Music at Elsewhere
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Daniel Boobyer: Crazy Eyes (bandcamp)
12 Feb 2014 | 1 min read
Wellington singer-songwriter Boobyer appeared at Elsewhere at the end of 2012 when he wrote a column about recording his own vinyl album Time Killed the Clock (reviewed here, his article here). His appealing lo-fi and up-close songs sounded like weird blues and the opener here Hone Knows -- which also includes the refrain "Titewhai knows" if I'm not mistaken, timely given Waitangi... > Read more
Crazy Eyes
Neil Finn: Dizzy Heights (Lester)
10 Feb 2014 | 3 min read | 2
Last week a friend and I were discussing artists with long careers who simply cannot acknowldege their best years are well behind them. While there are exceptions of course, the vast majority of artists in the pop-rock genre do their best work early in their career and much of what follows is repetition with diminishing returns. Unless U2, for example, do a serious career-change as they... > Read more
Recluse
Snowbird: Moon (Bella Union)
10 Feb 2014 | <1 min read
While there are too many insipid indie bands/artists named after soft wee animals or for inoffensive cuteness (start your list), we sidestep prejudice here. Snowbird is former Cocteau Twin jack-of-all-instruments and astute Bella Union label boss Simon Raymonde with ethereal singer Stephanie Dosen (a Chemical Brothers, Jose Gonzalez, Massive Attack and Midlake collaborator).... > Read more
We Carry White Mice (rxgibbs remix)
Shadow Folk: Seagull Visions (theactivelistener)
10 Feb 2014 | <1 min read
Although this is another digital release through theactivelistener -- alongside the previously reviewed Trappist Afterland Band and Beaulieu Porch -- this one, as the name suggests, isn't quite as tripped out. This four-piece from Nova Scotia embrace a rather more Anglo-folk and laid-back version of mid Sixties psychedelia, closer to Fool on the Hill and the Incredible String Band than say... > Read more
In the End
Trick Mammoth: Floristry (Fishrider)
10 Feb 2014 | <1 min read
Someone has to say it, so . . . Trick Mammoth – described as “a flower cult pop band from Dunedin, New Zealand”, which presumes an international audience – rarely rise above a very low thresh-hold for originality. Especially for anyone who heard Look Blue Go Purple/Sneaky Feelings/Britain's the Sunday and all those other pop band decades ago... > Read more
Pinker Sea
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Ticket; Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
9 Feb 2014 | <1 min read
Recommended if for no other reason than people have been paying unfeasibly large sums for the original vinyl (doubtless rather scratched, the record came out in '72) . . . But more seriously because this second album by Christchurch's Ticket -- recorded in Australia and following their excellent post-Hendrix debut Awake -- is a fine example of that intersection of hard rock and... > Read more
And the Band Played
Beaulieu Porch: Beaulieu Porch (the activelistener)
7 Feb 2014 | 1 min read
With a name which suggests Southern soul more than psychedelics, this project by Simon Berry from Salisbury, England quite specifically narrows the focus of influences to between May '67 (the release of Procol Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale, hinted at here on Virgil) and December of that year (the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour) for this impressive debut. This collection of material from... > Read more
Amen
ONE WE MISSED: Surf City; We Knew It Was Not Going to be Like This (Arch Hill)
6 Feb 2014 | <1 min read
Because Elsewhere is a one-man outfit, "we" can't be everywhere at once -- and sometimes we are very elsewhere as you may see here -- so every now and again there will be slightly apologetic postings under the banner . . . One We Missed. And given we thoroughly enjoyed the 2010 album by this Auckland band Kudos (see here) we do need to bring this album by Surf City to attention of... > Read more
Song From a Short Lived TV Series
Stephen Malkmus And The Jicks: Wig Out at Jagbags (Domino/Universal)
3 Feb 2014 | <1 min read
After fuzzed-out psychedelics with the Jicks along the lines of Neil Young/Television, former Pavement-man Malkmus reconnected with the programme in 2011 with his Mirror Traffic album (produced by Beck). And this one – with references to his indie.rock past, sometimes poking fun at it as on the one-listen comedic Rumble at the Rainbo about band reunions – continues in... > Read more
Rumble at the Rainbo
Trappist Afterland Band: Like a Beehive, the Hill was Alive (theactivelistener)
3 Feb 2014 | 1 min read | 1
While we here at Elsewhere have observed the steady rehabilitation and rise again of prog-rock -- albeit in a more focused form than its ancestors in the early Seventies -- it's pleasing to note that psychedelic music has never really gone away. But for discerning listeners and those in search of more obscure but contemporary practitioners, finding your way through all the music out there... > Read more
Gardening in Lure
The Head and the Heart: Let's Be Still (SubPop)
3 Feb 2014 | <1 min read
Many online music reviews have the tag, “for fans of . . .” so let's cut to that for this musically delightful, thoughtful second album by a Seattle band of mostly out-of-state talents. This is for fans of Fleet Foxes, Paul Simon, orchestrated pop and finely crafted wistful nostalgia or emotional uncertainty wrapped up in lovely tunes. With a folk-pop approach... > Read more
10.000 Weight in Gold
British Sea Power: from the sea to the land beyond (Rough Trade)
27 Jan 2014 | <1 min read | 2
This UK group consistent delivered mature, diverse and largely overlooked but fine pop-rock albums, but have also made interesting digressions into soundtracks for old films, notably their music to accompany Robert J. Flaherty's heroic pseudo-doco Man of Aran from 1934. Here in mostly instrumental music which soars on glisteningly melodic guitars, deploys spare piano, pulls in... > Read more
Docklands Renewed
Rosanne Cash: The River and the Thread (Blue Note)
27 Jan 2014 | 1 min read | 2
One of the last songs Johnny Cash recorded was the moving September When It Comes with his daughter Rosanne for her 2003 album Rules of Travel. In a cracked baritone Cash confronted his own weaknesses and impending death, but just as powerful was Rosanne's honey-sweetened counterpoint vocal. Co-written with her husband/guitarist and producer John Leventhal, it remains a... > Read more
Tell Heaven
Mamaku: Twigs of Gold (mamakuproject.com)
26 Jan 2014 | 2 min read
It has been some while since this world music outfit from West Auckland appeared at Elsewhere: back in 2007 and 2008 in fact when they were Mamaku Project and we had good things to say about their two albums which were amalgams of Pacifika, dub, gypsy sounds and so on. Again they bring together a meltdown of styles -- yes, the Kiwi default position of a crowd-pleasing reggae rhythm is... > Read more
Pharaoh's Milkyway
Kim Dotcom: Good Times (kimdotcom)
25 Jan 2014 | 1 min read | 3
Is there not an irony that Kim Dotcom -- a man whose business model involves not paying for the creative work of others -- should appear on the cover of a weekly music guide which is available in record stores? If there is an irony, then the editors seemed not to have noticed, or maybe like so many they were seduced by the strange charisma and cachet the big man seems to enjoy. The odd... > Read more
Dance Dance Dance
The Cakekitchen: Calm Before the Storm (RPR)
20 Jan 2014 | 1 min read | 1
The Cakekitchen which revolves around former This Kind of Punishment/Nocturnal Projections singer/guitarist Graeme Jefferies have been around since the late Eighties -- although their posted discography doesn't note their excellent self-titled Flying Nun EP of '88 which featured Dave the Pimp, Witness to Your Secrets, Silence of the Sirens and Machines, some of which appear to have turned up on... > Read more
Little Blue Penguins
Ocean Full of Fins: OFOF (themidnighthours.bandcamp.com)
20 Jan 2014 | 1 min read
There's a funny old comment about the first Blood Sweat and Tears album from 1968 . . . that if you dropped the needle (as you did) randomly on the record you could hear a different band every time: jazz, funk, pop and even goddam classical Erik Satie on their treatment of his elegant Trois Gymnopedies. Well, something similar applies here with this band from Canada -- playing in New Zealnd... > Read more
Salkantay
Bruce Springsteen: High Hopes (Sony)
19 Jan 2014 | 1 min read
If anyone is long overdue a decent royalty cheque it is the ferociously smart and wickedly funny Chris Bailey, formerly of Brisbane's Saints who delivered the classic pre-punk single (I'm) Stranded. His lengthy solo career has been rewarding to follow, but attention mostly falls on that Saints catalogue which also included the wonderfully downbeat Stones-like acoustic-driven... > Read more
Just Like Fire Would
Carnivorous Plant Society: Carnivorous Plant Society (bandcamp)
16 Jan 2014 | <1 min read
Drawing on everything from cool and classic Miles Davis, sci-fi, Mexican music, Spaghetti Westerns and ambient sounds, this large ensemble lead by Auckland horn and keyboard player Finn Scholes (who also did the cover art and animated videos) doesn't exactly try to be all things to all people. But you can imagine listeners with catholic tastes and a disposition to the unexpected would... > Read more
ADND
National Wake: Walk in Africa 1979-81(Light in the Attic/Southbound)
14 Jan 2014 | 1 min read
Although the unearthing of long forgotten -- if ever-known -- bands, genres and marginal artists has become the norm these days (another week, another cult artist you'd "always been into"?) it has to be said every now and again something comes along you sit up and pay attention to. So it is with this mixed-race band which formed and briefly played during South Africa's... > Read more