After the filmshoot (2002)

Dave Edwards solo cassette tracks, in Wellington NZ, 2002.

Listen

About

These solo recordings were originally released as interludes, between the acoustic ensemble pieces in the Loose Autumn Moans (2003) album. But they’re now re-presented separately as a standalone short album (with a different running order and some light remastering).

I wrote the words to the title track in a notebook during the wrap party for a short film I’d worked on – a surrealist description of the evening, based on deliberate mishearings of the conversations around me:

“Taking notes throughout the performance. Humans become worms, with a sameness that is frightening. Politics is bad: we knew this already, but now it’s confirmed. Collapse into laughter.

A cigarette chair from which comes a dictator; everyone in thrall to his conversation. A plastic wooden horse to capture the city – incongruous? Indeed. Expelled all the virtues? You to decide.”

I made the soundscape with electric guitar and a 4-track tape recorder.

The other tracks on the album expanded on this wordy fusion of postpunk singer/songwriter and free improvisation. Radio stations wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole.

Background

In the early 2000s,  I was living in Wellington (New Zealand’s capital, and my birthplace), looking for a way to follow up the almost-success of The Marion Flow (part 2).

But I was moving further away from conventional 3min song formats into the avant-garde.

Although I lived not far from Courtenay Place I was more interested in the scene based around Newtown venue The Space (a precursor to the Pyramid Club), then in its baroque period.

I was an underemployed arts graduate, living in a scody flat doing casual work as a film extra (blink and you’ll miss me in Lord of the Rings) or builder’s labourer, and (trying &) failing to write a novel. Partly due to lack of money, I made my own entertainment.

Although the internet existed in early form, this was before social media – so instead of selfies, oversharing took a more oblique form, filtered through art.

In all, I was a noisy (as opposed to noise) guitar & spoken word footnote to the Wellington free jazz / avant garde music scene.

Tracklist

1.	After the Filmshoot (take 1) 03:25
2.	Interlude: the sociopolitical context 00:51
3.	Sleep/Grease 02:57
4.	Etude, for electric saxophone 03:16
5.	Working Like a Fountain in the Slender Morning Chill 05:11
6.	Interlude: les paul tapdance 01:36
7.	After the Filmshoot (take 2) 04:51
8.	WLAF reprise 03:32

Further listening

The tracks on After the Filmshoot were originally part of

Loose Autumn Moans:

Acoustic songs with a string section, recorded on all-analogue equipment, by Dave Edwards, with Sam Prebble, Mike Kingston, and Simon Sweetman (2003)

“Here Wellington, NZ composer Dave Edwards mostly goes it solo with some able assistance from duo or trio the Winter. .. Guitars, violin, cello, and percussion all stack up… He’s got a persona that’s all his own.”– George Parsons, Dream Magazine #5

After the Filmshoot is the second largely solo album I made in 2002. First came

Mantis Shaped & Worrying

– the difficult third album, an intensely introverted spoken word + instrumental voyage into inner space, by Dave Edwards (with Simon O’Rorke) (2002)

“Four tracks over 45 minutes allow the artist suitable space for his forum of spoken word and instrumental colour, with the latter lurching from acoustic strums to occasional cacophony. On the final track, ‘Revenge of the Smur‘ Edwards uses a primarily percussive accompaniment [by Simon O’Rorke] whose impact is as dramatic as his wordplay” – Real Groove

The Marion Flow (part 2, Wellington)

Electric and acoustic songs, spoken word and instrumentals – an almost-recognised New Zealand classic, by Dave Edwards with Chris O’Connor, Paul Winstanley, Simon O’Rorke, Chris Palmer, Joe Callwood, and Dean Brown (2001)

“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

in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway (part 1)

Free (in both senses) jazz from Wellington, by Dave Edwards and Simon O’Rorke with Paul Winstanley, Jeff Henderson, Blair Latham, Daniel Beban, Bridget Kelly (1999)

Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005

vol1 – songs, spoken word and improvisations from the early phase of my gloriously unsuccessful career, by Dave Black with The Winter, Ascension Band,plus Chris O’Connor, Paul Winstanley, Simon O’Rorke, Chris Palmer, Sam Prebble, Francesca Mountfort and more

“Rough outsider folk-blues mysteries, dissonant rock textures, electric and acoustic improvisations… Edwards strikes me as one of the most overlooked musicians from the fertile lands of New Zealand and if you need a fresh start this might very well be the place.” – The Broken Face