Music at Elsewhere
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Roger Eno, Brian Eno: Mixing Colours (Deutsche Grammophon/digital outlets)
20 Mar 2020 | <1 min read
But first, here's a little something which can keep you and the little ones amused. A few years ago Brian Eno introduced an app called Bloom which I've found invaluable to have on my phone. When nearby kids in a hospital waiting room are scratchy and their parents are worn out, when a bored toddler in a shopping market trolley is starting to squirm or when you are just sitting... > Read more
Sam Ford and Trudi Green: Sweet Sweet Love (Choice)
16 Mar 2020 | <1 min read
With the kind of professional ease which comes from decades of playing, writing and immersion in soulful songs which might have come from America's South, Sam Ford and Trudi Green here gathered many old familiars for recording sessions in London (where they lived for more than a decade) and various Auckland studios. The result is a delightful 14-song album of understated, utterly... > Read more
I'm Still Here
Islet: Eyelet (Fire/Southbound)
13 Mar 2020 | <1 min read
Islet out of Wales sound like an interesting couple of groups, maybe even a few. The openers here are languid dream-pop fronted by singer Emma Thomas but of little particular interest because they don't add much to that weightless idiom other than perhaps a slightly more chilly ambience through the repetition of the loops, although the seven minute Geese which closes the first third of... > Read more
Radel 10
Kate Owen: Not a Proper Girl (Southbound/digital outlets)
9 Mar 2020 | 1 min read
The interesting boxes are all ticked here: singer-songwriter Kate Owen is from Lyttelton (the Liverpool/Austin of Aotearoa?), recorded this with Ben Edwards there, had it mastered by Chris Chetland in Auckland, it is crowd-funded by believers . . . All it needs then is for Owen to deliver . . . and on an album which has prickly guitars alongside widescreen ballads and soundscape songs... > Read more
Heathen's Prayer
Luke Hurley: Happy Isles (lukehurley.co.nz)
9 Mar 2020 | 2 min read
Luke Hurley had been visibly making music around New Zealand for almost four decades, quite often busking but also opening for acts like Michelle Shocked, appearing at fringe festivals, with music on soundtracks and in radio interviews, live albums and collections, and tours in Europe . . . In 2007 Monkey Records released a Best Of (1984 - 2013) collection, an excellent 18 song... > Read more
Infinity: Icy Blue Planet (infinitymusic.co.nz)
9 Mar 2020 | 1 min read
It has been more than a couple of years since we last had a visit from Infinity – guitarist/bassist, keyboard player Pat Hura and drummer Cam Budge (out of Hastings) – whose self-titled debut was a very pleasant and intelligent journey through space-rock ambience, electro-funk New Age and material you felt might lend itself to soundtracks. And in places would be of equal appeal... > Read more
Bucket
OOIOO: Nijimusi (Thrill Jockey/digital outlets)
7 Mar 2020 | 1 min read
The key member of this long-running Japanese No Wave/avant-noise outfit is drummer YoshimiO of the Boredoms and what began as a joke/parody morphed into a real band, now up to its eighth album (previous outings are on Spotify). As you might expect from the product description, sometimes this is not easy percussion-driven stuff (they have another drummer this time, Mishina, with Yoshimi... > Read more
Nadia Reid: Out Of My Province (Spacebomb/Rhythmethod)
6 Mar 2020 | 2 min read | 1
Some decades ago there was a lengthy promotion aimed at New Zealanders which went, “Don't leave home until you've seen the country”. Which is admirable and was designed to promote local tourism. I'd add, “And once you've done that get yourself out into the world as soon as possible”. There is quite often an unthinking parochialism – right now bordering... > Read more
King Krule: Man Alive! (XL/Rhythmethod)
29 Feb 2020 | <1 min read
Much as Elsewhere was quite engaged by Archy Marshall's previous albums 6 Feet Beneath the Moon (2013) and The Ooz three years ago – especially the latter – this “difficult third album” has a half-baked quality and his always variable material here too often dips into the area of incomplete ideas/indulgent shapelessness and the downright irritating. Such fully... > Read more
Pictish Trail: Thumb World (Fire/digital)
24 Feb 2020 | 2 min read
British psychedelic music has always been a very different animal to that of America's (and let's not get into the Italians at this point!). Often grounded in weird folk, classical music, British whimsy and eccentricity, during its heyday in the late Sixties it spawned artists as diverse as the Incredible String Band, Procol Harum and early Pink Floyd (before Dark Side). There has been... > Read more
Slow Memories
kate can wait: Veraniegas (Grimalkin/bandcamp)
24 Feb 2020 | <1 min read
This is certainly something different which we introduce because the artist is interesting, the Grimalkin label out of Virginia is doing good work for various human rights causes related to gender issues, and the songs here are very seductive in both English and Spanish. Some background then to this acoustic guitar/soft synths album. The artist is Molly Kate Rodriguez who lives... > Read more
Orphan Maker
Tame Impala: The Slow Rush (Fiction)
17 Feb 2020 | 1 min read
The retro-synth psychedelic dance-pop of Tame Impala's previous album Currents won over Elsewhere and it ended up in our Best of 2015 list (and in a few Readers' Choices too). Tame Impala is Kevin Parker who you suspect probably has albums by Funkadelic, Giorgio Moroder, the Bee Gees and the Alan Parsons Project alongside mid-period Prince, late Beatles, dream-pop and... > Read more
Bonny Light Horseman: Bonny Light Horseman (37d03d/Southbound)
17 Feb 2020 | 1 min read
You'd have to be well embedded in the genre to know that this trio of songwriter/playwright Anais Mitchell, Eric D Johnson (of Fruit Bats) and Josh Kaufman are an American “folk supergroup”, but among the many contributors are perhaps more familiar names such as Aaron Dessner (the National), Bella Blasko and Justin Vernon among many others on hand across these 10 songs, many of... > Read more
10,000 Miles
Jake Shimabukuro: Trio (Music Theories/digital)
17 Feb 2020 | 1 min read | 1
It has been 12 years since I picked up the album Gently Weeps album by the Hawaiian ukulele player Jake Shimabukuro, largely to see what he did with the George Harrison title track. You can make up your own mind on that here, but for me that was all the impetus I needed when this album (with bassist Nolan Verner and guitarist Dave Preston) turned up. Let's just say... > Read more
When the Masks Come Down
Marcus King: El Dorado (Universal)
10 Feb 2020 | 1 min read
Produced by Dan Auerbach (Black Keys), South Carolina's Marcus King is here on his debut solo album (after three with the Marcus King Band) given some gentle soul settings for his slightly burned vocals which have already had many reaching for the Young Rod comparison. And certainly at times you can hear Stewart, more the slow side of his Atlantic Crossing than the earlier and more raw Old... > Read more
Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets: Walkabout (Yep Roc/Southbound)
10 Feb 2020 | 2 min read
On paper this is somewhat absurd: White-haired, 69-year old Nick Lowe who has been one of the most stylish Americana-soul writers and singers of the past two decades teaming up with a guitar band who have their roots in the Ventures and surf-rock guitar bands . . . and wear Mexican wrestler masks. Lowe – once the cheeky chappy of British post-punk and New Wave – had a life... > Read more
Heart Breaker
The Prefects: Going Through the Motions (Fire/Southbound)
8 Feb 2020 | 1 min read
In any local list of “never-heard-of-ya” UK post-punk bands Birmingham's Prefects would rate fairly high. They toured with the cream of the period (Clash, Fall, Damned, Slits) and did Peel Sessions but broke up in '79 before they released anything. So if you didn't see them live, hear their sole posthumous single or catch one of their two Peel Sessions then . . . This... > Read more
Things in General
The Leonard Simpson Duo: LSD (Jakarta)
7 Feb 2020 | 1 min read
Well, this . . . . interesting. The duo here are Detroit MC Guilty Simpson and acclaimed New Zealand producer Jeremy Toy (here as Leonard Charles) and although the album's title is an acronym of their band name it also refers to woozy feel of these laidback beats and grooves, and the sonic textures which are malleable, drifting and sometimes languid. MC Simpson has a stentorian... > Read more
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Various Artists: AK 79 (Flying Nun)
5 Feb 2020 | 1 min read
In the Eighties and Nineties, EPs or appearing on compilation albums were the key currency for most young post-punk bands. Hard to know where we'd be without collections like the student radio cassettes and albums, Hits and Myths (Enz, Schtung, Th'Dudes to Toy Love, Swingers and Whizz Kids), Class of '81 (Blam Blam Blam, Screaming MeeMees, Newmatics), Goats Milk Soap (Mockers, Swingers... > Read more
Scavengers: True Love
Terry Allen and The Panhandle Mystery Band: Just Like Moby Dick (POB/Southbound)
3 Feb 2020 | 1 min read
It always seems a little strange that John Prine should be (rightly) hailed and his peers like the wonderful Terry Allen and Elsewhere's particular favourite Tom Russell should not enjoy similar acclaim for their keen-eyed story telling and strong songs. Terry Allen – now 76 – has been recording since the mid Seventies and in the past we have shone the spotlight on his debut... > Read more