Music at Elsewhere

RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Weta: Geographica, 20th Anniversary Reissue (Warners/digital outlets)

5 Mar 2021 | 2 min read

When Aaron Tokona died last year there was understandable shock and grief. He was just 45 when his big heart, which had pumped a remarkable career and touched so many, gave out. Often Tokona (Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Maniapoto) seemed a musician-without-portfolio, taking his prodigious vocal and guitar talents wherever they were needed, or fancy took him. Spooling... > Read more

RECOMMENDED RECORD: Jane Weaver: Flock (Fire/Southbound/digital outlets)

1 Mar 2021 | 2 min read

From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes with a download code but no lyric sheet unfortunately . . . . Britain's Jane Weaver has appeared a few times at Elsewhere, once for the recommended Modern Kosmology of 2017 about which we said, “Across this album, which seems to stand outside of time, Weaver has... > Read more

Foo Fighters: Medicine at Midnight (Warner/digital outlets)

26 Feb 2021 | 2 min read

Dave Grohl became such a part of rock's rich tapestry these past two decades you'd be forgiven for thinking he's always been something of a senior statesman. At 52, Grohl – Nirvana's drummer who emerged as the frontman/songwriter for his all-conquering Foo Fighters – is the well-adjusted rock star who has recorded with Paul McCartney, Queens of the Stone Age, Bruce Springsteen,... > Read more

Bilders: Move Along, Love Among (bandcamp)

24 Feb 2021 | 2 min read

Last year Bill Direen – aka Bilders, the musician, writer, poet and Swiss Knife of New Zealand culture – appeared as Ferocious on an album with composer/drummer Johannes Contag (Cloudboy, The Golden Awesome) and guitarist Mark Williams for their self-titled album on the Rattle label. Even in Rattle's expansive imprint, Ferocious was something unique in that it bridged many... > Read more

Grant Haua: Awa Blues (Dixie Frog/digital outlets)

22 Feb 2021 | 1 min read

When singer/songwriter and guitarist Grant Haua was interviewed recently by Marty Duda for his 13thFloor website, he committed a great heresy. Haua laughed about how much he enjoyed recording his new album Awa Blues, “it wasn't like hard work”. What he should have said, to be taken as A Serious Artist, was that it was real struggle, there were a lot of anxious moments of... > Read more

This is the Place

RECOMMENDED RECORD: The Besnard Lakes: Are The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings (Fat Cat/digital outlets)

22 Feb 2021 | 2 min read

From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes as double vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with a lyric sheet . . . Every now and again a 21stcentury psychedelic rock band emerges with its roots in the classic late Sixties/early Seventies sound of mind-expanding music with a widescreen delivery. Elsewhere has long had an... > Read more

Hearty Har: Radio Astro (BMG/digital outlets)

21 Feb 2021 | 1 min read

To give these two guys a break let's not mention their dad because too often that – as Julian Lennon would tell you – doesn't work in your favour much. However the offspring of some Big Names (Ziggy Marley, Liza Minnelli, Jakob Dylan, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Zac Starkey, etc) have done very worthwhile work. But let's just take this 11-song, post-punk but retro-garageband rock... > Read more

Virginia Wing: private LIFE (Fire/Southbound/digital outlets)

12 Feb 2021 | 1 min read

Last time out with the terrific Ecstatic Arrows, Elsewhere concluded of this Manchester electronica-cum-pop group that “now is the time to tune in”. Singer Alice Merida Richards' frosty and emotionally detached vocals sat well within the retro-futurism of the songs which shifted from art school to Goth and minimalism. On this, their fourth album, they again push the... > Read more

Private Life

We Will Ride Fast: Emotional Molecules (Fight Cave Records/digital outlets)

6 Feb 2021 | <1 min read

Throbbing, danceable gloom-rock is not just alive and well in the hands of Kyle Sattler (The Bennies) out of Tauranga but, on this third album, pushing further into experimental guitar rock. With swathes of sometimes disconcerting electronics alongside Sattler's stentorian vocals declaiming the angst of the 21stcentury where many are cut adrift from the certainties and symbols of yesteryear... > Read more

Various Artists: True Colours, New Colours - The Songs of Split Enz (Warners/digital outlets)

6 Feb 2021 | 3 min read

Split Enz' 1980 album True Colours was a songwriting and commercial watershed for the group, springing memorable material like Tim Finn's edgy Shark Attack and Nobody Takes Me Seriously, his achingly lovely I Hope I Never and brother Neil's irrepressible I Got You. On the album's release, George Kay in Rip It Up wrote, “Words like 'showpiece' and 'classic'... > Read more

Rats on Rafts: Excerpts From Chapter 3 (Fire/digital outlets)

31 Jan 2021 | 1 min read

This Dutch band has only made one previous appearance at Elsewhere, back in '16 when were somewhat underwhelmed by a pairing with their noisy neighbours De Kift for a kind of supergroup which was big on thrash with horns. Here on their own however for their third album (subtitled The Mind Runs a Net of Rabbit Paths), the four-piece deliver something which seems like a concept... > Read more

Elijah Knutsen: Pink Dream (Memory Color/bandcamp)

25 Jan 2021 | <1 min read

Inspired by Japanese ambient music of the kind collected on the impressive 2019 set Kanyko Ongaku -- where gentle atmospherics and equally discreet field recordings co-exist -- this evocative, 24-minute collection of four pieces is another in a series by Portland's Elijah Knutsen for his appropriately entitled Memory Color label. Released on cassette (but available through... > Read more

Pink Dream

Max Merritt: I Can Dream (Fanfare/Sony/digital outlets)

24 Jan 2021 | 1 min read

When Max Merritt died in LA just weeks before his induction into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame last year, it reminded us of how that first generation of local rock'n'roll stars was passing on. Merritt was being inducted as one of the founders of New Zealand rock'n'roll in the Fifties, although many people would say his song Slipping Away from '75 was not just his... > Read more

I Can Dream Can't I

Matthew Sweet: Catspaw (Omnivore/digital outlets)

18 Jan 2021 | <1 min read

Elsewhere is an unashamed fan of power pop and its best practitioners like Dwight Twilley and Matthew Sweet, both of whom have albums in our Essential Elsewhere pages here and here). For a guy who delivered what we called “ a thrilling trifecta of smart power pop-cum-indie rock in the early Nineties with his albums Girlfriend (91), Altered Beast (93) and 100% Fun (95)”... > Read more

RECOMMENDED RECORD: The Chills: Submarine Bells (Fire/Flying Nun)

11 Jan 2021 | 1 min read

From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release or reissue we recommend on vinyl, like this one . . . . There is a reason why many Chills' loyalists speak of Martin Phillipps' timeless songwriting for his Chills (by-any-other-name) outlet: It is that because he crafts pop songs which resonate long after their first blush. Nowhere is that more evident than... > Read more

The Flaming Mudcats: Forever and a Day (Mudcat Music)

11 Jan 2021 | <1 min read

As with their previous album Cut Loose of '18, Auckland's four-piece Flaming Mudcats here neatly mix things up using the blues as a springboard in soul-blues, funk, horn-punctuated r'n'b (sax, trumpet and trombone from guests Andrew Hall, Mike Booth and Jono Tan) as well as bringing in piano (Mike Walker), percussion (Steve Cornane) and Hammond organ (Ron Stevens). That gives diversity to... > Read more

Ane Brun: After the Great Storm/How Beauty Holds the Hand of Sorrow (Balloon Ranger/digital outlets)

8 Jan 2021 | 1 min read

Born in Denmark but living in Stockholm, singer-songwriter Ane Brun was one the discoveries at the 2014 Taranaki Womad and a fascinating, candid interview subject. A writer who draws inspiration from diverse sources and located herself in a place of quiet when creating, Brun wasn't in any lockdown in the past year – the writing had begun earlier and Sweden didn't go that route... > Read more

ONE WE MISSED: Rose City Band, Summerlong (Thrill Jockey/digital outlets)

16 Dec 2020 | <1 min read | 1

Quite how this delightful, gently psychedelic country-rock album went past us in the middle of the year is a mystery, especially when the man helming it is Ripley Johnson of Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo. But right from the opener Only Lonely – which stands at the midpoint of the Byrds' Wasn't Born to Follow/Ballad of Easy Rider and Neil Halstead's Sleeping on Roads album -- this... > Read more

Anna Coddington: Beams (Loop/digital outlets)

12 Dec 2020 | 1 min read

Five years ago, when asked what artist she would most like to share a stage with, singer-songwriter Anna Coddington replied emphatically, “LIPS”. On her tour at that time she had LIPS (2012 Apra Silver Scroll winners Steph Brown and Fen Ikner) as part of the double-bill. Four years on from her previous album, the largely self-produced Luck/Time, and... > Read more

Half Japanese: Crazy Hearts (Fire/Southbound/digital outlets)

4 Dec 2020 | 1 min read

And still it comes, this left-field, marginal project of avant-guitarist and noise-maker Jad Fair and his now established fellow travelers (John Sluggett, Giles Vincent Reader, Mick Hobbs and Jason Willett). This is the 19thalbum under Fair's Half Japanese name and if you are expecting him to change direction you haven't been paying attention for the past 40 years. Fair's... > Read more