First Time Around: East Asia

This is an album of sound recordings, made in six different countries, edited into sonic short stories and soundscapes –

East Asia https://maps.app.goo.gl/UZm5kgceqFjuoNf76

following a year and a half living in

China 中国

Mongolia Монгол улс

by
Dave Black – field recordings, laptop, gayageum loops, clarinet, acoustic bass, guay, readings

Cylvi Manthyng – tangso, shakuhachi, golden egg, singing bowl, readings & rubbings

Numerous musicians – impossible to credit everyone, but thank you for opening our ears & minds to Asian sounds and allowing us to pass safely through your lands. Our world has been much larger ever since.

As (south)westerners living in Asia, we had our minds blown all over again by new and fascinating forms of music.

감사합니다 – ありがとうございました – 谢谢 – ขอขอบคุณคุณ – cảm ơn bạn – Баярлалаа!

First Time Around was the name of the movie that we premiered at the New Zealand Film Archive in 2011, a reconstruction of two New Zealanders’ crossing of Eurasia in 2007–2008. We lived in South Korea, teaching English to support ourselves, and travelled from there.

These ethnomusicological pieces have been edited together on & off since 2007, and finally finished in 2013. We hope it inspires you, if you haven’t already, to listen to new & unfamiliar genres of music – whether it be Asian traditional forms or obscure underground sound artists from Aotearoa!

A forthcoming sequel to this album will cover the second half of the journey, across Russia and southern Europe.