Music at Elsewhere
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RECOMMENDED REISSUE: The Bilders; Beatin Hearts (Grapefruit Record Club)
24 Sep 2016 | <1 min read
Not often we get to use the word “polymath” . . . but it describes multi-lingual poet, writer, publisher, dramatist, musician-without-portfolio Bill Direen whose reputation kicked in seriously with this debut album (after a series of singles and EPs) in '83. Released on Flying Nun, it includes a version of Denis Glover's poem The Magpies alongside Direen's... > Read more
Jack White: Acoustic Recordings 1998-2016 (XL)
19 Sep 2016 | 1 min read
Right from the start, Jack White was a shapeshifter, sometimes a garageband rocker, at others a raw blues player or a guitarist conspiring with his inner Jimmy Page to give Led Zeppelin a run for their money. He could sing what sounded like a tossed off children's song (the delightful We're Going to Be Friends) or dig in deep as an inspired rock star for whom the spotlight of fame... > Read more
City Lights (previously unreleased)
Angel Olsen: My Woman (Jagjaguwar)
19 Sep 2016 | <1 min read
When Elsewhere discovered this woman's previous album, her second, Burn Your Fire For No Witness in early 2014 we were mightily impressed by her ability to roam across genres from alt.country-influenced material to gritty rock, mainstream pop to acoustic ballads. What was also a thread was the classic pop structures and influences from the late Fifties/early Sixties . . . and on this... > Read more
Shut Up Kiss Me
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Led Zeppelin: The Complete BBC Sessions (Warners)
19 Sep 2016 | 1 min read | 1
Although JImmy Page's recent remastering programme of all the Led Zeppelin studio albums made them sound sharper and stronger, the additional tracks included were rarely added value. Many were remixes of varyng degrees of interest (some none at all, see here and here and here), but ironically it was their final mish-mash release Coda which came out best. Despite us calling the... > Read more
Communication Breakdown (live, 1969)
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Skeleton Tree (Kobalt)
14 Sep 2016 | 1 min read | 1
Although Nick Cave has often sung about death from various perspectives – Biblical, murder ballads, the Devil and so on – this sombre, slow and sometimes uncomfortable collection has greater and more personal resonance. His 15-year old son Arthur died in a tragic accident during the period when he was just starting on songs for a new album, and we might guess from the tone... > Read more
Distant Sky
De La Soul: And the Anonymous Nobody (Kobalt)
12 Sep 2016 | 1 min read
Although this opens with considerable throat-clearing by Jill Scott in a speech of empowerment which sounds beamed in from some African-American politico-Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, once thing settle thereafter the genius of the hip-hop innovators De La Soul is evident all over again. Cinematic in its reach, peppered with short passages (the 90 second CBGBs and similarly lengthed Sexy... > Read more
Royal Capes
The Beatles; Live at the Hollywood Bowl (Capitol/Universal)
12 Sep 2016 | 2 min read | 1
You'd think there was nothing left to exploit in the Beatles' catalogue (other than the film Let It Be and an album of their final rooftop concert). But this is the first reissue of the live album released in '77 from concerts recorded at the Hollywood Bowl in '64 and '65, plus four previously unreleased tracks and a 24-page booklet with an essay by the ubiquitous David Fricke. It... > Read more
Long Tall Sally
Elvis Presley: Way Down in the Jungle Room (RCA)
12 Sep 2016 | 1 min read
Golly gosh, the Beatles and Elvis Presley reviewed in the same week? Makes you wnder what century we are in. But the reissue of the Beatles album Live at the Hollywood Bowl (now equally billed as Eight Days a Week to link with the doco of that title) is the only official live album we have of them from their touring years . . . and this Elvis double CD are his final recordings, done at home... > Read more
Hurt (take three)
Morgan Delt: Phase Zero (Sub Pop)
11 Sep 2016 | <1 min read
Quick question: How many young male singers who don't have a strong or distinctive voice use a light falsetto as their default setting then multi-track and/or wrap their vocals in clouds of synths, orchestration etc. Answer? I don't know an actual figure . . . but I can tell you that this Californian is another one of them. Soaked in psychedelic sunshine and dreamy drone-pop with... > Read more
Escape Capsule
IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases
9 Sep 2016 | 4 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. Comments will be brief. Randy Newman: The Randy Newman Songbook (Nonesuch/Warners) It's always a great disappointment when the opportunity for a phone... > Read more
Pitch Black: Filtered Senses (pitchblack.co.nz)
2 Sep 2016 | 1 min read
Longtime electronica artists Pitch Black out of Auckland were always in the vanguard of son et lumiere shows which could deliver punishing heart-hitting beats or drop the moods towards stateless, sonic landscapes of the mind. And also effortlessly bring in influences from dub and dancefloor. It has been some while since their last album – nine years during which the duo of... > Read more
Dub Smoke
The Veils: Total Depravity (Nettwerk)
29 Aug 2016 | 1 min read
Anyone with a passing interest in this band fronted by Finn Andrews already knows the tone of this one: In interviews Andrews has referenced David Lynch's rebooted Twin Peaks, there is darkness and menace as a pervading ethos (British reviews have said “unsettling” and “gloriously sad eyed rock that preaches to the perverted”) and so on. From the title inward,... > Read more
House of Spirits
Eva Prowse: Humid Nights (evaprowse.co.nz/Aeroplane)
29 Aug 2016 | 1 min read
Wellington singer-songwriter Prowse's debut album I Can't Keep Secrets made Elsewhere's best of the year list in 2010 and at that time we noted her performances with Fly My Pretties, her appearance on her father's excellent Trouble on the Waterfront album and so on. Since then however she fetched up in London where she turned her attention to electro-pop (as H & EVA with expat... > Read more
No Man
Lesley Gore: Boys Boys Boys (Ace/Border)
29 Aug 2016 | 1 min read
When this great, early Sixties pop sensation died in February 2015 a newsreader on New Zealand television began the item with, “You won't have heard of her but . . . “ That kind of condescending comment – clearly the older frontman was making a pitch for millennials – wouldn't be applied to a sports star from the same era (no matter how obscure) or politician.... > Read more
Don't Call Me
Scott Walker: The Childhood of a Leader (4AD)
29 Aug 2016 | <1 min read
And here Elsewhere performs a readers' service for those few who still follow Scott Walker's idiosyncratic and often brilliant (if demanding) career. The master of disturbing music and disruptive arrangements here presents his soundtrack to the film of the same name. It is set in Paris 1919 and the “leader” of the title refers to the cute-faced young boy whose manipulations... > Read more
Third Tantrum
Martin Phillipps: Live at the Moth Club (Fire CD/DVD through Southbound)
26 Aug 2016 | 3 min read
For Martin Phillipps of the Chills – a songwriter, lyricist and arranger of rare skill and often genius – the successes of this moment must feel like vindication. In the past eight months Phillipps – whose career seemed to be finished when he broke up the Chills on stage n the US in 92 – has ridden a long overdue wave of recognition in the US and Europe where... > Read more
Pink Frost (live)
IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases
22 Aug 2016 | 3 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. Comments will be brief. The Felice Brothers: Life in the Dark (YepRoc/Southbound) Once again channeling - but with even more refinement -- the... > Read more
Lydia Loveless: Real (Bloodshot/Southbound)
22 Aug 2016 | <1 min read
Now onto her fifth album 25-year old Lydia Loveless (born Lydia Ankrom) draws a thread between brittle power pop, whatever passes for alt.country these days and classic guitar jangle with a smidgen of post-punk energy. As a lyricist she nails down some alarmingly visceral imagery (“If self control is what you want I'd have to break all of my fingers off” she yowls on the... > Read more
Out on Love
Matthew Barber and Jill Barber: The Family Album (Outside/Southbound)
22 Aug 2016 | 1 min read
On the same Canadian label which recently signed Tami Neilson (a no-brainer I would have thought) comes this quietly delightful sibling-pairing on songs – a balance of originals and classic covers – which essay those seemingly unfashionable ideas of domesticity, the comfort of family and friends, and taking pleasure in life. In a world awash with albums which wallow in misery... > Read more
The Partisan
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Faith No More; We Care a Lot, Deluxe Edition (Universal)
19 Aug 2016 | <1 min read
Now available on double vinyl and CD with extra tracks, demos, live versions and remixes, this impressive '85 debut – before Mike Patton took over vocal duties from soon-to-depart Chuck Mosley – hit a midpoint between US punk, funk metal and indie.rock. With a dollop of cynical humour (the title track alluding to consciousness-raising and ever-so caring rock stars with... > Read more