So far in 2019 I’ve been living in rural New Zealand, playing mainly solo acoustic.
Live 2019
“Great skills and a refreshing rebirth of a beatnik sensibility, this is folk the way folk should be” – Andi Verse
Compare to this lo-fi ‘official bootleg’ recorded 20 years (or half my lifetime) ago – opening for Chris Knox at Bar Bodega in Wellington NZ last millennium:
Live 1999
It’s been quite a journey in between!
Other Islands: 2012-2018
vol3 – made in New Zealand, Western Australia, Fiji, Indonesia and Okinawa
“The 20 song album covers traditional Javanese and Balinese gamelan, Asia-Pacific folk music, free jazz, and free noise…. If you have an open inquiring mind and love hearing a variety of sound, this is excellent. – muzic.net.nz“
The Electricka Zoo
The duo of live electronica by the Digitator, and Dave Black on bass and electric guitar (2017)
“A totally original, mind warping album that smacks you across the face with big sound…. I salute anyone that makes a whole album out of EDM post-punk avant-garde rock / jazz, reggae, Balkan, [and] Portuguese music” – http://www.muzic.net.nz
Ngumbang
Our first collaboration with the even more legendary & underground artist Snake Beings (2015)
The Winter: Exit Points
Free improvisations that swerve from acoustic folk/blues with hints of Asian, Celtic, and Balkan influences, to electro-acoustic soundscapes, abstract dissonance, and pots & pans percussion (2015).
ネオン列車の風景 Neon Train Landscapes
Japanese psychedelic rock made by kiwis (2014)
in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway
Free (in both senses) jazz from Wellington, Aotearoa (1999/2014)
The Winter: Flying Visit
Acoustic trio improvisations on ukulele, charango, sanshin, saxophone, clarinet, piano, guitar and percussion (2012)
Fame & Oblivion: 2005-2012
vol2 – made in New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Thailand, Mongolia, and Japan
“Experimental and avant-garde…. There is a clear passion, and a commitment to pushing the boundaries… This will challenge your perceptions of what constitutes music and open the mind to new possibilities of sounds that surround us – muzic.net.nz“
The Winter: 2011
Acoustic trio improvisations on banjo, ukulele, clarinet, piano, guitar, harmonica and percussion (2011)
First Time Around: East Asia
Field recordings, sketches, soundscapes and stories from South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, China and Mongolia (2008)
South Island Sessions
Steampunk folktronica from an alternate 19th century (2006)
After Maths & Sciences
An Australian novel for the ear, recorded in Melbourne VIC and Gosford NSW (2005-2006)
“There are New Zealand artists working in this medium (Montano, Seht, Audible 3) combining concrete poetry, field recordings, found-sounds and electro-acoustic manipulations to sit as aural wallpaper, but Dave Black’s debut release (and a re-birth, if you like, for David Edwards) is an actual document – as much a post-modern piece of Performance Journalism as it is a static batch of “songs” or tracks, After Maths & Sciences is a pleasing challenge of an album. It lives up to the cliché of presenting something new with each listen,”– Simon Sweetman
Ascension Band: Evolution
Award-winning electric symphony for post-punk big-band – by organist/conductor/arranger Nigel Patterson (The Black Seeds, The Manta Rays, Fly My Pretties), guitarist & organiser Dave Edwards (fiffdimension, The Winter), and over a dozen musicians on guitars, basses, drums, electronics, keyboards, trumpets and vocals (2005)
“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
Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005
vol1 – songs, spoken word and improvisations from the early phase of my gloriously unsuccessful career
“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
The Winter: Swansong (for the Huia)
Electro-acoustic trio improvisation in tribute to extinction (2004)
Loose Autumn Moans
Semi-acoustic songs with string section, recorded on all-analogue equipment (2003)
“Here Wellington, NZ composer Dave Edwards mostly goes it solo with some able assistance from duo or trio the Winter. Often Dave is singing, or very nearly so, as on the jazzy opening track “Summer Skin”, or the almost folky “Working Like a Fountain in the Slender Morning Chill”; elsewhere the sounds are more scattered, accumulated and fragmentary, as he sing/talks in a latter day fractured Syd Barrett unreeling narrative. There are some free noise experiments and clattering nonverbal splatter, but most often this feels like slightly depressive verbose spoken word expositions over acoustic improvisations. Guitars, violin, cello, and percussion all stack up… He’s got a persona that’s all his own.”– George Parsons, Dream Magazine #5
The Winter: Parataxes
The Winter trio’s debut: electric and acoustic trio improvisations for guitars, cello and percussion (2003)
“A strange sonic brew that includes dissonant rock textures, rough outsider folk-blues mysteries, electric and acoustic improvisations and a considerable part of tasty feedback. Imagine equal parts Derek Bailey, New Zealand’s Pumice and classic ’60s blues/folk and you’re in the right ballpark.” – The Broken Face
Mantis Shaped & Worrying
The difficult third album, an idiosyncratic spoken word + instrumental voyage into inner space (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 whose impact is as dramatic as his wordplay” – Real Groove
The Marion Flow.
Electric and acoustic songs, spoken word and instrumentals – an almost-recognised New Zealand classic (1999–2001)
“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
dAdApApA: Waiting for the Drummer
Taranaki improvised rock/noise deconstruction with sputtering synth, air-sucking turntables, didgeridoo and sundry toys providing layers of surreal abstraction (1999)
“after recording tracks for The Marion Flow at Wafer HQ in New Plymouth, an ad hoc group of associated locals assembled to record… the only rock references here come from the guitars… throw in some spoken word and a special guest appearance by N.P. record mogul Brian Wafer on vacuum cleaner and the dAdApApA nova had blazed and fizzled in the blink of an eye” – Eden Gully
Live 1999
Scratched Surface
The debut album – a genuine lo-fi postpunk singer/songwriter artifact from the ’90s (1997-1998)
“Worth searching out coz this lo-fi singer/songwriter oddball has a unique take on the genre. He’s pissed off, a tad fucked up (as usual), but not full of lugubrious self-pity (as unusual) and is happy to get raucous & obnoxious in just the right kinda way.” – Chris Knox
14/07/2019 at 10:09 am
[…] always worked by making albums of music, where multiple tracks interweave thematically – but for now I’ll just put up […]