Music at Elsewhere
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Jonah Tolchin: Clover Lane (YepRoc)
8 Sep 2014 | <1 min read
As enjoyably familiar as this rough-edged country-folk-blues album is, you can't help feel that you have traveled these paths many times from Bob Dylan through the Band and Tom Waits to Steve Earle in bluegrass mode and beyond. With some stellar assistance from the likes of harmonica player Mickey Raphael, Los Lobos saxophonist Steve Berlin and others, Tolchin and his band shift from barn... > Read more
Hybrid Automobile
Willis Earl Beal: Experiments in Time (CD Baby)
1 Sep 2014 | 1 min read | 1
Wllis Earl Beal has released two such different albums -- Acoustmatic Society which were home recordings pulled together from the scores he had made, then the soulful and more straightahead Nobody knows -- that you could never anticpate where he might go next. Beal has also been one of the most insightful and self-aware musicians it has been Elsewhere's privilege to interview and he... > Read more
Traveling Eyes
J. Mascis: Tied to a Star (SubPop)
1 Sep 2014 | <1 min read | 1
The 2012 album I Bet on Sky by Dinosaur Jr – the band singer/guitarist J. Mascis helms with once-estranged Lou Barlow – divided loyalists, some heard it as a return to form and others (like me) thought it obvious. Mascis' albums under his own name have been more consistently interesting since Free So Free (with the Fog) over a decade ago, and especially 2011's Several... > Read more
Drifter
Spoon: They Want My Soul (Spunk)
1 Sep 2014 | <1 min read | 1
For New Zealand listeners, there is a peculiar but interesting cover on this album by the never-predictable psych-cum-alt rockers Spoon from Texas. It is their rather straight version of Ann-Margret's bluesy I Just Don't Understand which the Beatles used to do live and which Tommy Adderley covered in the early Sixties in a very Merseybeat style. It's hardly out of place here on an album... > Read more
Let Me Be Mine
IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent releases
27 Aug 2014 | 2 min read
With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column which scoops up international artists, in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks up New Zealand artists. Comments will be short . . . Various Artists: Country Funk II 1967-74 (LITA/Southbound). The excellent archive label Light in the Attic continues its exploration of this loosely... > Read more
Don't Be Cruel
ONE WE MISSED: Bobby Bare Jr: Undefeated (Bloodshot/Southbound)
25 Aug 2014 | 1 min read
Country music fans know Bare's dad as the voice out front of a string of mainstream but smart hit singles and albums in the 60s and 70s. But Jr – now close to 50 – has turned hard left into dark alt.country and some bruising boogie rock. However on this – which he has referred to as his break-up record – he's not beyond melancholy ballads (If She Cared comes on... > Read more
The Elegant Imposter
Sinead O'Connor: I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss (Nettwerk/Southbound)
25 Aug 2014 | 1 min read
Too often in popular culture, controversy and craziness are substitutes for, or get in the way of us seeing, real talent. O'Connor has courted her share of both and that often blurred the focus of her. Strangeness still circles her private life, but this straightforward album – 12 well-arranged, emotionally and musically direct songs – finds her at top form on economic songs,... > Read more
The Vishnu Room
Ron Gallipoli: Ron Gallipoli Loves You All (Freezing Works Music)
25 Aug 2014 | 1 min read
In the other real world Ron Gallipoli is Sam Bradford who was the singer in New Zealand's Sharpie Crows, but here he nails down some droll, pleasingly weird, socio-political lo-fi electronica-cum-light industrial post-punk. It might be all over quickly -- nine songs in 34 minutes -- but he crams a lot of information (satirical comment) and sounds (nods towards bedroom-solo Chris Knox, what... > Read more
16000 Dead Pigs in the Huangpu River
Into Orbit: Caverns (bandcamp)
21 Aug 2014 | 1 min read
This Wellington duo of Paul Stewart and Ian Moir (guitars and drums respectively) work the line of dynamically delivered astral psychedelica with nods to widescreen drone rock, but really make something of their own out of it. The emotional breadth and sonic textures on display here -- and our reference points might be Jakob, Wooden Shjips, Kerretta, early Explosions in the Sky etc -- are... > Read more
Set Adrift
Wire: Document and Eyewitness (Pink Flag/Southbound)
20 Aug 2014 | 1 min read
Post-punk arty-smarties Wire have delivered some excellent albums in recent years, notably Red Barked Tree in 2011 and more recently last year's Change Becomes Us for which they went back to tapes from the period covered here as the starting point for new configurations and ideas. Most people perhaps remember them from this formative period at the end of the Seventies and those three... > Read more
Eastern Standard
Various Artists: XL Recordings, Pay Close Attention (XL)
19 Aug 2014 | 1 min read
Elsewhere rarely ventures towards compilations from record labels but this double CD (available on four album vinyl here) is so outstanding we think we should draw it you attention as both a sampler and a standalone collection of great songs from important artists in the 25 year history of this London-based indie labe. It's quite some journey from the Prodigy's Firestarter and Peaches' Fuck... > Read more
Sea Within a Sea
Benjamin Booker: Benjamin Booker (Rough Trade)
18 Aug 2014 | <1 min read
Although he had some considerable advance hype, this New Orleans-based punk-edged rocker lives up to the claims being made on this debut album, simply by delivering gutsy rock'n'roll with a tight band and songs with titles like Violent Shiver, Wicked Waters, Spoon Out My Eyeballs and I Thought I Heard You Screaming. But those titles don't really tell the story because far from being some... > Read more
Old Hearts
Kimbra: The Golden Echo (Warners)
18 Aug 2014 | 2 min read
When Kimbra appeared at this year's Womad in Taranaki I observed at the time it allowed her to roadtest new material away from the prying eyes of the international -- and even local -- music media. She wasn't quite the unusual choice that many thought for a world music festival (other mainstream pop acts have been on previous bills) and she delivered a vigorously enthusiastic set full of... > Read more
Miracle
Eric Clapton and Friends: The Breeze; An Appreciation of J.J. Cale (Universal)
18 Aug 2014 | <1 min read | 1
Eric Clapton frequently speaks of himself as a messenger, originally passing on the blues then in the Seventies discovering the music of Bob Marley and J.J. Cale whose songs he covered to great success. Although not a close friend of the late Tulsa-based Cale until they collaborated on the Grammy-winning Road to Escondido in 2006, Clapton felt strongly enough about the man and his... > Read more
The Old Man and Me
Mike Cooper: Trout Steel (Paradise of Bachelors/Southbound)
15 Aug 2014 | 1 min read
A few weeks ago when Elsewhere reviewed the predominantly guitar instrumental/experimental album Cantos de Lisboa by Steve Gunn and Mike Cooper, we confessed to knowing little about Cooper who counted among his folk and blues peers and admirers the likes of Bert Jansch and Davy Graham. This album -- its title lifted from stoner-favourite Richard Brautigan's famous book Trout Fishing in... > Read more
Sitting Here Watching
Glen Moffatt: Superheroes and Scary Things (SDL)
13 Aug 2014 | 1 min read
Further proof that we export real talent. A little over a decade ago country-rock singer-songwriter Glen Moffatt quit New Zealand to base himself in Queensland, leaving behind three fine albums and a nomination in the songwriter of the year category. He immediately picked up good notices and awards in Queensland, but we haven't heard much from him in recent years. This album however --... > Read more
She's Not a Honky Tonk Woman
Fu Manchu: Gigantoid (At the Dojo/Southbound)
11 Aug 2014 | <1 min read
Because Brant Bjork played with them and they're part of the Kyuss/Clutch/Monster Magnet cabal, this Southern California hard rock-stoner band has often been mentioned in dispatches but rarely made an impact here. That's surprising, given they should appeal to graybeards who loved the feedback rock of Sixties legends Blue Cheer and Australia's Tumbleweed as much as recent QTSA and... > Read more
The Last Question
IN BRIEF: A quick overview of some recent releases
11 Aug 2014 | 2 min read | 2
With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column which scoops up international artists, in much the same way as our SHORT CUTS column picks up New Zealand artists. Comments will be short . . . Richard Thompson; Acoustic Classics (Proper/Southbound): The great British singer-songwriter Thompson has made frequent appearances at Elsewhere by way... > Read more
Dimming of the Day
Murray McNabb Group: Every Day is a Beautiful Day (Sarang Bang)
5 Aug 2014 | 2 min read
In the final days of his life -- which ended in early 2013 -- the New Zealand composer and keyboard player Murray McNabb was still working, despite being on morphine for pain relief from the cancer which would kill him. Towards the end it was my privilege to interview him about his long career, and I was struck by his philosophical approach to the inevitable as much as I had been by the... > Read more
Standing Babas
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Hypnotic Eye (Warners)
4 Aug 2014 | 1 min read | 2
Most rock fans agree TP and his cracking Heartbreakers had a decade-long dream run after their self-titled debut in 76. Their taut Beatles/Byrds pop-rock welded to a nuggety rock'n'roll attitude and Petty's economic songs made their albums sound like collections of snappy singles. And when this Florida-native expanded into “Southern accents” (the title of their impressive... > Read more