Music at Elsewhere
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Rupert Angeleyes: Pillow Talk (digital outlets)
12 May 2024 | <1 min read
This Minneapolis-based and much toured artist (he's played in 48 of the US states) is frequently described as “psych and dream pop” which is sort of true in that some of his songs here meander nicely or play off the tropes of dream pop. But there's also something more funky going on in the bass lines (Make Out Lately), shafts of synth-pop scattered throughout (the shapeshifting... > Read more
Matt Joe Gow and Kerryn Fields: I Remember You (digital outlets)
8 May 2024 | 1 min read
Melbourne-based expat country singer-songwriter Matt Joe Gow saw his name suddenly appear in media coverage here recently: he was nominated for best country album at the AMAs in a shortlist alongside Kaylee Bell and the Mitchell Twins. That fine company to be in. Gow is no stranger to acclaim, he has released five solo albums with two of them winning Music Victoria Awards and has a... > Read more
Whirlwind
Pearl Jam: Dark Matter (digital outlets)
8 May 2024 | 2 min read
More than 20 years ago I had one of the more interesting interviews of my career. It was in 2002 in Seattle when I sat down with the members of Pearl Jam, and had a lengthy one-on-one with singer/writer Eddie Vedder who was serious at times and funny at others. The complete transcript of the Vedder interview is here . . . and against the odds Pearl Jam are still here. Think about it.... > Read more
Got to Give
Maliheh Moradi and Ehsan Matoori: Our Sorrows (Arc Music/digital outlets)
6 May 2024 | 1 min read
While the world's attention is rightly on Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon and Israel, the plight of many people in Iran – especially women whose lives are severely restricted – remains. As we are aware, Iranian women have clothing, behavioural and career impositions, and since the revolution in '79 been prohibited from singing solo in public. US-based singer Maliheh... > Read more
Six Doors
The Lemon Twigs: A Dream Is All We Know (digital outlets)
5 May 2024 | 1 min read
When the brothers Michael and Brian D'Addario emerged with their band Lemon Twigs with their album Do Hollywood in 2016 they were, in some circles, given the same kind of enthusiastic reception the Strokes had enjoyed. What critics heard was a terrific tick-list of influences from the Beatles and Beach Boys to British acid pop. We said for the D'Addario brothers, “it is forever... > Read more
My Golden Years
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Fuemana: New Urban Polynesian (Urban Pacifica/digital outlets)
4 May 2024 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this album released for the first time on vinyl but now appears with an insert essay/overview by Martin Pepperrell. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . Deep in our archives there is an interesting interview with Phil Fuemana and Sisters Underground which... > Read more
Beat Rhythm Fashion: Critical Mass (Failsafe/digital outlets)
4 May 2024 | 2 min read
Beat Rhythm Fashion would be very familiar to anyone going to gigs in Wellington around 1980 but for many they were more spoken of than heard, despite some excellent singles. However their story was far from over after they disbanded in 1982 . . . although there was a fairly lengthy hiatus. About 36 years of hiatus in fact, until singer/writer/guitarist Nino Birch and drummer Caroline... > Read more
What We've Become
The Church: Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars (digital outlets)
27 Apr 2024 | 1 min read
Since Elsewhere's interview with the Church's Steve Kilbey in 2018 – now the sole remaining member of the original line-up after the departure of Marty Willson-Piper in 2013 and Peter Koppes in 2019 – he has nudged the band into areas which appeal to him. In our interview a great deal of the conversation was about myth and magic, esoteric books and art, Lewis Carroll and... > Read more
Amanita
Black Keys: Ohio Players (digital outlets)
26 Apr 2024 | 1 min read
Because Black Keys have appeared so often at Elsewhere, we feel we know them well. Although to give credit where it's due, the duo haven't settle on a style for long. When we first saw them a couple of decades ago in a gig at Auckland's now-closed Kings Arms, Dan Auerbach (guitar, vocals) and drummer Patrick Carney were a ragged, blues-rock garage band but – like the early White... > Read more
Beautiful People (Stay High)
THE VERLAINES' WAY OUT WHERE, REISSUED (2024): So many choices out there
24 Apr 2024 | 3 min read
In a recent interview Graeme Downes of the Verlaines – for these past four years retired from music and academic life while recovering from a cancer operation – spoke proudly of their 1993 album Way Out Where. He'd written all 12 songs while under considerable pressures: a deadline from the American label Slash, while completing his master's thesis, and knowing this was going to... > Read more
Blanket Over the Sky
Ha The Unclear: A Kingdom in a Cul-de-sac (Think Zik!/digital outlets)
23 Apr 2024 | <1 min read
For a band with a surreal name, this indie.rock outfit from Dunedin (the vehicle for songwriter-singer Michael Cathro MSc), have appeared a few times at Elsewhere in the past decade, including with a video compilation. This latest release on the boutique French label Think Zik! is a kind of compilation-cum-new album which opens with a couple of their early and catchy singles (Growing Mould,... > Read more
Fish
Aro: He Rākau, He Ngārara (digital outlets)
19 Apr 2024 | <1 min read
The Aro duo of husband and wife Charles and Emily Looker here present an immediately and immensely likable album which celebrates native plants and insects in te reo Māori and English language songs which sometimes sound like classic tunes from the Fifties (the lovely Tōtara with sweeping strings and Kaikōmako), beautiful folk (Pukatea) and contemporary pop (Namupoto, Wētā).... > Read more
Tōtara
Adrianne Lenker: Bright Future (digital outlets)
19 Apr 2024 | 1 min read
Outside of the experimental alt.folk group Big Thief, writer-singer Adrianne Lenker has run a parallel career which is dinstictive and engrossing in its own right. This album is, at least on paper, her sixth (her previous, the simultaneously released Songs and Instrumentals album turned up in many best of 2020 albums) and has a typically interesting backstory: it was recorded in a backwoods... > Read more
Khruangbin: A La Sala (Dead Oceans/digital outlets)
15 Apr 2024 | <1 min read
One of the problems which comes with an artist having a distinctive and unique sound is that unless they move it around a bit, that signature becomes so familiar that casual listeners think, “Oh, more of the same”. That hasn't been too much of a problem for this trio out of Texas whose debut The Universe Smiles Upon You established their lovely brand of gently psychedelic... > Read more
Pon Pon
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Giant Sand: Chore of Enchantment (Fire/digital outlets)
12 Apr 2024 | 1 min read
One of the most interesting interviews Elsewhere has ever done – and remember, we've done literally many-many hundreds, and then some – was with Howe Gelb. Gelb'sbest known for his band Giant Sand – which has clocked up nearly 30 albums – although he also has nearly that many under his own name. Back in 2011 we interviewed him at length – one of our longest... > Read more
No Reply
Laetitia Sadier: Rooting for Love (digital outlets)
12 Apr 2024 | <1 min read
Mostly known for her central role in Britain's wide-reaching, alternative band Stereolab, French-born singer and multi-instrumentalist Sadier has enjoyed a diverse solo career and interesting collaborations with the likes of San Francisco's Deerhoof and the Brazilian band Mombojó (as Modern Cosmology). For this fifth solo album she embraces nuanced art-pop (Protéïformunité), borrowings... > Read more
Don't Forget You're Mine
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