Music at Elsewhere

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

Little Girl, by the La De Da's

Paul Weller: Fat Pop, Vol. 1 (Universal/digital outlets)

24 May 2021 | 1 min read

One of the best albums of 2020 was Paul Weller's expansive On Sunset, a collection so consistent (aside from one misstep) we recommended it on the double vinyl version to get the full arc. And we might point you to the remixes which are also on Spotify (one by our favourite Jane Weaver). On Sunset confirmed that of all those who emerged out of post-punk Britain half a century ago he... > Read more

Tazman Jack: Eyes Closed (digital outlets)

24 May 2021 | 1 min read

Tazman Jack is certainly talented. For this six-song debut (and the remix of Deeper) he played just about everything (his acoustic guitar playing is sensitive and impressive) and in terms of lyrical content he makes all the moves that so many young New Zelanders like: he comes off as a sensitive guy (Show Me Love); is supportive of mental health issues (Better Than Me with a light reggae... > Read more

RECOMMENDED RECORD: Dianne Swann: The War on Peace of Mind ( /digital outlets)

23 May 2021 | 1 min read | 1

From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one . . . . Because we have recently published an extensive interview with Dianne Swann about this album (and much else besides), let's just cut to the chase. Here are eight, discrete originals across two tight sides of vinyl which embrace global... > Read more

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Squid: Bright Green Field (Warp/Border/digital outlets)

20 May 2021 | 1 min read

This acclaimed UK five-piece confound expectations at every turn on this twisting, shape-shifting debut album which has had some labelling it psychedelic (an inadequate and misleading description). But if this were vinyl (and it is available on record, see below) if you dropped the needle at random you'd be referencing Gang of Four, Talking Heads, krautrock, J Mascis, Pere Ubu or primal... > Read more

Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage: Blues Alif Lam Mim in the Mode of Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis (Blank Forms/Soundcloud)

14 May 2021 | <1 min read

Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage is an ensemble lead by the Swedish experimental composer Catherine Christer Hennix (b 1948) whose credentials are impeccable in that she studied with Stockhausen, collaborated with La Monte Young in New York and, almost inevitably given the minimalist milieu, then studied with Pandit Pran Nath. She's a mathematician and a visual artist as well as a poet and... > Read more

The Chills: Scatterbrain (Fire/digital outlets)

14 May 2021 | 1 min read

Three years ago, on the release of the Chills' album Snow Bound, Martin Phillipps noted people were saying “it sounded like the Chills”, his particular style evident almost 40 years after the band first appeared out of Dunedin. “If there is a reward that I would dreamt of, it is that,” he said. “That there's a signature style and [I'm] being recognised for... > Read more

The Walls Beyond Abandon

Van Morrison: Latest Record Project Vol 1. (Warner/digital outlets)

9 May 2021 | 1 min read | 1

The few Van Morrison's biographies this writer has read could all be titled Bitter From Birth. He might have tapped into some beautiful Celtic soul and mysticism all those decades ago, but he's always been humourless and – even to the present day – harbours grudges (notably about how he was burned by the music business more than half a century ago). There have been some... > Read more

Larry Morris: Amigos (LMM/digital outlets)

8 May 2021 | 1 min read

Larry Morris once said his best album was 5.55am of the early Seventies, which went unreleased at the time when he went to jail for a serious drug offense. He may be right, but listened to now (it is available on Spotify) it seems a bit MOR for a man who made his reputation in Larry's Rebels as a rock'n'soul singer, and alongside the likes of Bunny Walters, one of our best. Him singing... > Read more

Long Time Coming

Amy Shark: Cry Forever (Sony/digital outlets)

7 May 2021 | 1 min read

After seeing Australian Amy Shark's appearance at the 2018 Laneway where she was an exciting, sassy and mature rock artist who commanded the stage and the audience's attention, her debut album Love Monster was a considerable disappointment. It may have won her many, many awards over the Tasman, but it seemed to these ears aimed at a very young demographic (she was in her early Thirties,... > Read more

Cheap Trick: In Another World (BMG/digital outlets)

6 May 2021 | 1 min read

On the basis of their thrilling show at the Auckland Town Hall about 40 years ago – with a wave of his hand Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen brought the crowd to its feet in defiance of the local mandarins who wanted to keep the volume low and the audience seated – this band will always get a fair hearing round my way. And they did even when the line-up changed for a while,... > Read more

Sheep, Dog & Wolf: Two-Minds (bandcamp)

1 May 2021 | 1 min read

As we heard on Merk's recent album Infinite Youth, the landscape between adolescence and adulthood can be strange and difficult terrain. In that uncertain limbo, childhood is in retreat -- sometimes romanticised for its innocence and joy -- and an unknown life beyond teenage dreams is ahead as indistinguishable shapes cloaked in shadow. The debut album Egospect by Sheep, Dog... > Read more

Arooj Aftab: Vulture Prince (New Amsterdam/digital outlets)

26 Apr 2021 | <1 min read

Pakistan-born Arooj Aftab is emblematic of the world we live in: She is a graduate of Berklee in Brooklyn (jazz but with a penchant for ambient and minimalist musicians like Terry Riley). On this, her third album, she brings her considerable compositional and arranging skills (and pure voice) to elegant music grounded in her traditions which comes off to Western ears as more than just... > Read more