Music at Elsewhere

Badd Energy: Underwater Pyramid (Flying Nun)

18 Mar 2013 | <1 min read

Existing where irony meets earnestness, Badd Energy offer cheap drum machines, reductive guitar riffs, melodic ennui, and clunky or occasionally borrowed aphoristic rap, as with “you can't take the heat, you're never in the kitchen” on the lukewarm call to arms of the B-grade New Wave pop-rap Riot which includes “I want peace where we have lots of fun, I don't want peace... > Read more

Riot

Popstrangers: Antipodes (Unspk)

11 Mar 2013 | 1 min read | 1

Because international writers can often take a more dispassionate view of New Zealand culture -- witness the difference between local and overseas reviews of The Hobbit; ours mostly loved it, theirs went hmmm, yawn -- it is often salutory to look at what the rest of the world is saying about our stuff. If our default position is to be a little more generous then the yawn of indifference... > Read more

Jane

David Bowie: The Next Day (Sony)

11 Mar 2013 | 2 min read

Further proof Bowie's a smart post-modern artist. And not just self-aware, but aware of how the modern world works post-Bowie. Not only does he record his first album in a decade in secret in this gossip-driven Tweetworld, but the no-tour/no-interviews policy guarantees attention turns to the art and not the artist . . . . while listeners scan for clues to both. And he's already... > Read more

If You Can See Me

Various Artists: Deutsche Elektronische Musik 2 (Soul Jazz/Southbound)

11 Mar 2013 | <1 min read

Following a previous, generously inclusive double CD collection of Seventies/Eighties German electronic music comes this compilation in an equally unimaginative and horrible cover. It ticks off many main players (Can, Brian Eno with Moebius and Roedelius, the great Popol Vuh who did evocative soundtracks for Herzog, Amon Duul II with weaving guitar, and Faust). But again we get... > Read more

Sundance Chant

Pete Galub:Candy Tears (petegalub.com)

9 Mar 2013 | 1 min read

In a world where music is manicured to perfection, it's a pleasure for Elsewhere to introduce someone who didn't come into the game because they wanted to be on an Idol/X-Factor show . . . but because he saw the ramshackle Replacements when he was 14. A more profound rock'n'roll influence it is hard to imagine. Pete Galub is a New Yorker who has achieved some inner-city profile through... > Read more

300 Days in July

Golden Curtain: English Tuning (bandcamp)

7 Mar 2013 | 1 min read

Given the pedigree of the players here -- guitarist Andrew McKenzie of Grand Prix, drummer Andrew Gladstone of Garageland and non-andrew bassist Matt Baker -- it's no surprise the opener is a big hearted, big chord and incredibly catchy indie-rocker Everything's Fine (it's not) which just makes you want to turn it up and fling the windows open. Big pop melodies seem to come remarkably easy... > Read more

Tumbleweed

Various Artists: Son of Rogue's Gallery (Anti)

4 Mar 2013 | <1 min read

This double disc of sea shanties and pirate songs is as star-packed as its Rogue's Gallery predecessor (here are Shane MacGowan, Marianne Faithfull, Beth Orton, Broken Social Scene, Courtney Love and Michael Stipe in thier first recorded outing together, Dr John and a dozen others). But local interest alights on Mr Stormalong by Ivan Neville. It sounds like Randy Newman . . . but with... > Read more

Rio Grande

Jimi Hendrix: People, Hell and Angels (Sony)

4 Mar 2013 | 2 min read

In an interview with Elsewhere, longtime Hendrix engineer Eddie Kramer -- who has been behind a number of the most credible Hendrix posthumous albums -- said this collection of previously unreleased material would be the final studio album from the Experience Hendrix group. Live albums from now on, he said in this interview. And given that a couple of the pieces here are fairly scant... > Read more

Let Me Move You

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell: Old Yellow Moon (Warners)

4 Mar 2013 | <1 min read

Two-part question to Emmylou and Rodney: What took you so long (they've been musical pals for almost four decades) and why songs – albeit good ones – mostly from back-catalogues? Longtime fans of Harris – who rightly applauded her exceptional concert here last year – will embrace this and forgive her that throat-catch breathy vocal inflection (which becomes... > Read more

Open Season on My Heart

Palma Violets: 180 (Rough Trade)

3 Mar 2013 | <1 min read

It's possible to enjoy and maybe even admire this English quartet (who pose cheerfully by Liverpool's Magical Mystery Tour bus on the inner sleeve) because of their energy, the bellicose single Best of Friends and their enthusiasm. But over the 11 tracks here on their debut album you are left with the overall impression that while they sort of like the Clash and garagerock and all that, they... > Read more

Chicken Dippers

The Ruby Suns: Christopher (Sub Pop)

3 Mar 2013 | 1 min read

While in some parts of the Unknown Mortal Orchestra album they embrace a whiff of gentle psychedelia (and has no one noticed McCartney melodies in their mix?), this is a territory which the Ruby Suns have long found seductive and enchanting. And over their first two albums they certainly managed to couple an assured sense of pop with seductive and often enchanting songs. There were... > Read more

Starlight

Salim Ghazi Saeedi: namoWoman (salimworld.com)

25 Feb 2013 | 1 min read | 1

Over nine tightly drawn and economic instrumentals (all under five minutes), mutliple-threat Saeedi who plays everything here locates himself in that edgy post-metal prog world where pictures in sound are painted by searing guitar, jazz-influenced piano, sombre cello (or is it arco bass?) and much more. But, as his name suggests, Saeedi also has a point of difference. From Tehran, he... > Read more

man

DJ T-Rock and Squashy Nice: Getting Through (Why)

25 Feb 2013 | <1 min read

At the start of this slightly mad but always enjoyable hip-hop mash-up a sampled voice says, “welcome to a new kind of listening experience . . . this record is different/different/different”. But that's not entirely true. As a clever meltdown of supple beats, rapid scratching, samples from obscure Southern country-soul, Mexican horns, bumpin' bass and much more from some... > Read more

43 Flavours of Jam

Chris Stamey: Lovesick Blues (Yep Roc)

25 Feb 2013 | <1 min read

Given Stamey was one of the mainmen in the dB's who bridged Beatlesque power-pop and college radio indie-rock (eg REM) in the Eighties, this solo outing might come as a surprise. He mostly dials down the backbeat and repositions himself as singer-songwriter with one foot in the slightly dull country-folk camp (the funereally paced seven minute title track) or gets tripped out in a... > Read more

Astronomy

Donna Dean: Tyre Tracks and Broken Hearts (donnadeanmusic.com)

25 Feb 2013 | 2 min read

While the title of this album might look like an easy and reflexive nod to earthy country music and it's brokedown traditions, you need only flick straight to the second song Twister to be persuaded that New Zealand's Donna Dean is someone special. She writes with the poetic economy of musicians like James McMurtry and Dolly Parton, and authors like Appalachia's Ron Rash, in that she can... > Read more

Long Time Gone

Devils Elbow: Broken Record Syndrome (Hit Your Head Music)

19 Feb 2013 | 1 min read

Devils Elbow -- the core of which is singer/guitarist Alec Withers -- deliveerd one of Elsewhere's best of 2010 albums with the excellent Sand on Chrome, an album that picked up favourable notices everywhere in New Zealand for its gritty country-flavoured folk-punk which drew on ragged alt.country and bar band rock'n'roll. Another album is due later this year -- the title track here is to... > Read more

Broken Record Syndrome

Eels: Wonderful, Glorious (Universal)

18 Feb 2013 | <1 min read | 1

Mark Everett (aka Eels) has written albums about family death/illness (not as bleak as that sounds, but dark nonetheless), knows his way around an uplifting pop song and on Hombre Loco (2009) alternated searing Neil Young-rock with disarming ballads to parallel the Jekyll'n'Hyde nature of our base and sublime desires. Everett can be into slightly difficult-to-follow concepts, but you... > Read more

On the Ropes

Endless Boogie: Long Island (No Quarter)

18 Feb 2013 | <1 min read

New York's Endless Boogie – who played Auckland last year – might not seem to do very much but, like the Ramones, it's more than enough. The truth-in-packaging quartet nail down some sleazy but tight boogie riffs while singer-guitarist Top Dollar yelps like Captain Beefheart or growls like John Lee Hooker and twists out white-knuckle psychedelic solos. They don't believe... > Read more

General Admission

Pantha Du Prince and the Bell Laboratory; Elements of Light (Rough Trade)

11 Feb 2013 | <1 min read

Very much in the territory of ambient music (publishing held by the appropriately named Outer Worlds), this 43 minute album is one long piece of five seamlessly interlocking parts and owes something to Balinese gamelan and people like Phillip Glass (in his so-called “minimalist” period). But it has been conceived by producer/remixer Du Prince (aka Berlin-based Hendrik... > Read more

Photon

Richard Thompson; Electric (Proper/Southbound)