Music at Elsewhere
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Freddy Trujillo: I Never Threw a Shadow At It (digital outlets)
22 Jun 2024 | <1 min read
The name of this Portland-based Californian might not be familiar but the bands he plays bass in – the Delines and Richmond Fontaine – means we should be interested in this, his fourth album which features various Delines. Along a similar axis as those bands, Trujillo sings of his Chicano background (I Didn't Cross the Border, The Border Crossed Me), experiences of Chicano... > Read more
Corpus Christi
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Terror of the Deep: The Airport Underneath the Dome (limited edition vinyl)
17 Jun 2024 | 2 min read
Now this vinyl record has interesting history, but let's start with the bad news which the band republish to their own amusement. When this album by the Wellington band was released on CDR and cassette in 2010 it was considered the “four-piece trying their hand at geeky chic to varying degrees of success,” by NZ Musician. The reviewer went further (“not too sure that... > Read more
Two Wizards
La Luz: News of the Universe (digital outlets)
16 Jun 2024 | 1 min read
One of the Elsewhere Best of the Year albums of 2023 was the intimate folk album Manzanita by Shana Cleveland, a founder and sole original member in the US surf rock band La Luz. The journey and offshoots of that Seattle band were worth following as they moved from twanging surf guitar and girl group rock'n'roll roots on their 2013 debut It's Alive through line-up changes... > Read more
Good Luck with Your Secret
Kelley Stoltz: La Fleur (digital outlets)
14 Jun 2024 | <1 min read
San Francisco's Kelley Stoltz disappeared off our radar after his To Dreamers album although we've name-checked him a few times since. A man who can craft sublime if sometimes referential jangle pop, rock and power pop, here he gets in a more fuzzy, psyched up and anxious mood for a dozen songs which have all those references mentioned but are agitated, which coincidentally is name of the... > Read more
About Time
Mel Parsons: Sabotage (digital outlets)
10 Jun 2024 | 2 min read
With the title track of her previous album Slow Burn, Mel Parsons offered a useful shorthand to her style and career. With Sabotage she's been slow-burning over six albums, numerous songwriting nominations and wins in folk and country categories, and the respect of her peers. For someone who has built a more than respectable catalogue of songs however, Parsons still hasn't quite connected... > Read more
Hoping for Rain
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Paul Weller: 66 (digital outlets)
10 Jun 2024 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes in a gatefold sleeve (art by Sir Peter Blake) with an insert of lyrics and a large fold-out poster of the still handsome and dapper Paul Weller. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . In the late Seventies I started buying every single by the Jam... > Read more
Nothing
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Sam Bambery: Rubricator (digital outlets)
9 Jun 2024 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes in a matt carboard sleeve with an insert slip of credits and a surreal piece about what a rubricator is (most of which is bewildering and tangential!) Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . Until we send experts to sample the water or embed... > Read more
Mountain and Me
Late Slip: I Love You (digital outlets)
9 Jun 2024 | <1 min read
With a snappy retro-rock'n'roll-cum-rockabilly attitude beamed in from the Fifties on songs like I'll Be Okay (“thought he should be with me but he did not agree”) and Tidal Wave, New York's joyful Chelsea Nenni sounds like a whole lot of fun at parties where they play Wanda Jackson, the Ronettes and Brenda Lee. She'd be on the dancefloor and grabbing the mike at karaoke, and... > Read more
New York City
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Polite Company: Please Go Wild (digital outlets)
8 Jun 2024 | 2 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this album which comes in a ridiculously cute cover (front and back) and has an insert sheet of the excellent lyrics. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . The key name in this band is singer-writer Alan Gregg, formerly of the Dribbling Darts of Love... > Read more
Perfectly Good Explanation
Crowded House: Gravity Stairs (digital outlets)
3 Jun 2024 | 2 min read
Few people these days would still cling to the belief that bands should have a stable line-up like the Beatles and U2, or that they need adopt that famous “last gang in town” attitude of the Clash. Band line-ups these days are more like the Rolling Stones (now down to just two original members) or Fleetwood Mac who can count more than a dozen former members. One of those Mac... > Read more
The Howl
Various Artists: Let Me Take You Down . . . Under. Volume 2 (Frenzy)
3 Jun 2024 | 2 min read
Traveling down the Beatle path means you invariably pass some familiar landmarks, so we'll acknowledge first that we previously reviewed Volume 1 of Let Me Take You Down . . . Under, this new edition subtitled “Another Celebration of Kiwi Artists Covering the Songs of the Beatles”. Once again archivist Grant Gillanders has unearthed a couple of dozen Beatle covers by New Zealand... > Read more
Ticket to Ride Part 2, by the Rebels
St Vincent: All Born Screaming (digital outlets)
3 Jun 2024 | 1 min read
Under a title almost designed to confront and in typically striking cover art, Texas-raised Annie Clark (St Vincent) puts yet another stake fiirmly in the ground with this seventh studio album, a decade on from her self-titled fourth album which took her to a huge audience and was critically acclaimed. Although she has a sometimes singular vision she has also been a keen collaborator,... > Read more
Big Time Nothing
Beth Gibbons: Lives Outgrown (digital outlets)
3 Jun 2024 | 1 min read
If the name is unfamiliar you are forgiven because it has been a very long time since she was part of the conversation, and this is her debut album under her own name at 59, some decades on from when her voice was so familiar. Beth Gibbons was the voice of Portishead who defined British trip-hop in the Nineties. Now she steps out under her own name and certainly has something to say as a... > Read more
Lost Changes
Richard Thompson: Ship to Shore (digital outlets)
31 May 2024 | 2 min read
There are any number of very creditable artist like Richard Thompson – and we've mentioned Nick Drake in this regard also – for whom no amount of favourable reviews, well intentioned interviews and profiles will much shift the needle on their audience base. They will always – barring the accident of a hit – command a small but loyal following, somewhere between not... > Read more
The Fear Never Leaves You
Park Rd: The Novel (Loop/digital outlets)
25 May 2024 | 1 min read
This Auckland five-piece have established themselves as live favourites at festivals here and in Australia, and drawn attention to this 13-song debut album by releasing five strong – possibly even their strongest – songs already. Singer Tom Chamberlain has one of those pleading voices which nudges into soulful hurt (Hey Hello, the interesting Asleep:Awake, Tonight I, I Don't... > Read more
Miss French: The Trials and Tribulations of Miss French Pt Two (Spirit of Play/digital outlets)
25 May 2024 | 1 min read
Miss French is Julie Foa'i and the reason for the long gap between her 2016 album The Trials and Tribulations of Miss French Pt 1 and this is perhaps because she's been so busy managing the enterprise that is the acclaimed Te Vaka. Married to that band's mainman/songwriter Opetaia – who produced, arranged and wrote the music for some of the 12 songs – Julie steps well away from... > Read more
Differences Blues
Various Artists: Everybody's Getting Involved; A Tribute to Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense (digital outlets)
24 May 2024 | 1 min read
While Lorde's cover of the Al Green song Take Me to the River (which was in Talking Heads' repertoire) understandably got attention locally – although she shoulder-taps the Heads too much when Al might have offered a more challenging and interesting take – there is so much ordinary and sometimes downright awful stuff on this tribute that you wonder why some of them bothered.... > Read more
Life During Wartime, by DJ Tunez
Leila Adu: Moonstone and Tar Sands (digital outlets)
13 May 2024 | 1 min read
Brought to our attention by New York-based expat musician and designer Andrew B White, this artist is very much Elsewhere. From what we can find she is a British-born expat New Zealander, a Grammy-nominated composer and an assistant music professor at New York University. She got her BMus at Victoria, Wellington and doctorate at Princeton. She has written for the London Sinfonietta,... > Read more
Gold Yod ft PUBLIQuartet
T Bone Burnett: The Other Side (digital outlets)
13 May 2024 | 1 min read
When Elvis Costello played at the now long-demolished His Majesty's Theatre in Auckland in 1985, he strode down the aisle singing Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues which, by the time he got to the stage, morphed into Pump It Up. It was dramatic flourish to start a brilliant show and an acknowledgement of source material. As he did in a duet as the Coward Brothers – Howard and... > Read more
He Came Down
The O'Donnell Brothers: Back in the Day (odbrosmusic)
13 May 2024 | 2 min read
It was 1990 when I met Auckland bassist Greg O'Donnell. He was in Gray Bartlett's band going into Southern China – a year after the Tiananmen Square massacre – for concerts and music workshops. I was the tag-along journalist who was going to write something for the Herald. It was a fascinating 10 days, Gray was generous with the Chinese students, the band and concerts were... > Read more