Ngumbang
Out now!! the new collaboration with even more legendary & underground NZ artist Snake Beings.
Ngumbang is the first collaborative album by two of New Zealand’s more unusual artist/musician/filmmaker/ethnomusicologists – performed on guitars, bass, banjo, percussion, saxophones, clarinets, harmonicas, synthesisers, Okinawan sanshin, ukulele, violin, loop pedal, piano, drums and spoken word. The album was recorded in and near Auckland, New Zealand in 2014–2015 and includes live performances at Vitamin S and the Audio Foundation.
Emit Snake-Beings, who over several decades has travelled intensively in Spain, Holland, the Middle East, Mexico, America and Japan, is a New Zealand / British experimental filmmaker and musician who has produced over 40 independently released film soundtrack CDs and made a number of short experimental and narrative films in Spain, U.K. and New Zealand. www.snakebeings.co.nz
Dave Black, originally from Taranaki and active since the late 90s on the NZ underground music scene, began by fusing acoustic songs, noisy postpunk, spoken word and avant-garde improvisation – and has diversified further from there. Notable performances include the award-winning 14-piece Ascension Band, appearing as an international artist at the Liquid Architecture Festival in Brisbane, Australia, and teaching a thousand Okinawan school students to perform a haka. www.fiffdimension.com

‘Ngumbang’ is an Indonesian word that refers to the slight difference in tuning between a pair of gamelan instruments, which gives gamelan music its shimmering quality.
The album name reflects a shared interest in ethnomusicology and experimentation, and the almost-but-not-quite-equivalent approaches of these two artists.
07/06/2015 at 2:11 am
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19/06/2015 at 10:28 am
[…] Ngumbang […]
19/06/2015 at 7:59 pm
[…] Ngumbang […]
03/07/2015 at 10:50 am
Reblogged this on fiffdimension.
18/10/2015 at 12:02 am
[…] Ngumbang […]
07/01/2016 at 6:34 am
[…] Ngumbang […]
29/04/2018 at 9:57 pm
[…] Ngumbang (2014-2015) […]
31/08/2018 at 10:25 pm
[…] The objects were made during the art science residency in Port Chalmers between March and September 2018. snakebeings and dave black collaborated this year on ‘sampak membengkak‘ https://fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/track/sampak-membengkak and in 2015 on the Ngumbang album […]
05/12/2018 at 4:01 pm
[…] Ngumbang (Dave Black & Snake Beings) […]
21/12/2018 at 4:01 pm
[…] 2015 I’m back in NZ where my recent albums from Ngumbang onwards come full circle – weaving together these various […]
05/11/2019 at 8:11 pm
[…] the meantime have a listen to the ‘Ngumbang‘ album we made together in 2015 a DIY manifesto – “Pick up the pieces and make […]
26/12/2019 at 4:18 pm
[…] with electric guitar loops, one-stringed bass, and drums – the opening track from the ‘Ngumbang‘ album (get the free download) – w/ Emit Snake-beings & Nat da […]
30/12/2019 at 3:49 pm
[…] a duo with Emit Snake-Beings, for an as-yet-untitled sequel to Ngumbang, coming in 2020 (we had a recording session in Suva, Fiji, of all […]
12/02/2020 at 8:01 am
[…] first duo album was ‘Ngumbang‘, which we made together in 2015 – a fusion of several genres and a DIY manifesto […]
28/05/2020 at 7:47 pm
[…] first duo recording was ‘Ngumbang‘ (2015) […]
08/11/2020 at 12:09 pm
[…] Ngumbang […]