Music at Elsewhere
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Jane Weaver: Fenella (Fire/digital outlets)
2 Nov 2019 | <1 min read
British composer Jane Weaver has most of us at a disadvantage here with this reimagining of the soundtrack to a Hungarian fantasy film Feherlofia/Son of the White Mare most of us probably haven't seen. It has been described as a “cult”, but classic, piece of animation. So this album is very much a case of radio without pictures. That said, if you've followed Weaver's... > Read more
Truly Seduced
Richie Setford: Aimless Survivor (digital outlets)
1 Nov 2019 | 1 min read
Berlin-based these past five years and previously using the moniker Bannerman which he carried across a number of albums, extpat Richie Setford steps out again under his own name (after his earlier EP Hardly There) with this further installment of his downbeat, ennui-affected songs captured in this collection's title and the slow, beautifully realised title track. Setford however has a... > Read more
Neil Young: Colorado (Warners/digital outlets)
27 Oct 2019 | 1 min read | 1
Maybe it's time to call “time” on the much vaunted greatness of Neil Young? Most of his better albums among the very many released this century – almost 30 in 19 years – have been pulled from his archives. And among the new recordings he has largely revisited the familiar (acoustic Neil, slightly country Neil) alongside eccentric non-events like A Letter Home, leaden... > Read more
Secret Knives: Snuff (A Low Hum/digital outlets)
26 Oct 2019 | <1 min read
These 10 songs sitting at the midpoint of brittle electronica, indie guitar rock and experimental pop by Wellington's Secret Knives (Ash Smith) fairly spring attention from the opener Spinning Top which arrives over a drone and a vocal with an understated melody, then grows into vigorous drums, stuttering beats and voice before swelling guitars evoke a punchy horn section. It's one... > Read more
Floating Points: Crush (Ninja Tune/Border, digital outlets)
25 Oct 2019 | 1 min read
With its ambient wash, electronic sounds which pan across the aural spectrum, quizzical effects layered among the beats and throbbing, sometimes minimalist-like repetitions and melodies, this new outing by Britain's Sam Shepherd aka Floating Points is the perfect headphone album. There is almost a surfeit of musical and rhythmic ideas across these 12 instrumental pieces which can... > Read more
Jenny Hval: The Practice of Love (Sacred Bones/digital outlets)
21 Oct 2019 | 1 min read
Norwegian multi-discipline artist (novelist, songwriter, sonic experimenter, collaborator) Jenny Hval is – like Laurie Anderson – someone who melds the spoken and sung word with unusual sonic settings and sometimes a kind of emotionally cool distance or a sensual whisper. She is probably so far out of most people's orbit that it serves little purpose... > Read more
Miriam Clancy: Astronomy (digital outlets)
21 Oct 2019 | 2 min read
Miriam Clancy has been out of New Zealand for more than five years, and it has been a decade since her last album Magnetic which included the extraordinary song Ghost Town. That was a penetrating view of life from the inside of one of those no-hope suburbs (“around here you've got a permanent cold, the neighbour's tinny put your life on hold”)and should have... > Read more
ONE WE MISSED: Wallis Bird: Woman (AntiFragile/digital outlets)
21 Oct 2019 | <1 min read
We didn't so much miss Irish singer-songwriter Wallis Bird as get to her too early, back in March when she was touring in New Zealand and she answered some questions for us. At that time however this album – her sixth studio outing – was six months off. Bird is a serious artist who don't flinch from the big issues confronting these troubling times: the opener As... > Read more
Matthew Bannister: Rubber Solo (Powertool Records)
21 Oct 2019 | 2 min read
Now this is a pleasant and welcome return by Matthew Bannister (Sneaky Feelings, Dribbling Darts of Love, Changing Same and more). Six years ago under the name One Man Bannister he revisited and reconstructed the Beatles' Revolver album in its entirety in what might have been seen as foolhardy and overly ambitious. But it worked because although he was reverential to the songs, that... > Read more
Run for Your Life
Toiling Midgets: Sea of Tranquility (Green Monkey/digital outlets)
14 Oct 2019 | 1 min read
It has been about 15 years since we sat on the back deck of the Seattle home of musician Jeff Kelly and his artist wife Susanne. But we've never forgotten their hospitality . . . and the regular albums by Kelly and/or his band Green Pajamas (new or reissues) from the local label Green Monkey have just kept arriving. Green Monkey is the project of Tom Dyer and we are... > Read more
Beth Hart: War in My Mind (Provogue/digital outlets)
12 Oct 2019 | 1 min read
Let it be said clearly: the 2015 Powerstation concert by American soul-blues singer Beth Hart was one of the most enjoyable, gripping, cathartic, vocally impressive and sometimes very funny and heartfelt shows that Elsewhere has seen in the past five years. Hart – coming off the back of her exceptional and personal Better Than Home album – sang with the raw... > Read more
Kim Gordon: No Home Record (Matador/digital outlets)
12 Oct 2019 | 1 min read
Points go on the board immediately for Kim Gordon with this debut under her own name after the collapse of Sonic Youth. This starts with a broody, discordant clash of sonics and electro-crunch on Sketch Artist as she menaces close to the mic for an unsettling, industrial mood-setter beamed in from Eraserhead or some collapsing, future technology. When she follows that with what sounds... > Read more
Air BnB
IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some international releases
9 Oct 2019 | 3 min read
With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column which scoops up releases by international artists, in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks up New Zealand artists and Yasmin does with EPs. Comments will be brief. . Refuge: Haven to Heavy Soul Anyone looking for a fix of classic Seventies-framed rock... > Read more
Mousey: Lemon Law (digital outlets)
7 Oct 2019 | 1 min read
This assured debut by the young New Zealand singer-songwriter Mousey – Sarena Close to her family – from Christchurch comes straight out of the indie-pop genre. But it also manages to deliver up some serious handclap jangle-pop (With No You with a guitar solo, the bright shine of Extreme Highs which was on the longlist of finalists for the recent APRA Silver Scroll), some sultry... > Read more
Liam Gallagher: Why Me? Why Not. (Universal)
27 Sep 2019 | 1 min read
If older bickering Oasis brother Noel has sometimes seemed to want to be Paul Weller, bickering Liam initially seemed very happy to carry the torch of his Lennon/Rotten vocals into a continuum of Oasis in his first steps with his band Beady Eye. If that outfit's unpersuasive but moderately enjoyable output seemed just a little too steeped in his recent past, his solo outing on As You... > Read more
Danny McCrum: Hustle Bustle (digital outlets/www.dannymccrum.com)
27 Sep 2019 | 1 min read
Over three previous albums since 2007, Auckland singer-songwriter and guitarist Danny McCrum has created an impressively well-crafted body of sharp pop-rock . . . which, as we are a bit tired of pointing out, has largely gone past most people. That despite having supported the likes of Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck among others, and getting a few tracks on radio. If you care for a... > Read more
Rescue
Aly Cook: Caught in the Middle (SBD, Southbound/digital outlets)
27 Sep 2019 | 1 min read
Once again the gifted and independent singer-songwriter Aly Cook has crowd-funded herself into a new album – this her third – which charts a confident course through polished country, earthy Celtic-influenced melodies (The Garden Swing), rootsy acoustic ballads, anthemic feminist affirmation (We Hold Up Half the Sky), poetic stories of heartland people and lives . . . ... > Read more
Brittany Howard: Jaime (Columbia)
26 Sep 2019 | 1 min read
Among the many remarkable songs by Alabama Shakes, the band fronted by Brittany Howard, was Don't Wanna Fight on their 2015 second album Sound and Color. In the song she repeats the line “don't wanna fight no more” and it changes meaning, from anger and confrontation to hurt and despair and a woman breaking down defeated by it all. Howard has an extraordinary and expressive... > Read more
Giant Sand: Recounting the Ballads of The Thin Line Men (Fire/Southbound)
25 Sep 2019 | <1 min read
Many artists talk about how they'd like to revisit and re-record parts of their catalogue, but few have done it as assiduously as Howe Gelb, the mainman of Giant Sand. In the past decade he has gone back and re-hit, revisited and sometimes reinvented albums from their early catalogue. For this one he goes back to their '86 album Ballad of Thin Line Man where the songs owed a bit to... > Read more
Body of Water (2019)
David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights: Bobbie's a girl (Merge/digital outlets)
23 Sep 2019 | 2 min read
Earlier this year I had a very knowledgable young American student in a couple of my music classes. He knew the Velvet Underground and minimalists, a lot of the Band and Bob Dylan but also contemporary pop and r'n'b. He was also familiar with Flying Nun acts, notably the Chills and the Clean. When I set him on the path of a deeper exploration of the Clean he came back amazed, he never... > Read more