Music at Elsewhere
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Salmonella Dub: Soul Love Trippa (Salmonella Dub/vinyl release)
26 Jul 2021 | 1 min read
The mighty Salmonella Dub out of Christchurch who, alongside Pitch Black, paved the way for dance-electronica and magnificently produced soul-infused dub-dance were trailblazers. Without them the path for the likes of Fat Freddy's Drop, Black Seeds, Shapeshifter and many others might have been more difficult. After a dozen or so albums, many EPs and scores of remixes down the decades... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Squirrel Flower; Planet (i). (Polyvinyl/digital outlets)
25 Jul 2021 | <1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes on orange vinyl, has an eight-page booklet of lyrics and offers a download code . . . . This second album by American Ella Williams (aka Squirrel Flower) is one of those slow-grow albums which exists between alt.folk and indie.rock as she and her small band explore cold fury,... > Read more
Anthonie Tonnon: Leave Love Out of This (Slow Time/digital outlets)
12 Jul 2021 | 2 min read
Despite more than a decade of recording, touring (locally and internationally) and a Silver Scroll nomination for songwriting, Whanganui-based Anthonie Tonnon – who first appeared as Tono and the Finance Company – seemed destined for that netherworld reserved for “critics' favourite”. Yet his music has never been especially difficult or challenging. Yes, along... > Read more
When I'm Wrong
RECOMMENDED RECORD: The Cinematic Orchestra: Ma Fleur (Border)
12 Jul 2021 | <1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which is a double album on clear vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with three bonus tracks . . . . Although the great soul singer Fontella Bass appears (with great restraint) on a couple of tracks on this widescreen, evocative and yes, cinematic, 2007 album, the real attention in the... > Read more
Familiar Ground
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Leila: Like Weather (digital outlets)
11 Jul 2021 | 1 min read | 2
Were it not for the chance discovery of an Uncut magazine from earlier this year we would not have known about this album from '98 by the Iranian-born, London-based electronica artist Leila Arab. This was her debut – recently reissued on vinyl – and Uncut singled it out in a Rediscovered column. Like some submerged or subterranean slo-mo trip-hop compilation where each track... > Read more
The Shins: Oh, Inverted World; 20th Anniversary Reissue (Sub Pop/digital outlets)
9 Jul 2021 | <1 min read
Within three months of the release of this sometimes but only occasionally delightful, joyful, retro-referencing and slightly skewiff debut album by Albuquerque's four-piece the Shins, the world was indeed inverted when the Twin Towers fell. In those days before the darkness descended, it was mid 2001 and multi-instrumentalist/songwriter and singer James Mercer was a pop craftsman with his... > Read more
The Murlocs: Bittersweet Demons (ATO/digital outlets)
7 Jul 2021 | <1 min read
Been finding it hard keeping up with Melbourne's King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (closing in on 20 albums, their most recent Butterfly 3000 finding them moving into synth-rock) . . . then try this off-shoot band? The Murlocs are helmed by KG's Ambrose Kenny-Smith with fellow Lizard Cook Craig (guitars) and they are a more straight-ahead power-pop band (with dirty blues harmonica when they... > Read more
Troy Kingi: Black Sea Golden Ladder (bandcamp)
4 Jul 2021 | 2 min read
With his new album Black Sea Golden Ladder, Troy Kingi turns towards the home stretch of his ambitious 10-10-10 series: 10 albums in 10 different genres in 10 years. This album – a collaboration with co-writer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Delaney Davidson, written and recorded as part of Kingi's Matairangi Mahi Toi Artist Residency in Wellington -- finds him at the... > Read more
Teenage Fanclub: Endless Arcade (Pema/digital outlets)
3 Jul 2021 | 1 min read
The Fannies journey was always one worth following once they established themselves at the midpoint of classic British pop and American power-pop (Big Star and the early Byrds key references) with their Bandwagonesque album in '91. They grew and developed in interesting (if not always successful) directions but in advance of their Powerstation show in Auckland in 2019 we were pleased to... > Read more
Danny Elfman: Big Mess (Nonesuch/digital outlets)
27 Jun 2021 | 2 min read
If there were an apartment block for soundtrack composers, like the old Brill Building of songwriters in New York City, the penthouse suites would have long-term residents like Hans Zimmer (Gladiator to Kung Fu Panda), David Arnold (the recent Bond franchise among others), James Newton Howard (rom-coms to Peter Jackson's King Kong), Hildur Guðnadóttir (A Hijacking, Sicaro, television's... > Read more
Dry Cleaning: New Long Leg (4AD/digital outlets)
21 Jun 2021 | 2 min read | 1
If the immediate acclaim heaped on The Strokes when they emerged two decades ago taught us anything it was to be wary of middle-age and older white male rock critics who heard in them the formative music of their own youth (New Wave/Lou Reed?New York swagger) and therefore anointed the band with some strange notion of authenticity. The Strokes were fun, but... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Crowded House: Dreamers Are Waiting (EMI/Digital outlets)
21 Jun 2021 | 2 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes in a gatefold sleeve with a lyric booklet . . . . Many years ago Neil Finn observed that bands had a natural life-span: The Beatles, Split Enz, his own Crowded House which played its farewell concert in November 96 at the Sydney Opera House to over 200,000.... > Read more
Snowpoet: Wait For Me (Edition Records/digital outlets)
20 Jun 2021 | <1 min read
Neatly uncategorisable, this album fronted by the British duo of singer-songwriter Lauren Kinsella and producer/keyboardist Chris Hyson have found a place between folk-pop, electronica and spoken word which is lush, warm, mysterious and somehow also lands them in the jazz category. Here with additional piano, sax, drums, guitar and violin they weave a sonically layered tapestry of multiple... > Read more
The Datsuns: Eye to Eye (digital outlets)
19 Jun 2021 | 1 min read
A decade before the ascension of Our Lorde to Grammy heaven, one of our most successful musical exports were the hard rocking Datsuns out of Cambridge. In the late 90s and early 2000s they opened here for Sweden's Hellacopters and the White Stripes, and with Auckland's similarly-inclined D4 presented a formidable double bill of energetic thrash, rock and youthful enthusiasm. The Datsuns... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: The Coral: Coral Island (Run On/digital outlets)
14 Jun 2021 | 2 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which is a double album in a gatefold sleeve with lyric booklet of the linking spoken word passages . . . . At this geographical distance from the UK it has always been the fact that we are familiar with those at the top of the British pop iceberg (Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Elastica... > Read more
Mdou Moctar: Afrique Victime (Matador/digital outlets)
12 Jun 2021 | 1 min read
Remarkably, it has been more than 15 years since Elsewhere started to write about what has been called “desert blues” or “Sahara blues” out of the Tuareg (and beyond) musicians from the sub-Sahara (and beyond) region of West Africa. Back then we picked Etran Finatawa and Tinariwen albums among our best of the year (and twice more since for the latter's subsequent... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Pitch Black: Futureproof (Dubmissions/double vinyl)
11 Jun 2021 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one . . . The electronica duo of Mike Hodgson and Paddy Free have done a remarkable job of keeping their pretty damn wonderful catalogue alive despite Hodgson longtime domiciled in the UK and Free still in Auckland. They have released new albums, rarities and remixes, and more recently... > Read more
Penelope Trappes: Penelope Three (Houndstooth/digital outlets)
8 Jun 2021 | <1 min read
This final installment of an electronica-cum-ambient trilogy by Australian-born, briefly New York-based and current resident in Brighton, doesn't require knowledge of the first two parts. This dark, emotionally cool and sometimes glacially romantic album is about love, reconciliation and closure, and – given that over-arching theme – it floats easily into the consciousness... > Read more
Chrissie Hynde: Standing in the Doorway (digital outlets)
7 Jun 2021 | 2 min read
Those wondering about the current tributes to Bob Dylan – who signed his first record contract 60 years ago – needn't look too far for the reason: The man whose self-titled debut album in 1962 sold a paltry 5000 copies just turned 80. Dylan was the poetic songwriter who changed the coordinates of popular music when he introduced contemporary issues (civil rights, racism, the... > Read more
Various Artists: The Kiwi Music Scene 1965 (Frenzy)
31 May 2021 | 2 min read
What a remarkable year 1965 was in popular music. The Beatles gave us Ticket to Ride, Help!, Yesterday, the Rubber Soul album and more; Bob Dylan changed everything with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited; Jagger-Richards stepped up for the Stones as distinctive songwriters with The Last Time, Satisfaction and Get Off Of My Cloud; the British Invasion bands (Animals,... > Read more