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The Marion Flow (part 2, Wellington 2001)

Posted on 17/12/2019 Updated on 18/02/2020

“It’s lo-fi, organic and about as eclectic as one could manage. Kind of reminds me of Nick Cave if he had grown up in Timaru. No pretentious American accents or catch phrase choruses, just a bunch of people making music. A little beauty!” – NZ Musician, August/September 2002

The Marion Flow was originally a longer album which spanned recordings from New Plymouth in 1999 and Wellington in 2001.

This page is for the 2001 Wellington recordings: produced by Paul Winstanley, & featuring Chris O’Connor (drums), Chris Palmer (electric guitars), Simon O’Rorke (percussion), and more. Recorded at Thistle Hall, Wellington, 2001, and mixed by Joe Callwood.

For the earlier 1999 New Plymouth sessions see The Marion Flow (part 1, Taranaki);
By the time the opportunity arose to finish recording the Marion Flow I’d been thoroughly immersed in the Wellington free jazz and avant-garde music scene, and was very fortunate to have help from some of the top players there. I’d never studied music at school or been in a conventional band, and was out of my depth technically… so working around my limitations became a spark to creativity.

“Edwards’ music is often a sculpture rather than a melodic composition. Within this chosen form, amongst all the writings rantings & poetry there’s much difficult pleasure to be had for the musically adventurous.” – Brent Cardy, Real Groove, July 2002

In 1999, aged 20, I’d left New Plymouth, a large rural town, where I grew up, and moved to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city, where I’d been born and where my early pakeha settler ancestors had lived in the 19th century. The Marion Flow reflects this journey, geographically, sonically and spiritually.

I’ve now reissued the two halves of the album separately – to emphasise the sense of time and place, and stylistic evolution, and to re-present them more concisely for the short-attention-span 21st century.

Further listening

• for the earlier 1999 New Plymouth sessions see The Marion Flow (part 1, Taranaki);

• for my raw live solo postpunk sound around the time I arrived in Wellington try Live 1999
• for an immersion in the avant-garde music I became surrounded (and influenced) by in Wellington – particularly the free-jazz and improvised music scene – try in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway;
• for my subsequent fusion of these contrasting influences try Mantis Shaped and Worrying
• and Loose Autumn Moans;
• and for an overview of this whole period, featuring selected tracks from the above albums and more, try Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005.

Tracklist

Download includes hidden tracks, lyrics and original CDR artwork.

I’ll also soon be splitting up and reissuing my other longer albums After Maths & Sciences and in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway, which were also recorded in separate sessions years apart.