – which had openers Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys (whom Hendrix produced) and Chicago Transit Authority (edgy feedback rockers, soon to become simply the more mainstream Chicago) – is of some interest. It was one of the last shows by the original Experience which was... > Read more
Weyes Blood: And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow (digital outlets)
17 Dec 2022 | 2 min read
Few careers have had quite the interesting trajectory and sidesteps as that of Natalie Mering, known as Weyes Blood. Now 34, she grew up in California and Pennsylvania with her Pentecostal parents (“born-again weirdos”), dropped out of college, relocated to California and New Mexico before washing up in Portland, Oregon where she joined the experimental psychedelic folk band... > Read more
Hans Pucket: No Drama (digital outlets)
12 Dec 2022 | 1 min read
The Wellington four-piece Hans Pucket fronted by singer/writer Oliver Devlin has a mainline into classic pop: check the Eleanor Rigby/ELO strings on the title track of their second album No Drama – produced by the Beths' Jonathan Pearce – before it morphs into something like nihilistic 10cc art-pop (“I'll be adorable but despondent”). Or Some Good News... > Read more
Pipsy: All You Ever Wanted (digital outlets)
12 Dec 2022 | <1 min read
This self-produced debut album is from Wellington's Pipsy who is Paul Pouwels McMillan, formerly drummer for Males, wrote his PhD on the tension between playing covers and original music in the Dunedin scene and identifies as they/them. They use elevating 80s and early 90s synth-pop tropes – and equipment – to craft songs which, while handy for the dancefloor, pay attention to... > Read more
The Bobby Holidays: At the Beach (Holiday/bandcamp)
12 Dec 2022 | 1 min read
Delayed by lockdown but timely now for the (Bobby?) holiday season, this project to record with singer/writer Bobby Werry includes a number of name players familiar to Elsewhere and elsewhere listeners, among them Darren McShane (Superturtle) and the horns of Nick Atkinson (Hopetoun Brown) and Finn Scholes. And drummer Gareth Scott plus a bunch of kids doing backing vocals in couple of... > Read more
Big Joanie: Going Home (bandcamp)
4 Dec 2022 | 1 min read
The British punk thunderclap of the Stranglers, Sex Pistols, Damned and Clash in 1976-77 and the post-punk era of the Eighties they heralded saw many women artists on the field of play, more so than in the Sixties and early Seventies In came Siouxsie Sioux, Poly Styrene, the Paulines Black and Murray (of The Selecter and Penetration respectively), Chrissie Hynde, the Slits and other... > Read more
Richie Setford: Curious Growth (bandcamp)
21 Nov 2022 | 1 min read
It has been some little while since we have heard of and from expat Kiwi Richard Setford who is now a longtime Berliner. The last time was with his 2019 album Aimless Survivor and before that there was a brace of albums under the name Bannerman and he was a member of Batucada Sound Machine. One of our contributing writers caught up with him (as Bannerman) in Berlin in late 2015 when he... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Soaked Oats: Working Title (Dot Dash/digital outlets)
20 Nov 2022 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes on heavyweight vinyl with an insert lyric sheet. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . Although Elsewhere doesn't review EPs (too many full-length albums clamouring for attention) we do sometimes listen to them, especially if the artist is local... > Read more
Amamelia: Bananamelia! (Sunreturn/bandcamp)
19 Nov 2022 | <1 min read
It's often useful to come to an artist with little prior knowledge. And know even less about their struggles, gender issues, TikTok presence and so on. If the music's any good you can get back to all that. Amamelia is Auckland's Amelia Berry and all Elsewhere had heard was the student radio single Colourbox which hit a special place between minimalist ambience, a languid vocal and... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: MEDaL: Sequela (Replicate/digital outlets)
14 Nov 2022 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes on heavyweight vinyl, in a frameable cover and with an inner sleeve of lyrics and another engaging image by David Mulcahy. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . The debut Replica by this trio out of Lyttelton was a Recommended Record on release... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: SJD: Sweetheart (Fried Oyster/digital outlets)
13 Nov 2022 | 2 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes on coloured vinyl and in a cover painted by SJD himself. Very much a record of two sides also. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . Despite its name, The Mozart Fellowship offered by the University of Otago in Dunedin/Ōtepoti was established in 1969 to,... > Read more
Adam Hattaway and the Haunters: Bug Eyes (digital outlets)
12 Nov 2022 | <1 min read
Elsewhere was enthusiastic about this Christchurch band's excellent Woolston, Texas album but less enamoured with the over-long (22 track) follow-up Rooster which, we said, wore its influences from country-rock, the Stones, garagebands and Tom Petty too overtly. The result was “it can be like listening to the b-sides or unnecessary extra tracks in a box set by one of those... > Read more
Thrashing Marlin: Wildlife (Braille/bandcamp)
7 Nov 2022 | 1 min read
An offshoot of the award-winning soundtrack collective Plan 9, Thrashing Marlin are probably too busy with other work to keep this alt.pop outlet going. It's been over a decade since their previous album, Donkey Deep about which we said, “dark songs of crime, punishment, evil-doers and alcohol . . . are rendered as disarming musical spin-offs from country, cabaret, moody folk-rock and... > Read more
Worlds Collide
Dry Cleaning: Stumpwork (4AD/digital outlets)
2 Nov 2022 | 1 min read
In 2021 when we reviewed New Long Leg, the arresting debut album by this London quartet, we put it in the lineage of Eighties post-punk, Wire, John Cooper Clarke and Kae Tempest among others. We noted that while Dry Cleaning had touchstones there, they came up with something which was uniquely witty and observant. When we included it in our Best of Elsewhere 2021 list we said,... > Read more
Daniel Herskedal and Emilie Nicolas: Out of the Fog (Edition Records/digital outlets)
31 Oct 2022 | <1 min read
Award-winning Norwegian composer/tuba player Herskedal here teams up with singer Nicolas (four Norwegian Grammys) for a collection of songs which have Nicolas at times soaring in a soul-jazz manner over Herskedal's cinematic backdrops which occasionally really do suggest the album's title. Elsewhere, as on the airy Found, this approaches a more helium-filled Enya adrift on a gently churning... > Read more
Uneven Terrain
Bjork: Fossora (digital outlets)
29 Oct 2022 | 1 min read
This free-wheeling and sometimes melodically untethered 10th album by Iceland's uncommonly talented Björk is the final installment of a trilogy after the post-divorce mood of Vulnicura (2015) and the avant-garde escapism of Utopia (2017). Musically the album catapults off past influences: choral passages, big band horns, orchestration, electronica, minimalism, strident hip-hop beats,... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Princess Chelsea: Everything Is Going To Be Alright (Lil' Chief/digital outlets)
29 Oct 2022 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which won this year's Taite Music Prize for best independently released album. It comes in a gatefold sleeve with inner sleeve photos and lyrics. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . Princess Chelsea (Chelsea Nikkel) has delivered a series of delightful... > Read more
Love is More
ONE WE MISSED: Miller Yule: Let it Burn (bandcamp)
28 Oct 2022 | 2 min read
This mainstream rock album by Auckland's Miller Yule arrived at the end of September when Elsewhere was swamped by other projects, so we missed it. But given it works some timeless guitar-rock tropes and is in a lineage which is familiar and comfortable for many, it's not too late to consider it. Hip-hop, R'n'B, grime and other idioms may have changed the definition of a... > Read more
Paul Gurney: Blue Horizon (Tailgator/digital outlets)
27 Oct 2022 | 1 min read
The name might not be familiar but Paul Gurney was the singer and one of the songwriters in the De Sotos whom we previously described as a “heartland band”. They had Midge Marsden (harmonica) and lap steel player Cameron Bennett on their second album Your Highway For Tonight. Stepping out again under his own name – with the De Sotos, violinist Richard Adams, pedal and lap... > Read more