Music at Elsewhere

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

Tunnel Lights

Sean Lennon: Asterisms (Tzadik/digital outlets)

29 Feb 2024 | 1 min read

The title of this album is telling and clue to contents: it refers to constellations and shapes in the sky. Which is entirely in keeping with the five instrumentals which take an astral trip somewhere between space rock and sky-scaling prog on the opener Starwater, but later comes with a large helping of Bitches Brew/Jack Johnson-era Miles Davis. It was recorded when the musicians could... > Read more

Thinking of M

Brittany Howard: What Now (digital outlets)

26 Feb 2024 | 2 min read

Some years ago I heard a remarkable song which I immediately introduced to my uni music students: it was Don't Wanna Fight by Alabama Shakes, a band I knew nothing about at the time. But the singer, Brittany Howard, delivered the “I don't wanna fight” line over and over with a different expression, from anger to resignation and defeat. It was a remarkable performance and... > Read more

Red Flags

Paul McCartney and Wings: Band on the Run, Underdubbed (digital outlets)

19 Feb 2024 | 1 min read

Band on the Run is widely accepted as McCartney best post-Beatles album, but it was born our of adversity. The ground had been prepared by the excellent if underrated Ram (a longtime Essential Elsewhere album which has grown in stature over time) and the lesser Red Rose Speedway, but on the eve of recording his next album two band members quit just before they were due to leave for sessions... > Read more

No Words

Ravenhall: Brother (digital outlets)

17 Feb 2024 | <1 min read

The folk-rock duo of Joe Ravenhall and Chris Brebner appeared at Elsewhere previously with their Live at Breb's Bar last year. Impressive songwriters, expressive singers – we'd put them in the Don Walker/Jimmy Barnes axis but Bob Seger also comes to mind on the more assertive material – and storytellers, Ravenhall deserve more attention from mainstream radio than maybe they will... > Read more

The River

Idles: Tangk (digital outlets)

17 Feb 2024 | 1 min read

If the British five-piece Idles haven't previously crashed onto your pathway you might need a little warning: singer-writer Joe Talbot has been a troubled man so sings a troubled song. Sometimes he has roared them out as he has grappled with addiction, being a carer for his stroke-affected mother, living through Brexit and all the pressures of the 21st century which roll like a scroll of... > Read more