Music at Elsewhere
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Jay Som: Anak Ko (Polyvinyl/Rhythmethod/digital outlets)
23 Sep 2019 | 1 min read
A glance at the photos of some musicians in the gatefold sleeve of the vinyl edition of this third album by Jay Som alerts you to the idea that “she may not be from around here”. At a guess you'd say she was from the Philippines and her actual name being Melina Duterte would confirm that. In fact she is of a Filipino family but born in California and parlays... > Read more
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Straitjacket Fits: Melt (Flying Nun, vinyl and CD)
23 Sep 2019 | 1 min read
Wrapped in a striking cover (by the group's drummer/artist John Collie at a guess, my original copy has no notes), Melt was Straitjacket Fits' second album and the last with Andrew Brough who contributed the terrific, dreamy pop of the melodic Down in Splendour. Record company people and fans at the time rightly thought that could have been their breakthrough single in the US. It was... > Read more
Sulfate: Sulfate (Prison Tapes/digital outlets)
22 Sep 2019 | 1 min read
Sulfate is keyboard player Peter Ruddell of Auckland's famous “guitarless guitar band” Wax Chattels, a trio which delivers a sometimes melodic and often exciting noise live – and although that wasn't quite captured on their self-titled 2018 album it certainly pushed the envelope and was rightly shortlisted for the Taite Music Prize this year. If Wax Chattels can be loud,... > Read more
Paolo Russo: Imaginary Soundtrack (Odradek)
21 Sep 2019 | <1 min read
In a world awash with ambient music styled for as-yet-unmade movies, atmospherically evocative and cinematic sounds not to mention bona fide film scores, the title here seems a bit unimaginative if not cliched. However this classically trained Italian composer, pianist and multi-instrumentalist (bandoneon, recorders, contrabassoon) has something larger but more specific in mind... > Read more
Volapyk/Mumbo Jumbo
Efterklang: Altid Sammen (4AD/Rhythmethod/digital outlets)
21 Sep 2019 | 1 min read
As with so many Scandinavian art music/rock bands, the Danes behind Efterklang bring some considerable influences from classical music (contemporary and traditional) to what they do. So baroque-pop and chamber music inclinations sit alongside intimate ambience, the broad scope of soundtracks, a symphonic grandeur and work with choirs or orchestral instruments (if not the... > Read more
Supertanker
Angie McMahon: Salt (AWAL)
18 Sep 2019 | 1 min read
This album-length debut (11 songs over two sides of vinyl) pulls together a few of this powerful, mature and vocally gripping twentysomething Melburnian's previous singles. But as Angie McMahon doesn't seem to have damaged our charts with any of them we can just take this as a complete and discrete work – and frankly her singles sound more like strong,... > Read more
Oh Sees: Face Stabber (Castle Face/digital outlets)
16 Sep 2019 | <1 min read
You have to be dedicated or aurally nimble to keep up with California's Oh Sees who have explored post-punk, garageband rock, psychedelics, prog, jazz-rock, art noise and so much more across more than 20 albums (many under variants of their Thee Oh Sees imprimatur) since that late Nineties. And done it through a merry-go-round of members with singer-guitarist John Dwyer as the sole constant... > Read more
Charli XCX: Charli (digital outlets)
16 Sep 2019 | 1 min read
It seems a quaint old time when artists had to perform on others' albums under pseudonyms or anonymously. Now just about every pop and r'n'b album is a celebrity collision and – ironically under just her own name – here singer-songwriter, multiple award winner and nominee, Charli XCX (Charlotte Aitchison from Essex) is a collaborator nonpareil. Across these 15 songs in 50... > Read more
L'Epee: Diabolique (A Recordings/Southbound)
16 Sep 2019 | <1 min read
L'Epee is something of a psychedelic/drone/shoegaze supergroup. The small print of brianjonestownmassacre.com perhaps alerts you to the presence of mainman Anton Newcombe . . . but here too are Lionel and Marie Liminana of the Liminanas, and actress/model/singer Emmanuelle Seigner (Ultra Orange and Emmanuelle, and fiftysomething Mrs Roman Polanski). They combine for 10 songs which brings... > Read more
La Brigade des Malefices
Pitch Black: Third Light (Dubmission/digital outlets)
14 Sep 2019 | 2 min read
Most often known for their deep and profound electro-dub -- which often evokes the darkness of the New Zealand bush and power of the ocean-battered coastline -- here on their sixth album Pitch Black (Paddy Free and Mike Hodgson) surprise with a deliberately underplaying opening piece, The Silver World. Its sonic landscape includes crackling, gentle swathes of electronica and a disembodied,... > Read more
The Lake Within
Cosmo and the Cosmonaut: Ultra Mega (Monkey)
13 Sep 2019 | 1 min read
It's not often Elsewhere gets a letter in crayon (see below) from an artist to accompany their CD and promo sheet. Then again, the author was an eight year old (Cosmo) and his expat Kiwi dad (NIgel Braddock aka the Cosmonaut) wrote the press release and laid down the elemental electrobeats for the 10 songs behind the little guy's raps about climate change (The World is Burning), favourite... > Read more
I Like Water
Mermaidens: Look Me in the Eye (Mermaidens/Flying Nun)
6 Sep 2019 | 1 min read
This Wellington band's previous album Perfect Body in 2017 was a canny blend of vibrant and melodic indie-rock, shiny but fuzzed-up pop and some dreamy vocals by Gussie Larkin and Lily West over the chiming, ambient guitars. This, their third album, pushes the envelope just that little bit further on cleverly constructed songs such as She's Running which comes with a layering of synths,... > Read more
She's Running
ONE WE MISSED: Misled Convoy: Sixteen Sunsets (digital outlets)
4 Sep 2019 | 1 min read
With a new Pitch Black album on it way, Elsewhere was in touch with Mike Hodgson – one half of that innovative New Zealand electronica duo with Paddy Free – and he mentioned an earlier album of his. It turned up recently (under the name Misled Convoy) and although released in November last year we bring it to attention here because it is a typically classy, engaging and layered... > Read more
Poles Apart
Katie Thompson: Bittersweet (Quirky)
2 Sep 2019 | 1 min read
It's been a while since we've heard the aching soul-folk and chiming country-rock of Katie Thompson, not since 2011's impressive Impossible in fact. And like that album, this seems to have been crowdfunded (with some well known musicians in the list) which confirms she is a self-starter with a wide and deep support base. As she deserves. Co-produced with Ben Edwards in his homely... > Read more
West Coast
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Various Artists: Disco Not Disco (Strut vinyl)
2 Sep 2019 | <1 min read | 1
When this excellent collection of music – which is exactly as the title says – appeared on CD in 2000, it (and a subsequent volume) went past most people. But it was terrific collection of music which had refined New York dancefloor sounds and Kris Needs' essay explained it all. But as always it is in the grooves and there they were Yoko Ono's Walking on Thin Ice re-edited,... > Read more
Blue River Baby Band: Blue River Baby (Fire Flower/digital outlets)
2 Sep 2019 | 1 min read
Released in late July when Elsewhere was busy, this debut album is out there for this Wellington band's national tour (see dates below). Recorded live at Lee Prebble's Surgery studio, these eight songs morph between ballads and reggae-funk, psychedelic rock and soul (on the searing Crazy Town), and more. Fronted by the powerful vocals of Ivy Padilla (think somewhere between Renee Geyer... > Read more
Rupa: Disco Jazz (Numero/streaming outlets)
1 Sep 2019 | 2 min read
Sometimes the contents of an album are just as described by the title, as with this '82 album by Indian singer Rupa (born Sukla Biswas) who graduated with a BSc but whose auditions as a singer on All India Radio fired her with optimism, even though she was turned down a couple of times. She was finally accepted by AIR and . . . If only this album's story were that simple: the... > Read more
Jyoshna: Unity Hours III (jyoshnamusic.com)
28 Aug 2019 | <1 min read
Elsewhere has long been enthusiastic about the music of ex-pat Jyoshna, who was Joanne LaTrobe when in the acoustic trio Turiiya in the mid Eighties. Although she recorded this album on the Kapiti Coast with local musicians while back in New Zealand for teaching and currently lives in Ireland, her spiritual journey has taken her through the music and esoteric philosophies of India. And... > Read more
Starlight
Chris Prowse: Sweet the Bleep (Proco/digital outlets)
27 Aug 2019 | <1 min read
Something rather different this time from guitarist/songwriter Prowse whose two previous albums – Trouble on the Waterfront and There Goes the Shiner – reached back to New Zealand's political past (the '51 waterfront strike and John A Lee's stories respectively). Here he offers 10 gentle electric guitar pieces inspired by the landscape (the opening trilogy... > Read more
Love You Long Time
Tom Ludvigson and Trevor Reekie: Roto (Southbound)
26 Aug 2019 | <1 min read
The duo at the core of Trip to the Moon here embark on more uncharted territories with Tom Ludvigson on piano and synths, Trevor Reekie on guitar, e-bow and various effects for half a dozen pieces improvised in the studio and recorded on the spot without resorting to overdubs. While we may not know how many other similarly spontaneous pieces failed to make the final cut for whatever reason,... > Read more