This is something that he has to do, that he will do, come fame or oblivion” – Chris Knox
For a curated compilation of this era, see Fame & Oblivion: 2005-2012
“Experimental and avant-garde…. This will challenge your perceptions of what constitutes music and open the mind to new possibilities of sounds that surround us ” – muzic.net.nz
For the full playlist, see 2005-2012 – Playlist by Dave Edwards | Bandcamp
2005
The success of
Ascension Band: Evolution
was a culmination of my time in Wellington….
“The 50-minute piece of music, broken down into six movements, was performed live over a few nights for the Fringe Festival in 2005; the group taking out the Best Music Award.
“It was stunning. Discordant guitars were choked, drums clattered and crashed, voices mingled with percussion and keyboards – but this form of free-improvisation had a structure to it. It had movement, it had a plan. It was a great beast of a song that writhed and wriggled and often managed to run downhill, away from the players – in the best possible way.
“Here, the show has been recorded onto a CD for posterity – and it begs discovery. It’s an intense listen – but that’s to be expected from a group of players who took their name from one of John Coltrane’s toughest listening albums.” – Simon Sweetman
…but by then I needed a change from Wellington, and moved across the ditch, to Melbourne, Australia. The result was
After Maths & Sciences (2005/06)
an Australian ‘novel for the ear’, recorded in Melbourne, VIC
and a few months later in Sydney, NSW:
by Dave Black with Cylvi M, Mike Kingston and Francesca Mountfort (2005-2006)
In Melbourne I bought a banjo, and started to incorporate it with field recordings and electronica, using a cassette dictaphone and the laptop technology of the time.
This was still before social media or music streaming sites, so again I self-released it on CDR… one of the last albums in that format before it became obsolete. I released it under the name Dave Black, to signal a change of style from my earlier works.
2006
South Island Sessions
Returning to NZ I spent a year in Nelson, in the South Island , and studied at the Nelson School of Music (finally learning some ‘conventional’ technique).
By this point I was 26, had played in an award-winning 18-piece punk symphony and as an international artist at the Liquid Architecture festival in Brisbane (unrecorded, unfortunately), yet could barely play a basic tune by ear.
I played in gigs down the West Coast and in Lyttelton, and at the Lines of Flight festival in Dunedin.
2007–2008
First Time Around: South Korea
I next travelled further afield, and spent a year and a half with Cylvi M in Busan, South Korea (teaching English as a second language to fund our travels), and making pieces from field recordings
First Time Around: East Asia
From Korea, we also visited Thailand, Japan, Vietnam, and Mongolia:
Thailand
Vietnam
Mongolia
and from there took the train across Russia, then spent a few months travelling in the Balkans
Russia & Eastern Europe
…but eventually had to come home.
2009 – 2010
I returned home to New Zealand, now aged 30 and a little more worldly.
I spent the next couple of years back in Wellington. The capital’s experimental music scene revolved around the venue Fred’s (a precursor to the Pyramid Club)
2011–2012
The Winter: 2011
…but i still had itchy feet, so said さよなら to Wellington again and moved to
Okinawa, Japan
to spend another year in Asia (teaching English on the JET programme).
I lived in Okinawa for 12 months.
During holidays I visited mainland Japan, where I first travelled solo across Kyushu,
and then a few months later caught up with fellow NZ expat musician Nat da Hatt in Honshu.
We spent six days hiking across the Japan alps,
and collaborated on an album of field recordings – this time adding psychedelic guitars:
In July I returned to Wellington for a flying visit
The Winter: Flying Visit
on the way to Australia for a second time, this time to
Western Australia
for the next couple of years…
