Music at Elsewhere

The Lemonheads: Varshons II (Fire/Southbound)

14 Feb 2019 | 1 min read

We can only look at promise unfulfilled in the wayward and often self-destructive career of Evan Dando, the Lemonhead who foreshadowed so much with the early work (notably the Favourite Spanish Dishes EP and the albums Lovey, It's a Shame About Ray and some of Come On Feel The Lemonheads). But thereafter the wheels came off, the music more intermittent, the guest appearances were... > Read more

Old Man Blank

Beirut: Gallipoli (4AD)

11 Feb 2019 | 1 min read

There's a fairly prevalent belief that if you look busy, people will think you are; that if the surface looks impressive there's probably real substance beneath it; and that if you write in the world of whatever passes for “indie rock” these days (the genre which appears when you drop this new Beirut album into a computer) that you don't need to bother about troublesome things like... > Read more

Gauze fur Zah

Cherry Glazerr: Stuffed and Ready (Secretly Canadian)

11 Feb 2019 | <1 min read

Some part garageband with a dollop of power-pop alongside songs which could fill a stadium, this trio from California around singer-guitarist Clementine Creevy hold fast to some old values which sometimes also marry punk energy with studio polish. Despite that collision of styles and references – all of which have pop values at core – there is sameness among many of these 10... > Read more

Daddi

Beat Rhythm Fashion: Tenterhook (Failsafe/digital outlets)

9 Feb 2019 | 2 min read

To be honest, I can't say I ever saw Wellington's late Seventies/early Eighties band Beat Rhythm Fashion . . . and until now maybe not even much, if anything, of their music, other than perhaps in passing on bFM. They were however a band – just three singles – many of us in Auckland were “aware” of. Ever since the seven year gap between a couple of Blue Nile... > Read more

Optimism

Aro: Manu (Aro)

6 Feb 2019 | 1 min read

The premise here may sound a bit twee – 10 songs about New Zealand native birds, at some remove from Dudley Benson's art music we would add – which were written by Aro (Charles and Emily Looker) while they were traveling the country in their mobile home. Sound a bit close to the ever-favourite Kiwi acoustic strum on a beach in summer? And yes, there are some songs are... > Read more

Miromiro

Tiny Ruins: Olympic Girl (Milk! Records vinyl/digital outlets)

4 Feb 2019 | 1 min read

At some point in the late Sixties, British folk music got a little psychedelic, baroque and more interesting than much of the earnest finger-picking style which had preceded it. People like Donovan – on songs such as Sunny Goodge Street, Three Kingfishers and so on – found these new musical settings opened up and allowed for new avenues of lyrical expression. Hollie Fullbrook... > Read more

School of Design

TOY: Happy in the Hollow (Tough Love/Southbound)

4 Feb 2019 | 1 min read

At the recent Laneway a friend and I commented about a decent young local band that it sounded like they'd grown up with their parents' Eighties records (Smiths, Cure, Joy Division etc). There's perhaps an inevitability about that . . . and here it comes again with this UK outfit who here on their fourth album channel similar sources alongside a bit of Mazzy Star/shoegaze drone and motorik... > Read more

Move Through the Dark

Marlon Williams: Live at the Auckland Town Hall (digital outlets)

2 Feb 2019 | 2 min read

More than just a memento of last year's sell-out concert in May, this cleanly recorded set launches Marlon Williams' turangawaewae tour (dates below) and perhaps after that allows him to put some of his more cathartically beautiful material behind him and look ahead. Here with the excellent Yarra Benders – capable of everything from the most delicate piano ballads to... > Read more

I Didn't Make A Plan

Francisca Griffin: The Spaces Between (Coco Muse/digital outlets)

30 Jan 2019 | 1 min read | 1

In an engagingly monochromatic voice which alludes to the dispassionate indifference of Nico or the battered dignity of recent Marianne Faithfull, singer/guitarist Francisca Griffin – formerly of Flying Nun's Look Blue Go Purple then Cyclops – here delivers her poetic alt.pop against backdrops of dark and driving folkadelics (the gripping opener One Eye Open and Martyn with Ro... > Read more

Bones and Lies

The Bevis Frond: We're Your Friends, Man (Fire)

28 Jan 2019 | 1 min read

On the opening track of this album the great helmsman of Britain's the Bevis Frond, Nick Saloman, announces “this is the product of my fevered mind, this is the sound of being left behind, this is a ritual dissection of the soul, I hope that you will enjoy it. This is the twentysomething swinging disc . . . I'm not even sure it's worth a second look”. Pessimistic at all, Mr... > Read more

Old Wive's Tales

Lonnie Holley: MITH (Jagjaguwar)

21 Jan 2019 | 1 min read

For a singer, 68-year old Lonnie Holley is an interesting sculptor. And while this album – only his third I believe, his first for Jagjaguwar – is not without interest (and it's black politics part of an important lineage) it is his backstory which is worth hearing first. About 35 years ago he began creating sculpture out of found objects then moved into painting. Known as... > Read more

Copying the Rock

Sharon Van Etten: Remind Me Tomorrow (Jagjaguwar)

21 Jan 2019 | 1 min read

The most interesting singer-writers are those who grow and take their audience on the journey, whether it be down to their personal depths or their new-found happiness. Of course, not all artists can effectively convey their developing persona – see the recent Deerhunter – but when the best pull it off (PJ Harvey and Jeff Tweedy spring to mind) they can be welcome fellow... > Read more

Comeback Kid

Maggie Rogers: Heard It In a Past Life (Capitol/Universal)

20 Jan 2019 | 1 min read

A friend recently bemoaned that young pop stars can make it on the basis of just one single that goes viral. They haven't paid their dues . . . and so on. He then cited by way of example Maggie Rogers whose recent single Light On he'd heard. Big mistake, given this bright poppy (if flawed) major label debut album which includes that catchy single and collates a number of reworkings... > Read more

Say It

Deerhunter: Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? (4AD)

19 Jan 2019 | 1 min read

America's Deerhunter – and the offshoot of projects as Atlas Sound by the band's helmsman Bradford Cox – has long been an Elsewhere favourite, in fact two of the four previous albums we reviewed – this being their eighth – were in our end of year Best of lists. Those albums might have had a few shadows but mostly they were smart and frequently upbeat alt.rock which... > Read more

Plains

Steve Gunn: The Unseen in Between (Matador)

18 Jan 2019 | 1 min read

If there is to be a neo-psychedelic folk-rock revival – and round here we hope so – then it could hardly be in better hands than those of singer-guitarist Steve Gunn. He served just enough time in Kurt Vile's band the Violators to be a name known to a young and hip rock audience but has also traveled interesting paths through Anglofolk (most writers mention John Martyn, Bert... > Read more

Luciano

Paper Cranes: Voices (digital outlets)

14 Jan 2019 | 1 min read

This second album by the New Zealand duo of Fraser and Naomi Brown (and fellow travelers) builds on the excellence of their debut The Road Home, sometimes with pleasing digressions into territory once occupied by the emerging Fleet Foxes but here with a quieter, front-parlour elegance (the piano ballad Follow). These are beautifully crafted and arranged songs – from hushed intimacy... > Read more

ONE WE MISSED: Blair Parkes and Cardigan Bay: Little Rapids (bandcamp)

14 Jan 2019 | 1 min read

Christchurch musician/artist Blair Parkes has appeared previously at Elsewhere but this album arrived in November just as Elsewhere was mopping up paying work and folding its tents for a while so . . . Parkes is a remarkable character, not the least for writing this life-affirming piece at the very end of last year about previously being diagnosed with cancer, love and life when living with... > Read more

Active Listener

Larkin Poe: Venom and Faith (Tricki-Woo/Southbound)

14 Jan 2019 | <1 min read | 1

Although this band fronted by Atlanta-born and Nashville-based sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell are most frequently referred to as blues there is as much raw soul and edgy alt.rock on this fourth album which is frequently freighted with dark meanings (the menacing “ride at your own risk” on the chunky Bleach Blonde Bottle Blues, references to inviting the President to get in the... > Read more

Ain't Gonna Cry

Kikagaku Moyo: Masana Temples (Guruguru Brain/Southbound)

14 Jan 2019 | <1 min read

Self-described “psychedelic” rock from Japan recorded in Lisbon by a jazz musician (Bruno Pernadas) and which opens with a sitar piece? Then gets into a bit of funk? And why not, we say. Umm, here's why not. This five-piece from Tokyo on their fourth album hardly push the envelope in terms of serious wig-out or even into new areas but rather meld together some very... > Read more

Majupose

The Bleeding Allstars: Uneasy Listening (Thokei Tapes/bandcamp)

4 Jan 2019 | 1 min read

When the former members of Sneaky Feelings – one of the finest and musically most durable of the first wave of Flying Nun – found themselves in close proximity after many decades they reformed and delivered the damn fine Progress Junction. The Sneakies major weapon was having a number of songwriters in their ranks and here one of them, David Pine, steps out under a band... > Read more