Music at Elsewhere
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Sina: Sina (Huh!/Universal)
21 Nov 2017 | 2 min read
They say good things come to those who wait . . . but it's unlikely Sina (as in “sweet Sina's in the front” in OMC's How Bizarre) thought she'd have to wait two decades for her solo album to come out. But back in the late Nineties with her songs produced by Alan Jansson (who'd worked his magic on How Bizarre, Sisters Underground's In the Neighbourhood among many other... > Read more
Beautiful Day
Various Artists: Ten Guitars; Homegrown Heroes (Universal)
20 Nov 2017 | <1 min read
In a sequel of sorts to the previous Ten Guitars; 40 Songs from Heartland New Zealand which included international artists, this 42-song collection throws the spotlight exclusively on locals . . . and across an impressively wide spectrum, but all songs which resonate here and probably nowhere else. In these days of Spotify and Apple etc playlists and such you might wonder whether... > Read more
Cairo Knife Fight: Seven (Universal)
19 Nov 2017 | <1 min read
The first thing we observe here on the second album by this powerful duo of American guitarist George Pajon and New Zealand drummer Nick Gaffaney is that the track titles are . . . hmmm. The opener is (1), the next is A-Nine, then it is (5), A-Six, (7), A-Four, (9), A-Seven and . . . we'd say “and so on” but there seems no discernible mathematical or alphabetical pattern... > Read more
A-Eight
Taylor Swift: Reputation (Big Machine/Universal)
16 Nov 2017 | 1 min read
At 15 songs and 55 minutes this new album by Taylor Swift may be just be a bit too long, but it's hard to see where the cull could be. Perhaps Dancing With Our Hands Tied because it isn't up to much, and do we need any more songs like Delicate deploying vocoder? However as with the shapeshifting careers of the likes of Bjork, the Beatles, Radiohead and others, the prolific Swift... > Read more
Getaway Car
Robert Plant: Carry Fire (Nonesuch/Warners)
15 Nov 2017 | 1 min read
It's salutary to think that Robert Plant has now been out of Led Zeppelin for more than three times longer than he was in it. It should mean that references to that former life should have long been set aside, if for no other reason than his musical path in the current century has moved closer to a kind of mystical world music and allusion to more folk blues than blues rock.... > Read more
Bones of Saints
Rostam: Half Light (Nonesuch/Warner)
6 Nov 2017 | <1 min read
Any record company exec would be glad to sign Rostam Batmanglij as a solo artist after his role as mainman in the musically expansive and interesting Vampire Weekend who he also produced. His other production roles alone would recommend him (Das Racist, Charli XCX, Carly Rae Jepsen, Santigold, Haim, Frank Ocean) and he's got a rolodex of good contacts. But if he delivered these... > Read more
Wood
ONE WE MISSED: Randy Newman; Dark Matter (Nonesuch/Warners)
6 Nov 2017 | 2 min read
Time was – a long time ago, admittedly – that a Randy Newman album would command some serious attention. And you'd think in these troubled time in America that one of that country's greatest, most insightful, acerbic, witty and sometimes oblique socio-political songwriters would be very much in the centre of the satirical frame again. But the times have changed and maybe... > Read more
She Chose Me
Matthew Bourne: Isotach (Leaf/Southbound)
5 Nov 2017 | 1 min read
It's certainly not important that you have heard the previous album by this British keyboard player: It was Moogmemory of last year and as the title suggests it was him on quirky and welterweight Moog synth with deft nods to Kraftwerk at their most minimal but gentle. And you probably don't need to explore his prior catalogue of jazz improvisations, collaborations (John Zorn, Annette... > Read more
Isogone
Various Artists: Sky Music; A Tribute to Terje Rypdal (Rune Grammofon/Southbound)
30 Oct 2017 | 1 min read
The great guitarist Terje Rypdal – who has appeared at Elsewhere many times – has been a mainstay of the long-running ECM label with a couple of dozen albums under his own name in that discography, as well as working with the likes of drummer Jack DeJohnette and bassist Miroslav Vitous, Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko, cellist David Darling, the Hilliard Ensemble and Norwegian... > Read more
Ornen, by Bill Frisell
IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases
30 Oct 2017 | 2 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. . Jon Langford's Four Lost Souls: John Langford's Four Lost Souls (Bloodshot/Southbound) No... > Read more
Dion Lunadon: Dion Lunadon (Agitated/Border)
30 Oct 2017 | 1 min read
It is extremely good news to see on the line-up for next year's Auckland City Limits the re-formed D4 who – in the late Nineties and early 2000s – held high the banner for punk-fueled rock'n'roll along with running mates the Datsuns. Bassist Dion Palmer aka the Lunadon here, came into the D4 from the equally incendiary Nothing At All! and was the pure embodiment of take no... > Read more
Fire
SHORT CUTS: A round-up of recent New Zealand releases
23 Oct 2017 | 4 min read
Facing down an avalanche of releases, requests for coverage, the occasional demand that we be interested in their new album (sometimes with that absurd comment "but don't write about it if you don't like it") and so on, Elsewhere will every now and again do a quick sweep like this, in the same way it does IN BRIEFabout international releases and Yasmin Brown does for EPs.... > Read more
Oneohtrix Point Never: Good Time, original soundtrack (Warp/Border)
23 Oct 2017 | 1 min read
This electronica-cum-contemporary art music continues the association New York-based composer OPN (aka Daniel Lopatin to his parents) has had with movies. But this aurally scouring soundtrack won best of the year at the recent Cannes Film Festival so we should pay serious attention. And as a piece of brutal sound design, staggeringly abrasive electronica (he cites Tangerine Dream as... > Read more
The Pure and The Damned (ft Iggy Pop)
Bill Lake and the Right Mistake: As Is Where Is (Melrose)
20 Oct 2017 | 1 min read | 1
If Bill Lake had done nothing else he would still be a hero in this happy household for his witheringly accurate Banana Dominion (about the Muldoon years) on the album 8 Duck Treasure by the Pelicans way back in '83. But of course Lake has done so much more: in the Seventies he was in Original Sin alongside Rick Bryant, there has been the Living Daylights, the long-running Windy City... > Read more
Juliet and Romeo
King Krule: The Ooz (XL/True Panther)
16 Oct 2017 | 2 min read
The previous album under Londoner Archy Marshall's King Krule moniker – and he goes by a bewildering array of noms de disque and personae too diffuse for us to worry about – was the fascinating and highly recommended 6 Feet Beneath the Moon released four years ago on his 19th birthday. He seemed a precocious if unfocused and wayward talent who was by turns a late night... > Read more
The Locomotive
Auaha: Te Pari o Auahatanga/The Flood of Inspiration (Te Aio)
16 Oct 2017 | 2 min read
One of the nominees at the recent Waiata Maori Music Awards in the Maori Traditional Album category, this immensely moving collection of waiata, taonga puoro and ambient noise from its sometimes in situ recording beside the Whanganui River (not long after it was designated a legal entity under the Treaty) was born of as much hardship as celebration. When that river flooded in one of... > Read more
E Moko E
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Gil Scott-Heron; The Revolution Will Not Be Televised . . . Plus (Flying Dutchman/Border)
16 Oct 2017 | 1 min read
The late Gil Scott-Heron was a jazz poet whose work remains interesting and timeless because he directed his messages to his own people more so than to the white audience. His famous title track here Revolution – despite its period references which now make little sense – wasn't as many think a warning to the white establishment but to black folks who weren't going to... > Read more
Whitey on the Moon
Greg Fleming: Working Poor Country (all main digital platforms)
15 Oct 2017 | 2 min read
In a recent Facebook conversation I instigated, I questioned how little political comment there has been in New Zealand popular music. As expected, many people weighed in with particular songs . . . but my point was that these were largely one-offs. Committed and consistently socio-political songwriters are thin on the ground, although we immediately acknowledge early Herbs, Moana... > Read more
Move to the Side
Alargo: Primacy (Pacific Echoes)
12 Oct 2017 | 1 min read
Alargo are multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Kingsley Melhuish and keyboard/synth player Alan Brown, and both programmes loops. Brown has appeared at Elsewhere a number of times under his own name (and he did an Elsewhere Jazz Questionnaire in 2015), but most notably for his beautifully ambient-cum-understatement album Silent Observer. Melhuish – here on lots of things you... > Read more
Warning Signs
Liam Gallagher: As You Were (Warners)
9 Oct 2017 | 1 min read | 1
Quite a few were dismissive of Liam Gallagher's previous post-Oasis incarnation in Beady Eye, but round this way their debut Different Gear Still Speeding and the slightly lesser follow-up BE were greeted with some pleasure for their widescreen guitar rock (Oasis in other words) and Liam's jibes at his brother Noel. They weren't great, but then again the final few Oasis albums were... > Read more