Music at Elsewhere
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The Black Seeds: Fabric (Black Seeds)
4 Sep 2017 | 1 min read
In our overseas absence the Black Seeds got the media vibe going in anticipation of this new album, which of course went past us. But did we really miss the excitement? On the evidence of the album/artifact, not really. As much as the Black Seeds have often delivered some of our favourite local albums (and been a thoroughly engaging live act), this first studio release in five... > Read more
Ride On
Sneaky Feelings: Progress Junction (Flying Nun)
4 Sep 2017 | 1 min read
One of the most musically ambitious and interesting band in the first decade of Flying Nun who sets their sights on pop-rock, Sneaky Feelings often seemed ignored in the haste at the time to acclaim the indie spirit of other bands over the craftsmanship this group applied. The irony was that the Chills, who also harboured mainstream acclaim, were frequently... > Read more
Eyes on the Horizon
Charlotte Yates: Then the Stars Start Singing (charlotteyates.com)
4 Sep 2017 | 1 min read
Many musicians must be plagued with self-doubt when putting their music into the world, but spare a sympathetic thought for Charlotte Yates because for many years she was offering songwriting advice in the pages of NZ Musician magazine (now online here). So you could imagine her trepidation at being judged on the release of this album, but Yates – who was also prime mover behind... > Read more
Where Have You Gone
Paul McLaney: Play On (Loop)
25 Aug 2017 | 2 min read
Although there have been any number of musical settings of Shakespeare's songs and sonnets (Paul Kelly recently with last year's Seven Songs and A Sonnet for example), the very prolific Paul McLaney takes another direction into the words of the Bard: 10 of his soliloquies. Those are passages spoken directly to the audience, sometimes in earshot of other actors but unheard by them.... > Read more
The Deeds of Mercy ft Ria Hall
Various Artists: Even a Tree Can Shed Tears (LITA/Southbound)
21 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
Subtitled “Japanese Folk and Rock 1969 – 1973”, this 19 song collection with very useful liner notes shines a spotlight on music you might thought would have been much explored in that lust so many have for the obscure or left-field. As Yosuke Kitazawa observes in the notes, Japanese pop has only made one lone impact on the mainstream charts outside of the country,... > Read more
Aoi Natsu/Blue Summer by Takuro Yoshida
Richard Thompson: Acoustic Classics II (Proper/Southbound)
21 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
For decades his fans have argued that Richard Thomson has been cruelly overlooked, but that only seems to apply to sales: he has been accorded just about every major songwriting and guitar accolade possible in the USA and UK and also has an OBE. But of course, none of that directly translates into a profile for a more mainstream audience. This album – the excellent sequel... > Read more
Pharaoh
Django Bates: Saluting Sgt Pepper (Edition)
21 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
Although you couldn't fault the timing of this album by British keyboard player/conductor/arranger Bates and the Frankfurt Radio Big Band, the result is somewhat less engaging. The 50th anniversary of the Beatles' Sgt Pepper album invited many such opportunistic tributes but too often this, by remaining extremely faithful to the original right down to the replication of animal... > Read more
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
Grawlixes: Set Free (Home Alone/Southbound)
14 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
This debut album for the Wellington indie.folk duo Grawlixes – Robin Cederman and Penelope Esplin, with violinist Alex Vaatstra in places here – appeared while Elsewhere was elsewhere so we missed their tour. Are we disappointed on the evidence here? Although the title track is an uninviting dirge as an opener – even at just two... > Read more
A Fine Rain
Ov Pain: Ov Pain (cocomuse.co.nz)
14 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
In the musical microcosm that is Dunedin/Port Chalmers these days, we might allow ourselves to consider the duo at the core of this multi-referencing Goth-cum-drone-cum-claustrophobically dark-rock-psyche release as something of a pocket-edition supergroup. Partners Renee Barrance and Tim Player are of Elan Vital and the very interesting Opposite Sex respectively. But, with all... > Read more
Cold as Ice
Mermaidens: Perfect Body (Flying Nun)
9 Aug 2017 | <1 min read
This Wellington trio are quite rightly the hip, fashionable and classy name to drop because of their crafted, emotionally tense pop which holds up in the face of easy dismissal. To these ears so many young indie-rock groups lack any sense of bite let alone firepower. But Mermaidens walk a line between ethereal pop and brittle indie.rock which channels some of the essence of... > Read more
Satsuma
Public Service Broadcasting: Every Valley (PIAS)
7 Aug 2017 | 2 min read | 1
The two previous albums by Britain's boffinish PSB – Inform-Educate- Entertain and The Race for Space – had an audience outreach in their sampled themes: voices from the past evoking speed, progress, science, energy and vigour propelling us into the future . . . Couple those themes with energetic music borne out of techno, rock, pop and dance, and the albums were very hard... > Read more
People Will Always Need Coal
This is the Kit: Moonshine Freeze (Rough Trade)
7 Aug 2017 | 1 min read
The previous album Bashed Out by the acclaimed UK alt.folk singer/writer and banjo player Kate Sables (aka This is the Kit) was a frustrating affair. Round my way the cry was always “turn it up” or that she should just punch in a bit harder. However this fourth album (produced by John Parish, with guests who do the punching on electric guitars, cello, saxophones and so on)... > Read more
By My Demon Eye
Maria Dallas: The Best of Maria Dallas (Sony)
7 Aug 2017 | 2 min read
In 2013 – which was what we now know as “The Year of Our Lorde” – there was a huge upset at the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards. For the young people in the audience, their new pop-godhead Lorde had dominated their thinking and so a shockwave of “Who . . .?” went around the room when the award for the biggest selling album was announced.... > Read more
Don't Love Me Too Much
Arcade Fire: Everything Now (Sony)
31 Jul 2017 | <1 min read
Always a band with ambition, this Canadian outfit have previously pushed the parameters and for their previous outing Reflektor went the whole double-CD. As we said at the time, like most double discs it was overlong but you did have to admire their willingness to experiment and, in that instance, throw themselves back into the Eighties. In that regard this more economic and... > Read more
Electric Blue
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Isaac Hayes, Shaft
31 Jul 2017 | 2 min read
It's not widely known, but Isaac Hayes was the first black artist to win the Best Song category at the Oscars, and he did with the memorable theme to the film Shaft which also won him a Grammy and pushed the double album soundtrack to become the fastest selling album on the Stax label to that time. If there's any irony it's that on The Theme, Hayes barely sung at all just did his sort... > Read more
Early Sunday Morning
Valedictions: Pieces (valedictions.co.nz)
3 Jul 2017 | <1 min read
While we might bemoan the balkanisation of radio into tightly proscribed formats, at least from an artist's point of view they at least know where to pitch their music. No surprise then that this three-piece Auckland band got an early single Hey Lady on The Rock FM. (The title alone kinda recommends it, right?) They played a Big Day Out years ago, did some gigs more recently with... > Read more
Queens
Benjamin Booker: Witness (Rough Trade)
26 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
This may only be Booker's second album but he has already proven the capacity to surprise, born out o his punk background in Florida coupled with a love for r'n'b', gospel and classic soul. Throw them into the blender – you can almost hear the blades grinding on the throaty opener Right On You which comes at you out of a thumping pulse and the assertive “I'll be damned if... > Read more
Believe
Stevens, Muhly, Dessner, McAlister: Planetarium (4AD)
19 Jun 2017 | 3 min read
Elsewhere is of the firm opinion that the education system has failed young people if, by the age of 15, they haven't been introduced to some Shakespeare (Julius Caesar is an easy sell to teens), Picasso/Cubism and some start-off classical music (Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Peter and the Wolf perhaps?). These are things in the arts which extend across all cultures... > Read more
Kuiper Belt
Algiers: The Underside of Power (Matador)
19 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
Two years ago the incendiary, distorted and angry self-titled debut album by this US political powerhouse spent some weeks in and out of our Favourite Five Recent CDs column. At that time we wrote: “Out of the torn traditions of America's gospel'n'blues Deep South but shot through with post-punk fury, this trio take a hammer to politics, religion and race but couch it in... > Read more
Cry of the Martyrs
The Miltones: The Miltones (miltones.com/Rhythmethod)
13 Jun 2017 | 1 min read
As we have observed previously, for a very long time in the Eighties and into the Nineties New Zealand musicians shunned the idea of being “pop” when indie was so much more cool, and it often has seemed that since then the idea of appealing to a more mainstream and even slightly older audience was anathema to many. The success of Dave Dobbyn, Brooke Fraser, Bic Runga, Anika... > Read more