THE MAGAZINE FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE
Elsewhere is a concept and a place, and Graham Reid goes there for his wide angle travels, writing, music review and interviews with writers, musicians and artists.
Elsewhere is an on-line magazine for new music (we filter out the mundane and spotlight the more interesting albums), different travel, arts and more. It is dedicated to the diversity and possibilities of Elsewhere. It's an equal opportunity enjoyer. Subscribe here (it's free) for a weekly newsletter. Welcome . . .
Latest posts
Troy Kingi: Night Lords (digital outlets)
10 Jan 2026 | 1 min read
If Troy Kingi has appeared frequently at Elsewhere it's because Troy Kingi makes a lot of music, mostly under his own name but he has guests spots also. For most people he arrived with the excellent double album Guitar Party at Uncle's Bach in 2016 but is perhaps best known for the on-going 10-10-10 project which is now nearly at an end, and on time too. Kingi... > Read more
Hori on a Hoiho
Barbecued Duck Breasts
10 Jan 2026 | 1 min read
These days I, like most people, can toss together a very serviceable and reasonably impressive red curry with duck in just a matter of minutes. It helps when you have a shop selling cooked duck within a few minutes walk. But this recipe is something rather more challenging and I have to admit I stole it from a calendar that we were sent years ago. Goes great with... > Read more
Arthur's Pass, South Island, New Zealand: The silence of the lands
9 Jan 2026 | 4 min read
It was the strangest thing. We went inside for 20 minutes and when we came out everyone had disappeared. There was also no traffic either way down the long road. Arthur's Pass Village on Highway 73 through the centre of the South Island sits a bit more west than the halfway point between Christchurch and the West Coast, right there in the Southern Alps. It was a... > Read more
National Lampoon: A prog-rock epic (1975)
8 Jan 2026 | <1 min read
If you enjoyed the parody of a feminist anthem Elsewhere posted some time back (the terrific I'm A Woman) then you've clearly got a sense of humour and might just be up for this. From the same album Goodbye Pop (which skewered drippy Neil Young, soppy soul and c'n'w) comes this stab at the pretensions of prog rock. If I recall the liner notes about this song (and you... > Read more
MAVIS RIVERS. MAVIS, CONSIDERED (1961): The lady and the chairman
8 Jan 2026 | 2 min read
Coincidence is an inexplicable thing: the very day this wonderful album by Apia-born Rivers was pulled from the shelves at random for consideration in this on-going column, Grant Gillanders put up a Facebook post to announce Rivers' complete recordings for TANZA (To Assist New Zealand Artists) had just been put up on Spotify, 48 songs in total. These recordings from... > Read more
All My Tomorrows
RING OUT THE OLD: A bullet from the behind
7 Jan 2026 | 1 min read
I have rarely been one to celebrate New Year's Eve: all that enforced levity, starting another year with a blinding headache and wondering who to apologise to … Even as a teenager I don't recall going hog-wild on that night when carefree abandon and oceans of alcohol collide to create a volatile mix of happiness, regret, sudden anger and tears.... > Read more
THIS AIN'T ROCK'N'ROLL by DANIEL RACHEL
5 Jan 2026 | 2 min read
Rock culture has had a long flirtation with Nazism – the swastika, Iron Cross, uniforms and sense of concerts being like Hitler's rallies in Nuremberg. Often it was for the shock value – especially in the punk era when musicians would wear the Swastika – and sometimes it was just frivolous and unthinking. There have always been those who took... > Read more
SOUND THINKING: THE TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2025 by MARTY DUDA and GRAHAM REID
4 Jan 2026 | <1 min read
It will take you less than a minute (54 seconds to be exact) and you can hear Marty and I list the albums which we enjoyed (from those we heard, doubtless you heard different ones). And maybe it will give you some hints for albums to spend any left-over money from Christmas. Have a listen to our list right here As we say, "it was a good... > Read more
THE GANELIN TRIO, RE-RELEASED AND REDISCOVERED (2026): The old Soviet underground and smuggled tapes
3 Jan 2026 | 3 min read
Things go by so fast on social media if you don't grab them they are gone, like a recent post on Substack (or maybe it was Facebook). The guy was listing his accomplishments of the past year and they were not inconsiderable: about as many albums reviewed as we'd done at Elsewhere, other articles, a fulltime job, I think he mentioned concerts promoted and … The... > Read more
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Johnny Griffin, A Blowing Session (Blue Note)
1 Jan 2026 | 2 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which has been remastered in mono from the original analogue tapes recorded by Rudy Van Gelder. Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . . . When tenor player Johnny Griffin was coming up in the post-bop era and surfing in the wake of John... > Read more
Ball Bearing
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Great Barrier: Repetition (digital outlets)
31 Dec 2025 | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes with a download code (excellent!) and is in a striking cover by photographer Damien Marshall. We reviewed this previously (it is one of our Best of Elsewhere 2025 picks) but when the vinyl arrived recently the record went straight to the turntable and the cover... > Read more
Deep Concern
Juliana Hatfield: Lightning Might Strike (digital outlets)
31 Dec 2025 | 1 min read
Juliana Hatfield – now closer to 60 than 55 – has long been an outlier in the world of alt-rock, and in truth never really part of it anyway. She may have come to attention in Boston's Blake Babies in the late Eighties/early Nineties, have been a longtime player with Evan (Lemonheads) Dando and collaborated with her then-partner Ryan Adams, but her heart was... > Read more
Where Are You Now
The Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra: The Last Time (1965)
30 Dec 2025 | 1 min read
Before we get to this orchestrated version of a Rolling Stones song let's acknowledge very few people would have heard it before the Verve sampled it for their Grammy-nominated Bitter Sweet Symphony in '97. And let's go back even further to hear the Stones original song, the ideal piece of parent-baiting music for its irritating repetition. Keith Richards admits that... > Read more
PAUL McLANEY, AT AUDIOCULTURE (2025): A man on many missions
29 Dec 2025 | 1 min read
Singer, songwriter and musical multi-tasker Paul McLaney has been clear in his ambition and vision. “I love artists who have a large body of work that once you discover, they become vast landscapes to explore,” he said in 2023. “You might hear something from their mid-career, which is great because then you have two directions in the timeline to... > Read more
AN ESSENTIAL ELSEWHERE ALBUM: Tom Waits: Bad As Me (2011)
27 Dec 2025 | 3 min read | 4
At the end of the local edition of this exceptional album -- Tom Waits' first studio album in seven years -- there is a disconcerting litany of images entitled with seeming certainty After You Die, but which in fact asks the more pointed question, "what is it like after we die?" Waits yowls through it like a man broken on a rack, and it's a scary ending to an... > Read more
Satisfied
THE BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2025: READERS' CHOICES
23 Dec 2025 | 3 min read
From where we sat 2025 was an extraordinary year for music. Last week we posted our picks of the best of Elsewhere 2025 (chosen from the albums we heard) for your consideration. But we also threw it open for you to tell us your favourites. And we thank you for offering your choices. Here is what people told us . . . Thanks to everyone who made the... > Read more
Rabbit as King of the Ghosts: The Rabbit's Advice (digital outlets)
22 Dec 2025 | 1 min read
One of the best reissues this past year was The Three EPs by the Beta Band, a beguiling collection of – as the title says – three EPs by Scotland's slacker-folk Beta Band who wove folk, psychedelic music and an appealing casualness into a tapestry of sounds in the late Nineties. The second song on this similarly entrancing debut – the fiddle-coloured... > Read more
Colour Eater
SOUND THINKING RETURNS TO NEW ZEALAND: The podcast for people who care about what they hear
17 Dec 2025 | <1 min read
Sound Thinking is where decades of music journalism meet unfiltered conversation. Ever miss when music journalism had guts, humour, and heart? Sound Thinking with Marty Duda and Graham Reid brings it back. This is where legends, laughter, and long-forgotten stories meet the soundtrack of now. New releases, notes compared, stories shared and... > Read more
THE BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2025: THE EDITOR'S PICKS
16 Dec 2025 | 7 min read | 1
Yes, it is that time again when after a year of listening we want to remind you of what we think are the best albums of the year … with the important caveat, these are the best of what we heard. There would be dozens of albums we didn't hear and many of those might be in your “best 'of” selection. But these are the ones which grabbed us and still... > Read more
RECOMMENDED REISSUE: Keith Jarrett: Koln Concert (digital outlets)
15 Dec 2025 | 1 min read | 2
On January 24, 1975 Keith Jarrett sat at a piano in the Cologne opera house and, before a live audience, improvised at great length. The audience was mostly spellbound by his virtuosity, and also the washes of music he conjured up. It was a magisterial concert and, recorded by ECM's Manfred Eicher, sold more than might have been expected: it remains the best selling... > Read more