Music at Elsewhere

Jason Isbell: Something More Than Free (Spunk)

3 Aug 2015 | <1 min read | 1

When he left country-rockers Drive-By Truckers in 07, songwriter Isbell was damaged by alcohol and a painful separation, but since then has steadily built a platform as a literate, heartfelt songwriter whose albums have penetrating narratives alongside nakedly soul-baring lyrics and aching songs about hard truths like cancer, abuse, family or a friend killed in Iraq. Like some... > Read more

Children of Children

Led Zeppelin: Coda, Deluxe Edition (Warners)

3 Aug 2015 | 1 min read

Even the most ardent Led Zeppelin fans are prepared to concede -- when they are claer-headed -- that the final studio albums Presence ('76), In Through the Out Door ('79) and Coda ('82, released a couple of years after they had broken up) are patchy . . . at best. Which may explain why the Jimmy Page remastered editions of all three of these have now appeared simultaneously, although... > Read more

Bring It On Home (rough mix)

Daughn Gibson: Carnations (SubPop)

27 Jul 2015 | <1 min read | 1

Gibson from Pennsylvania has been getting some stick internationally for this, his third album. But presuming few if any here heard his previous soulfully dark-voiced outings we come to this fresh and it's an odd but interesting one, sometimes like widescreen Bowie around Station to Station, at others finding its feet in post-New Wave goth-pop or Depeche Mode. It could be accused... > Read more

Back With the Family

IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases

27 Jul 2015 | 2 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. Houndmouth; Little Neon Limelight (Rough Trade): From Indiana and signed to Rough Trade, Houndmouth -- a four-piece of three guys and a... > Read more

Way Home by The Young Folk

Sleaford Mods: Key Markets (Harbinger)

24 Jul 2015 | <1 min read

With minimal musical backing, the focus of this exciting, political, funny and sometimes bitter duo of singer Jason Williamson and musician Andrew Fearn connect weith a lineage of British music. With echoes of Ian Dury, the Sex Pistols, the Fall, Crass, Two Tone acts, the Streets and sometimes B-grade British television comedy shows, the Sleaford Mods can burn like a potty-mouthed blowtorch... > Read more

Face to Faces

Various Artists: Loop Select Mixtape (Loop)

21 Jul 2015 | <1 min read

Free music is always a good thing and the very fine people at Loop in Auckland have once again offered a free downlaod of a mixtape collection Here's the tracklisting: 01. Bottom Line (Flako Mix) - Electric Wire Hustle02. Starfish - Aron Ottignon03. Heatwave - HIGH HØØPS04. Cushion Plant - Team Cat Food05. Hyakki Yakou Part2 - Haioka06. Losing You (Tennis Champ Mix) - Chambres07.... > Read more

Various Artists: Late Night Tales; After Dark, Nocturne (latenighttales/Southbound)

20 Jul 2015 | <1 min read

This remix compilation selection by DJ Bill Brewster follows broadly in the path of other such Late Night Tales collections but Brewster brings a bit of low end funk and humour into proceedings, notably with the early-up inclusion of Plastic Bertrand's clumsy proto-rap Stop Ou Encore which somehow morphs into the Afro-percussion track Third World by Paladin. Brewster pulls together remixes... > Read more

Chained to the Train of Love

Neil Young and Promise of the Real: The Monsanto Years (Warners)

19 Jul 2015 | 2 min read | 2

When Neil Young -- who turns 70 later this year -- ascends to the great beyond you can be certain the obituaries will tick off his many great songs and albums, and note what a wilful and idiosyncratic artist he was. It will all be true. But while he's in the here and now it's also worth noting that for every great album there was at least one other indifferent one and -- increasingly by... > Read more

Monsanto Years

The Helio Sequence: Helio Sequence (Sub Pop/Rhythmethod)

13 Jul 2015 | <1 min read

Sometimes sounding more like a British dreamscape-cum-shoegaze band than some of their own earliest incarnations, this outfit from Oregon are now on their sixth album. But this is a perfectly acceptable point to tune in. Singer-writer Brandon Summers places himself in the mid-ground of the soundscape of shimmering washes of guitar, pulsing rhythms and a kind of summershine atmospheric... > Read more

Phantom Shore

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: Freedom Tower (Southbound)

13 Jul 2015 | <1 min read

About halfway through these breathless 35 minutes you'd be forgiven for needing a cup of tea and a lie-down. And you've also forgotten how this implosion of Beastie Boys, RL Burnside-style electric blues, Aerosmith with Run DMC and much more actually started. In a cover like a mixtape and subtitled “No Wave Dance Party 2015”, here the Spencer trio fire off 13 raucous... > Read more

Bellevue Baby

IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent international releases

8 Jul 2015 | 2 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. Nadine Shah; Fast Food (Apollo/Southbound): Britain seems awash with talented women singers but some appear to get better coverage (Graham... > Read more

Werewolf by Tom Dyer's New Pagan Gods

Richard Thompson: Still (Proper/Southbound)

6 Jul 2015 | <1 min read | 1

Those thrilled by this much acclaimed singer-guitarist's set at Womad in March, or who have immersed themselves in his often incendiary recent albums Dream Attic and Electric, will need no second invitation for this one. Produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy (deploying members of Thompson's band and Wilco) and frequently impelled by the same energy Thompson brought to Taranaki, this 12-song... > Read more

Broken Doll

ONE WE MISSED: Jimmy LaFave: The Night Tribe (Music Road/Southbound)

1 Jul 2015 | <1 min read

Americana singer-songwriter Jimmy LaFave has one of those classic, heartbroken, world-beaten, minor key and slightly weary voices which holds considerable appeal. Except he deploys it on just about every song, so you can experience a kind of emotional burn-out . . . all the while appreciating just how moving he can be. Slow and selective listening is therefore advised. He's appeared at... > Read more

Never Came Back to Memphis

Algiers: Algiers (Matador)

29 Jun 2015 | <1 min read

Out of the torn traditions of America's gospel'n'blues Deep South but shot through with post-punk fury, this trio take a hammer to politics, religion and race but couch it in blood-stirring music. Here are terrifying soundscapes (Claudette), desperate spooked-out soul driven by guitar grit and throbbing bass (And When You Fall, But She Was Not Flying), worldweary aching (Games) and... > Read more

Claudette

Various Artists: EurNoVision 2015 (link supplied)

29 Jun 2015 | 1 min read

Having enjoyably missed much of this year's Eurovision Song Contest -- better staging and lighting than songs, right? -- a compilation of "outsider" music from the various underground scenes of Europe billed as EurNoVison sounded suitably subversive. But deary me . . . And dreary this. If this is subversion then sign me up for the counter-revolution. The music by... > Read more

Berlusconi Stole My Teenage Girlfriend by Kodagain (from Serbia)

The Quin Tikis: New Zealand's Premier Maori Show Band (Sony)

29 Jun 2015 | 2 min read

Among the many pleasures of my life is meeting young students in the music papers I teach at the University of Auckland where I am a "professional teaching fellow" in the School of Music. The young are so full of enthusiasm, uncertainty, promise and failure . . . What always thrills me is when Maori students come to me and say, "Thank you, sir" after a lecture in... > Read more

Poi Poi Twist

Bill Wyman: Back to Basics (Proper/Southbound)

28 Jun 2015 | <1 min read

Apparently it has been 33 years since former Stones bassist Bill Wyman last released an album under his own name. But you'd have to ask, did you really notice his absence? Of course he had his diaries to draw on for Stones books and the Rhythm Kings project to keep him occupied, but here he eschews their sub-superstar session ethic and enjoyable if often uneccesary covers for a whole album... > Read more

November

The Moon Band: The Moon Band (wisdomtwinsrecords)

28 Jun 2015 | <1 min read

Elsewhere has previously mentioned the British "band" Dodson and Fogg (in truth mostly just the extremely talented, if as yet largely undiscovered, Chris Wade). Wade is more than just a musician and artist however, he runs a little record label too it would seem: wisdomtwinsrecords. And it was from there, actually right here (or maybe because they had a track on a recent... > Read more

My Home

Leftfield: Alternative Light Source (Infectious)

22 Jun 2015 | <1 min read

Leftfield were always one of the most interesting and innovative British electronica-cum-dance acts (remember the duo's association with John Lydon 20 years ago?). Now they are down to just founder Neil Barnes and hip guest vocalists (many electro-processed beyond recognition) for the first album under the name since Rhythm and Stealth in '99. Coincidentally that title might... > Read more

Shaker Obsession

James Taylor: Before This World (Universal)

22 Jun 2015 | <1 min read | 1

For his first album of new material in 13 years, James Taylor doesn't spring, “Hope you like my new direction” on his audience. In fact three songs here – the pastoral Montana, Snow Time and the string coloured, piano ballad You And I Again – could have come from his heyday in the early Seventies for their gentleness and purity of melody (and my Lord doesn't he... > Read more