Music at Elsewhere

Laut Fragen: Age of Angst (digital outlets)

16 Dec 2023 | 1 min read

Laut Fragen? They made polite contact but about whom we know little except this: they are the electro-postpunk duo of Maren Rahmann (vocals) and Didi Disko (electronics, guitar, voice) from Vienna. We conclude: they are very much in the manner of early Eighties post-punk experimentation with synths and discord/noise; create intelligently short sonic, downbeat punk landscapes (the cinematic... > Read more

Ausgang

ONE WE MISSED: Sampha: Lahai (Young/digital outlets)

11 Dec 2023 | 1 min read

Elsewhere was a bit underwhelmed by the 2017 debut album Process from Britain's rap-soul singer Sampha Sisay. But clearly we were out of step. It went on to win Britain's Mercury Prize. This follow-up which came out a few weeks ago seems to be have been a long time coming but we need to factor in Covid and the birth of his daughter Auri who he credits for the creation of this.... > Read more

RECOMMENDED RECORD: Paul McLaney: As the North Attracts the Needle (AAA/digital outlets)

10 Dec 2023 | 1 min read | 1

From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this album originally released in October but now on record with an insert lyric sheet and a classy cover. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . In an understated but relevant cover of his own design, this album finds Paul McLaney returning to his... > Read more

Go Well

Riot 111: 1981! (Leather Jacket Records/bandcamp)

8 Dec 2023 | 4 min read

With a season of discontent looming it's understandable if many reflect back on the 1981 Springbok tour which divided the nation and families. It was as much a cynical political ploy by prime minster Robert Muldoon as it was about racism in South Africa (and by implication in this country). Marches were held, riots ensued and posters were printed. Decent law-abiding citizens who... > Read more

1981!

Erny Belle: Not Your Cupid (digital outlets)

8 Dec 2023 | 1 min read

It would be fair to say that, unless you were listening carefully or following the fine print, Erny Belle Aimee Renata (Ngāpuhi from Maungatūroto) would be a new name. Or just someone who snuck up on you. But her debut album Venus is Home saw her nominated for Taite Prizes in the best independent album and best independent debut album categories. That's not a bad way to start a... > Read more

The Coral: Sea of Mirrors (digital outlets)

6 Dec 2023 | 1 min read

The previous album by Britain's Coral was Coral Island of 2021 which was one of our Recommended Records and also in our best of the year list. It is a wonderful concept album based around a seaside town and a band which plays there. We said of it, “wistful UK pop-rock nostalgia about a lost time and place, the band's history and with brief spoken word interludes. Like an... > Read more

Oceans Apart

Lou Reed: Hudson River Wind Meditations (vinyl release, CD)

4 Dec 2023 | 1 min read | 1

The title of the latest Lou Reed biography probably confirms how many see him. It is The King of New York (by Will Hermes) and immediately we picture Lou in leather on the dirty boulevard, being aggressive and cantankerous as he strides out sneering at lesser intellects, goes on about the poet Delmore Schwartz and somewhere in the background Waiting for the Man is playing as an image of Andy... > Read more

Hudson River Wind (Blend the Ambience)

Cat Power: Sings Dylan; The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert (digital outlets)

4 Dec 2023 | 1 min read

Reports from Bob Dylan's sold out North American tour are almost unanimous in their acclaim: at 82 Dylan is in good form, sometimes speaks to the audience (rare), mixes up older songs or deep cuts with his last studio album Rough and Rowdy Ways and in many places pays tribute to a local hero by singing one of their songs: Leonard Cohen's Dance Me to The End of Love in Montreal where he is... > Read more

Bob Dylan: The Complete Budokan 1978 Live (digital outlets)

30 Nov 2023 | 2 min read | 1

There's plenty of evidence to support the view that when Bob Dylan considers “popular music” (as opposed to pop music) he thinks of the songs before Elvis. And his idea of rock music is formed by the notion of electric country music more than Led Zeppelin. It's also noticeable that after he retreats into the past to find inspiration he re-emerges with somethings special and... > Read more

Chris Stapleton: Higher (digital outlets)

27 Nov 2023 | 1 min read

When Elsewhere profiled singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton back in mid 2016 he was already an enormously successful artist and we noted he was in the lineage of crossover country artists like Garth Brooks in the Nineties. In many ways Brooks prepared the ground for a dozen “hat act” artists and Taylor Swift to move from country into the mainstream. Stapleton had fronted the... > Read more

Glen Hansard: All That Was East Is West Of Me Now

27 Nov 2023 | 1 min read

For those who haven't followed the extensive solo career of Ireland's Glen Hansard, he was the barely memorable guitarist in The Commitments but better known as the one of the two central characters in the 2007 film Once where he played the aspiring singer-songwriter/busker in a rather charming love story. However he was also in bands, the Frames and Swell Season but here again appears... > Read more

Grayson Gilmour: Holding Patterns (Flying Nun/digital outlets)

25 Nov 2023 | 2 min read

For much of its lifespan the of Flying Nun could best be described as spluttering. In the first decade it outgrew itself within a couple of years – too many artists, too much music and not enough business smarts, organisation and forward planning. As the label's great helmsman Roger Shepherd observed in his book In Love With These Times, "In the ten years from 1981 to the end... > Read more

A Crude Mechanical: Discourse (Public Witness/digital outlets)

24 Nov 2023 | 1 min read

Now this is interesting: the solo, multi-tracked guitar, instrumental debut by Shane Warbrooke which is billed as “experimental”. But that's a word which will have some hiding under the bedsheets. So let's quickly sidestep that – and his “accumulated noise” description – to pin down a couple of more appealing and appeasing touchstones: Phil Manzanera... > Read more

And We Bleed Metrics

Ebony Lamb: Ebony Lamb (Slow Time/digital outlets)

20 Nov 2023 | <1 min read

Elsewhere readers will be familiar with the name: Ebony Lamb was formerly of the long-running indie.folk/alt.country outfit Eb and Sparrow whose albums we have reviewed (and she answered an Elsewhere Questionnaire some while back). She was a recent long-list finalist in the Silver Scrolls – for last year’s Take My Hands at Night –and has developed into a... > Read more

Olivia Foa’i: Tūmau Pea (digital outlets)

12 Nov 2023 | 1 min read

We sometimes seem to have a curiously ambivalent relationship with some artists who leave the country and become successful overseas. Because they are not around – performing or to promote their work – their albums can go right past us. We could look to Margaret Urlich and Sharon O'Neill whose albums The Deepest Blue and Edge of Winter respectively failed to catch fire here... > Read more

Paige: King Clown (Sony/digital outlets)

12 Nov 2023 | <1 min read

This debut from the chart-busting Paige – who won Best Māori Female Solo Artist’ at the 2021 Waiata Māori Music Awards – confirms what so many have already recognised, that she is a rare singer and songwriter. And an established collaborator who has worked with Balu Brigada and JessB. She appeared on the song Dawn which featured on the soundtrack of the Korean TV series... > Read more

Black Pumas: Chronicles of a Diamond (digital outlets)

8 Nov 2023 | <1 min read

One of the first singles from this second album by the multiple Grammy-nominee duo of Adrian Quesada and Eric Burdon (no, not that one grandma) was, Mrs Postman, the slice of slinky R’n’B soul with jigsaw-puzzle jazzy piano. The earlier single from the album, More Than a Love Song, was more than a little Marvin Gaye. They helped set up this sequel to their 2019 self-titled... > Read more

Anjimile: The King (digital outlets)

6 Nov 2023 | 1 min read

Anjimile – a 33-year old American-born singer/songwriter who identifies as they/them – has been described as a folk musician, which is all Elsewhere knew before this album arrived unexpectedly. Well, this ambitious, elevating, spiritually-inclined and highly dramatic collection is a very long way from folk as most understand it. Not just if you think of acoustic guitars and... > Read more

Mermaidens: Mermaidens

3 Nov 2023 | <1 min read

When Mermaiden singers Gussie Larkin (guitar) and Lily West (bass) talked with me independently about this fourth album, they spoke with one voice: they wanted an album that was bold, clear and distinct from much of their previous work which had grown out of studio jams. That approach had worked well enough: their 2017 album Perfect Body was a Taite Prize-nominee; they were up for Best... > Read more

Dick Move: Wet (digital outlets)

30 Oct 2023 | <1 min read

Like a ram-raid through the window of a guitar shop, this local band tap into a bratty, stroppy and furious celebration of reductive rock'n'roll which at times – seven of their 13 songs clocking in under 90 seconds, the others not much more -- make the Ramones seem long-winded. It sounds like a joke but their debut album Chop! came in at just 18 minutes, this one is a full four... > Read more