The Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire
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THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Simon Thacker
15 Jul 2013 | 4 min read
Scotland's Simon Thacker is one of Elsewhere's kinda people. He plays classical guitar but has his ears wide open to the world and mostly works in cross-cultural contexts with musicians from India. His most recent album Rakshasa with his ensemble Svara-Kanti finds him exploring that area deeply, but the centrepiece is a commission from minimalist innovator Terry Riley. And look at his... > Read more
Dhumaketu
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Fergus Barrowman
15 Jul 2013 | 4 min read | 1
Fergus Barrowman is the Publisher of Victoria University Press, New Zealand’s leading publisher of new fiction and poetry, as well as scholarly non-fiction, where he has been since 1985. This year VUP has its biggest ever literary list: eight books of fiction (including four first books and two second books) and nine of poetry (one first, two second). Barrowman also edits and... > Read more
Poem
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Paolo Chagas
10 Jul 2013 | 2 min read
Portuguese-born woodwind player and musical experimentalist Paolo Chagas features on the impressive duets album Forest Stories with pianist Tania Giannouli, who has recently answered our Questionnaire here. But Chagas -- who also works with electronics, studied at the Conservatory of Lisbon and has engaged with pop, classical and jazz artists -- is also a very interesting character who... > Read more
Spring's Chronic
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Simon Gooding of The Map Room
8 Jul 2013 | 3 min read
Simon Gooding is one half of The Map Room whose debut album All You'll Ever Find has impressed Elsewhere. He is a graduate of School of Audio Engineering and that was where he met fellow Map Room player Brendon Morrow. They studied in Auckland for a year then both went on to Byron Bay in Australia to complete their degrees. “The studios over there were incredible,” he says,... > Read more
Elastic Tongue
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THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Sam Scott of Phoenix Foundation
4 Jul 2013 | 4 min read
And now for someone who should need no introduction, Samuel Flynn Scott of Phoenix Foundation. They have frequently appeared at Elsewhere and Scott has appeared under his own name also. But this is appropriate right now because with their new album Fandango and a tie-in national tour (dates below) we need to ask the questions, and go right back to the beginning with . .. The first piece of... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Tania Giannouli
2 Jul 2013 | 2 min read
Earlier this year Elsewhere -- and many other reviewers locally and internationally -- was impressed by the album Forest Stories by Greek pianist/composer Tania Giannouli and woodwind player Paulo Chagas. These improvised pieces had an evocatively cinematic quality or, as Nuno Lourenco observed in a liner note, "the haunting piano sets the canvas on which the wind instruments add... > Read more
The Way Back Home
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Benjii Jackson of Muzai Records
1 Jul 2013 | 6 min read
You gotta love the motto of Benjii Jackson's Muzai Records: "independent Fighting Spirit". And they been going their independent way since 2009 wqith some of Elsewhere's favourite fuzzy pop albums. Records by the Wilberforces, the Bemsha Swing, god bows to maths, Sunken Seas, Zen Mantra (and yes even Girls Pissing on Girls Pissing) have had considerable airtime in the Elsewhere... > Read more
Deluge Slides
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Phil Broadhurst
24 Jun 2013 | 2 min read
So, where to begin with acclaimed pianist/composer and teacher Phil Broadhurst who was awarded the MNZM back in 2001 for his services to jazz? We could mention his study at Berklee then four decades of playing and recording back in New Zealand, albums with his group Sustenance, all the awards (three times winner of jazz album of the year not to mention nominations) and his Masters degree in... > Read more
Scoreless
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Dixon Nacey
21 Jun 2013 | 6 min read
Guitarist Dixon Nacey's new album Cross Now with drummer Ron Samsom and bassist Kevin Haines is a real step up for this trio whose debut Oxide (with guests) annonced a trio of impressive strengths and thoughtfulness. Nacey has been playing professionally for almost two decades and isn't just in the jazz corner. He has played in funk and rock bands, worked the corporate circuit, is a... > Read more
The Remarkable Mr Hopkins
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: J. Willgoose of Public Service Broadcasting
17 Jun 2013 | 3 min read | 1
Let's get out of the way quickly here because you'd rather hear from this gentleman than Elsewhere. But just to say the debut album Inform Educate Entertain by the British duo Public Service Broadcasting was an immediate favourite at Elsewhere (see review here) and so it is pleasure to have the knob-twiddler and sampler J. Willgoose Esq from the group answer the Famous Elsewhere... > Read more
Everest
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Charlotte Yates
17 Jun 2013 | 3 min read
Because Wellington singer-songwriter Charlotte Yates has been busy helming the adaptation of words by the writers James K Baxter, Hone Tuwhare and Witi Ihimaera to music with various all-star casts , her own career seemed to take something of a backseat in the past decade or so. Yes, there were albums . . . but her latest Archipelgo is a real departure because with co-producer Gil Eva Craig... > Read more
Think It Through
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE JAZZ QUESTIONNAIRE: Kevin Haines
14 Jun 2013 | 2 min read | 1
Kevin Haines has been a bass playing fixture on Auckland's jazz scene for many decades . . . but only in recent years has he consistently made his mark in the recording studio. Two albums with drummer Ron Samsom and guitarist Dixon Nacey (the very good Oxide and even better, more recent Cross Now) have served to remind what a fine bassist he is. So it was long overdue that Kevin... > Read more
Broken Tones
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Billy Ebeling
10 Jun 2013 | 2 min read
American singer-songwriter and busker extraordinaire Billy Ebeling has appeared at Elsewhere previously and got our vote as the most inventive, funny and talented busker to ever appear on Auckland's Queen St. He makes the occasional trip to New Zealand but a recent e-mail tells me his back in Kansas City and playing six nights a week . . . and has a new album out. The album This Life of... > Read more
Wrap Me in Your Skin
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Paul Ubana Jones
2 Jun 2013 | 3 min read
It is over two decades, and perhaps getting close to three, since I first met Paul Ubana Jones and I believe I described him then as a big man with big hair, a big voice and a big guitar sound. And it's still true. He has been a prolific recording artist (at least half a dozen albums) and he has also toured New Zealand regularly, and made a mark overseas. He was born in London to a... > Read more
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Leigh Franklin
27 May 2013 | 2 min read
Leigh Franklin has created quite a ripple with the title-track single from her debut album On a Saturday. And that self-funded album is the end of a long journey -- and the start of another -- for the former graduate of the Christchurch Jazz School who then relocated to Melbourne for gigging and more studies. Then she bought a one-way ticket to London carrying her acoustic guitar where she... > Read more
River
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Jan Hellriegel
10 May 2013 | 4 min read
For far too long Jan Hellriegel was known by the shorthand of "Westie singer" which might have been literally true -- she lived in West Auckland, she sang -- but rather diminished her songwriting skills and the power of her delivery. You often read more about how she worked in her dad's panelbeaters than the quality of her songs on albums like her impressive debut album It's My... > Read more
On Ice
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Nadia Reid
4 May 2013 | 2 min read
Raised in Port Chalmers and Christchurch but now living in Auckland, singer-songwriter Nadia Reid (no relation to Elsewhere) has won consistent acclaim for her sometimes melancholy voice coupled with intelligent and insightful lyrics. Her debut EP Letters I Wrote and Never Sent appeared in 2011 and since then she has won praise from the likes of Adam McGrath of The Eastern whose opinion you... > Read more
I Will Never Cut My Ties
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Luckless
4 May 2013 | 5 min read
As singer-songwriter Luckless, Auckland-raised but now footloose Ivy Rossiter has been taking her charged up songs which employ loops and loudness to audiences nationwide for some years now. Her self-titled debut album won consistent praise (four stars just about everywhere) and as a live performer she is dynamic and committed. So as she embarks on a national Ballads and Badlands tour... > Read more
Hummingbird Heart
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Etana
29 Apr 2013 | 2 min read
With a sound located between emotional soul and street-smart reggae, Etana (Shauna McKenzie) from Kingston, Jamaica has certainly made her mark. After a brief period in the States (where she was studying) in a girly-girl band she returned to her homeland and concentrated on a serious music career when she embraced Rastafarianism. Her debut album The Strong One brought reggae and folk... > Read more
Whole New World
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Hamilton of British Sea Power
22 Apr 2013 | 2 min read
Elsewhere has had a long interesting in and affection for the UK band British Sea Power who have delivered four previous albums and a couple of soundtracks and yet never quite got the wide acclaim they deserve. So it was a pleasure to hear their new one Machineries of Joy because it marks a career high and economically encapsulates their many styles but pulls them together in songs which... > Read more