Music at Elsewhere

Sin City: Another Round (digital outlets)

8 Apr 2024 | <1 min read

Sometimes the cover or album title tells you exactly what you need to know. And so it is with ramshackle rockers Sin City whose Delaney Davidson-produced debut Welcome to Sin City of two years ago we described as offering “loose-limbed swagger, braggadocio, ramshackle country rock'n'roll, barroom ballads and country cliches mined for knowing humour”. This follow-up –... > Read more

I'm Your Man

Ride: Interplay (digital outlets)

7 Apr 2024 | 1 min read

Once the bright hope of shoegaze in the Britpop era, Oxford's Ride lost momentum with Carnival of Light after two fine albums and broke up. Their sound had been a template which – while it borrowed from Jesus and Mary Chain a little and the Manchester sound – was highly appealing. The band also had two excellent songwriters in Mark Gardener (who enjoyed a very decent solo... > Read more

Midnight Rider

Norah Jones: Visions (Blue Note/digital outlets)

6 Apr 2024 | 1 min read | 1

It's a fair observation to say that those who wail and rail against Yoko Ono's music have barely heard a note of it. Okay, some of her music could be challenging, but not all of it. However that's something the naysayers don't know because cheap cynicism and prejudice usually means you don't have to make much of an effort, if any. That infects some fairly mainstream artists too however:... > Read more

Queen of the Sea

Matt Hay: Dog and Pony Show (digital outlets)

5 Apr 2024 | 1 min read

Recorded live in the studio (Darren Watson's Lamington Recording aka his lounge in Pōneke Wellington), this collection of crafted songs with their feet and heart in country-folk and Americana comes with a lived-in intimacy. And behind singer-songwriter Matt Hay are slide guitar (Watson), accordion (Craig Denham), double bass (Steve Moodie) and percussion (Delia Shanly).... > Read more

Holy Smoke

Yin Yin, Mount Matsu (Glitterbeat/digital outlets)

30 Mar 2024 | 1 min read

Although we occasionally link to Spotify that is just for readers' convenience if a bandcamp link isn't available. (You can hear and buy at bandcamp so we prefer that.) We sometimes use Spotify but haven't ever let it dictate our taste or direction. Until now. We were listening to the new single by Mdou Moctar and through inattention let the Spotify algorithm run us on into another... > Read more

The Perseverance of Sano

Various Artists: Moving Away From the Pulsebeat (Cherry Red/digital outlets)

29 Mar 2024 | 7 min read | 1

A week or so ago I heard a well-known host on National Radio say he knew nothing about punk and was a soft rock guy. He asked what punk was. Perhaps someone could take a few minutes and explain it in its weird diversity: British punk in the late Seventies embedded the ideas of DIY (posters, tapes, gigs, clothes etc) , opened the door to the untutored, the importance of inclusiveness,... > Read more

Everyone's on Revolver Tonight, by O-Level

Fuzzy Robes: Midday Prayers (Winegum Records/digital outlets)

28 Mar 2024 | 1 min read

As with Banksy, the Residents and Daft Punk, let's allow a cloud of enigma and mystique to remain settled over the Ōtautahi Christchurch band Fuzzy Robes whose previous album Night Prayers in 2021 was a elevating mix of liturgical and gently psychedelic music. Although it's probably as easy to identify their members as the aforementioned – there are photos for a start --... > Read more

Collect for Midday

Les Big Byrd: Diamonds, Rhinestones and Hard Rain (digital outlets)

25 Mar 2024 | <1 min read

It has been almost a decade since we stumbled over Sweden's psychedelic rockers Les Big Byrd, probably through their association with Anton (Brian Jonestown Massacre) Newcombe's A Recordings label. This fourth studio album – recorded in small-town Visby on the island of Gotland in the Baltic – finds them focused on elevating, spacious astral rock in a space between Sky Cries... > Read more

Ensam i stan på sommarlovet

Kim Gordon: The Collective (digital outlets)

25 Mar 2024 | 1 min read

If you hadn't already twigged onto what Kim Gordon brought to Sonic Youth, the innovative and influential band which broke up in 2011, her autobiography Girl in a Band shone the light on her serious intellectual smarts and tenacity. And her recent solo albums just confirm all of that, and then some. Her gritty electronica-cum-alt.rock 2019 solo debut No Home... > Read more

Psychedelic Orgasm

The Jesus and Mary Chain: Glasgow Eyes (digital outlets)

23 Mar 2024 | 1 min read

Sibling rivalry in bands – almost exclusively the preserve of males – can have all the deep divisions of a Balkan conflict but is often traced to petty jealousies and arguments with all the intelligence of a playground spat. Who really knows, or cares, what pulled Ray and Dave Davies apart, was the source of division between Rich and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, why the... > Read more

Chemical Animal

Graeme Woller: Repetitions (digital outlets)

21 Mar 2024 | <1 min read

Perhaps because we at Elsewhere put in the long hours at a desk, there's nothing better we like than finding intelligent ambient music which challenges and seduces as much as it calms while we work. We've been known to make our own Spotify playlists (if you care to check them out here and here. This interesting collection comes from an unexpected source -- Graeme Woller is part of... > Read more

Korimako

ONE WE MISSED: Noise Play: Junk (digital outlets)

20 Mar 2024 | 1 min read

After a brace of strong pop-rock albums which bumped up against indifferent radio programmers (but which found favour at Elsewhere), Auckland singer-songwriter Danny McCrum did the obvious. No, he didn't quit. He just carried on. He turned his production skills and home studio to the service of others (check out this recent slice of electro-pop by Soulti from Raglan), started a... > Read more

Just a Little Bit, ft Mark Steven

Dandy Warhols: Rockmaker (digital outlets)

18 Mar 2024 | 1 min read

Despite their seemingly ramshackle career, Portland's Dandy Warhols have survived line-up changes, being seduced by the major label Capitol, being dropped, making poor business choices and albums which changed their direction from ragged indie rock to psychedelia, synth-pop, New Wave influences and shoegaze. They often seemed casually dismissive of any career releasing singles like Not If... > Read more

The Summer of Hate

Ted Brown: Solstice Canyon Loop (digital outlets)

18 Mar 2024 | <1 min read

It has probably been many years, if not decades, since most in New Zealand heard of Ted Brown, most commonly known as the longtime guitarist in Greg Johnson's band. Like Johnson, Brown has lived in Los Angeles for more the 20 years now and just as Johnson moved into the refined, singer-songwriter territory, Brown moved more toward alt.country. This highly accomplished third solo album... > Read more

Stops

Black Crowes: Happiness Bastards (digital outlets)

15 Mar 2024 | 1 min read

The 30 year story of the Black Crowes, the sibling rivalry between singer/guitarist Chris and his guitarist brother Rich, the side projects, line-up changes, drugs, break-ups and reunions makes for complex and sometimes hilarious reading. For a while they seemed the Band Most Likely on the back of their debut Shake Your Money Maker and its sprawling follow-up The Southern Harmony and... > Read more

Bleed It Dry

Omni: Souvenir (digital outlets)

11 Mar 2024 | <1 min read

The sharp-edged, snappy and staccato pop-rock from this taut three-piece out of Atlanta taps into the spirit and sound of Wire, the very early Cure, the Feelies and the young Talking Heads. These 11 songs are almost skeletal but that suits their compact, nervous energy which bristle with small ideas rendered large and don't waste a second. Only three songs break the three minute mark,... > Read more

Granite Kiss

Yosef Gutman Levitt: The World And Its People (digital outlets)

4 Mar 2024 | 1 min read

At a time when – despite easy access to reliable information – most people can't or won't make the distinction between Islam, Palestine and Hamas, or Judaism, Israel and Zionism, we need a bridge between peoples. Aside from those political propagandists who deal in diatribes, certainties and polemic, most musicians see and feel a middle-ground where understanding and compromise... > Read more

The Shepherd

The Mons Whaler: Hold My Gun (digital outlets)

3 Mar 2024 | 1 min read

What's in a name? Whatever “the Mons Whaler” is, it sounds like a big and possibly menacing leviathan. And an album title like that? Clearly this four-piece from Taranaki are serious, and sure enough this album sometimes rides on the back of heavyweight blues and alt.rock. But there is much more than that going on in these 10 refined and discrete songs which range... > Read more

Linger On

Liam Gallagher, John Squire: Liam Gallagher John Squire (digital outlets)

1 Mar 2024 | 1 min read

Although never much greater than the sum of its partners, this pairing of former Oasis singer Liam Gallagher and Stone Roses guitarist John Squire is not without interest. We dispense immediately with the lyrics because most of them are lame, lazy or referential as has often been the way with Gallagher in his solo career. And we concede immediately that much of this is music aimed for... > Read more

Mars to Liverpool

Chelsea Wolfe: She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She (digital outlets)

29 Feb 2024 | <1 min read

Anyone new to this industrial strength, electro-techno Californian – with reference points in Trent Reznor, Bauhaus and recent Gary Numan – might note previous albums included Pain is Beauty, Abyss and Birth of Violence. Those titles read like consumer warnings, albums only to be approached by frontline members of the armed forces. Wolfe's background speaks of longtime... > Read more