1856 to 2026 – DIY outsider music, from Aotearoa NZ and beyond
Sad this week to hear of the early passing of Sam Prebble (aka Bond Street Bridge).
Our condolences to Sam’s family and friends.
He was a friend I hadn’t seen for a few years as I’ve been living abroad, but he played violin on ‘Loose Autumn Moans‘ and I’d always hoped to work with him again.
I loved the historical turn his recent music was taking.
Definitely a loss to NZ music as well as a personal tragedy to lose him before his time.
A companion to The Marion Flow, recorded in 1999 by the same lineup who provided that album’s longest (and least conventionally song-based track, pointing the way towards the increasingly radio-unfriendly Mantis Shaped and Worrying), “Lucifer Directing Traffic (at 3AM)”
Recording engineer Paul Winstanley, head of the excellent, now San Francisco-based avant-garde music label Eden Gully recalls it thus:
“after recording tracks for The Marion Flow at Wafer HQ in New Plymouth an ad hoc group of associated locals assembled to record for several sessions of improvised rock/noise deconstruction. really, the only rock references here come from the guitars, with the sputtering synth, air-sucking turntables, didgeridoo and sundry toys providing layers of surreal abstraction. 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.
“it wasn’t until several years later after the master mixes had been lost, partially recovered and then rediscovered intact again that “Waiting for the Drummer’ was given a final mastering and released as a CDR on EdenGully. it’s been a long strange journey…..”
released 01 August 2006 on Eden Gully as EG15
Fiff Dimension Dave – guitars, spoken word and furbie / Speed Cook – turntables and recording / Pal Diddly – synth and pithy observations / The Digitator – guitar, didgeridoo / BWafer – vacuum cleaner and coffees
| 1. | just in time for christmas 09:03 |
| 2. | making merry 09:00 |
| 3. | singing and drinking blood 08:31 |
| 4. | elves are farting bodies 14:10 |
| 5. | groan in extra stuffing 12:19 |
| 6. | smashed robots litter the pine 05:34 |
| 7. | an orgy of turkey gobble 08:04 |
“This is something that he has to do, that he will do, come fame or oblivion” –Chris Knox
“As Dave Edwards he has explored fuzzy punk, free-jazz, spoken word, alternative-folk and demented pop… as Dave Black, the palette is broadened” – Simon Sweetman
by Dave Black (acoustic & electric guitars, banjo, harmonica, laptop, bass, tenor saxophone, field recordings, piano, gayageum, vocal), with
“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“
A compilation of songs, spoken word and instrumentals from the early phase of my gloriously unsuccessful career:
“Whilst shopping from fiffdimension, make sure to get hold of ‘Gleefully Unknown’ – a best-of compilation of Dave Edwards’ music from 1997 to 2005. 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.” – Mats Gustafsson, The Broken Face
by Dave Edwards (acoustic & electric guitars, harmonica, bass, banjo, vocal), with
Featuring tracks from the albums
… if you enjoy this, try the sequels Fame & Oblivion: 2005-2012 and Other Islands: 2012-2018
This is an ethnomusicological album of pieces made from sound recordings, during visits to six different countries in Asia during 2007-2008, The sounds are edited into sonic short stories.
![First time around [South Korea]](https://fiffdimension.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/first-time-around-south-korea.jpg)
During, and immediately after, a year and a half living in
(teaching English for a living, and to fund further travels – see First Time Around: South Korea),
we travelled to:
8. 请介意你的脚步 (Please Mind Your Step) 01:33
2. Cylvi M – シルビエム在佛的脚在京都 (at Buddha’s Foot, Kyoto) 02:16
| 3. | ระดับที่สามพระอารามหลวง (3rd Grade Royal Temple) 04:04 |
| 4. | เชียงใหม่ร้านรัฐบาล (Chiang Mai government shop) 02:35 |
| 5. | หมู่บ้านกะเหรี่ยง (The Karen Village) 04:10 |
| 6. | Việt Nam chào buổi tối (Good Evening Vietnam) 02:25 |
| 7. | núi và rất cây (Mountain and Very Tree) 04:43 |
| 9. | Монголын хувьсгалт нам ((It’s a) Mongolian Revolutionary Party) 02:33 |
| 10. | ханаду ямаа (Goats in Xanadu) 03:32 |
Our guide Chim-ge was very helpful and friendly and spoke good English. We also had a driver whose name sounded like Reggae (we had fun trying to explain what reggae music is) who spoke no English but was very good at avoiding getting stuck in the mud. After a seven-hour drive across mostly dirt roads, we got to the ger camp where we were staying for the next two days. A ger is a round Mongolian tent house built around a central fireplace, with a south-facing door (the winds come from the north).
Mongolian nomads dismantle their gers and move home four times a year. That system allows the land to regenerate from grazing. The animals are the families’ livelihoods, providing income, food and even fuel for fires ie dung. We spent a couple of hours ‘picking up shit’ to help out, and also took a turn at milking the goats. We filled a fifth of a bucket between us in the time the mother and grandmother of the family filled two each. The other job was mixing the barrel of arrig, or alcohol made from fermented horses’ milk. We were presented with two bowls on arrival – it tasted like a sour yoghurt.
Mongolian food is almost entirely based on meat and dairy products and not at all spicy. They put some onion and carrot in our food but that was really a tourist concession. I found a native spinach plant growing nearby as a diet supplement – strangely the Mongolians don’t make use of that or the various herbs available. Many traditional nomads believe that vegetables are bad for you. They burn off all the protein and fat by working long and hard outdoors – in the city there were a lot of fat Mongolians however.
On the second day we had a side trip to Karakortum, site of the oldest surviving Buddhist monastery in Mongolia and Chinggis Khan’s royal court (one turtle statue is all that remains). Each Buddhist country has a different style of artwork – the Mongolian style is influenced by Tibetan Buddhism and seemed to emphasise demonic looking creatures such as the blue-skinned three-eyed sharp-fanged ten protectors. Listening to the red-robed monks chanting their sutras was fascinating, much more polyphonic than the Korean minimalist style.
The monastery buildings had Chinese-style roofs but overall there was much less Chinese influence in Mongolia than I’d imagined. If anything we could see bits of Russia creeping in, especially back in town – for example the language is written in the Cyrillic alphabet. It was very interesting the feeling of Asia gradually fading away.
After a couple of days out in the country enjoying the smog-free air and the sounds of goats and sheep rather than traffic noise, construction work and hard-sell advertising, we headed back to Ulaanbaatar. We had timed the trip to coincide with the Nadaam festival (translates as ‘fun festival’), which is the big annual event consisting of wrestling, archery and cross-country horse racing. It celebrates Mongolian independence from 200 years if Manchu rule. We were most interested in the opening ceremony, which was a feast of colourful costumes, dancing and Mongolian music which, as several locals said, evokes the feel of wide open spaces, galloping horses, cold winter nights and mountain passes.
We got our fill of Mongolian music over the next two nights, seeing both a smaller traditional ensemble and a big-scale stage show with a full Morin-Khuur orchestra. The morin-khuur is a kind of two-stringed cello with a rhombus-shaped body and a horse’s head carving at the top of the neck. They come in various sizes up to double-bass size and were surprisingly cheap to buy in the shops (about $80NZ – too big to travel with unfortunately and would need a case). Both shows were amazing, with costumes, dancing, musicians accompanying contortionists, and longsongs and throat-singing.
In all Mongolia was a definite highlight so far…
It was a great pleasure to get to Vietnam. There was a stopover in Hong Kong airport – out the windows I could see glass apartment towers, hillsides eroded from deforestation and a polluted green harbour. Then on to Vietnam, a fertile countryside of rice paddies and fruit trees with sudden rock formations rising out of the plains. Everywhere hundreds of Vietnamese in cone-shaped coolie hats were at work in the fields from dawn to dusk… it’s definitely the land of the cone heads. The hats are an elegantly simple design that protect from the sun and rain.
Although poorer, the Vietnamese people overall seemed healthier, happier, and more stylish, industrious, humorous and better looking than the average Korean. I enjoyed the fusion of old and new on display, whereas Koreans keep their traditional things quite separate from their modern life. There was also a refreshing absence of the usual celebrity stooges’ faces everywhere, and no McDonalds restaurants to be found. Instead they had communist-style posters of good workers and Ho Chi Minh. The atmosphere was never dreary or oppressive though – it’s a vibrant, colourful country.
Hanoi, the capital, was full of motorbikes, their horns a constant soundtrack. The traffic is busy but not especially fast – to cross a road you just walk out at a steady pace and the traffic all somehow avoids you. It’s a much better system than in Thailand where you wait for a gap and then sprint across. Catching a motorbike ride with Vietnamese locals is a good way to get around and definitely part of the experience.
The slightly unsatisfying aspect was being on a time limit and being on the tourist trail for some of it. Prices were cheap but not that cheap and there were always locals around trying to sell something, and many small-time scams to get extra money. It’s hard to begrudge them though – they’re doing a great job rebuilding from the American war (one-legged mine victims the most visible reminder) and finding their place in the world. The newspaper headlines were mostly government propaganda (it’s a one-party state) and one that stood out was their goal to become an average income nation by 2020. That contrasts with Korea’s frantic industrial development (at the expense of their own culture and environment) and their new president’s unattainable election promise of 7% growth every year.Highlights included Cuc Phuong national park where we explored a bat-filled cave where stone-age people had lived 7500 years ago; the national water puppet theatre, a great Vietnamese art-form with live music, carving, action and splashes; a night drinking on a boat on Halong Bay with kiwis and aussies; and the sights and general ambience – there was an overall sense of optimism in the country.
In all, I’d love to go back to Southeast Asia another time with an open itinerary and no time limit, and see Cambodia and Laos as well.
Tonight it’s time to get on the train to Siberia, so I’ll write about Mongolia when I get a chance…
Recorded in Nelson, NZ, 2006.
1861 revisited – my pākeha (European) ancestors, John ‘Totara Jack’ and Mary Edwards, arrived in the South Island of New Zealand on board the Olympus and settled in Nelson1.
John ‘Totara Jack’ Edwards
When I lived nearby a century and a half later,
The early settler stories marked the start of an interest in genealogy, and prompted the music video for The Ballad of William Knife3 (loosely based on ‘Totara Jack’).
In contrast to the ‘traditional’ South Island NZ ‘Flying Nun‘ or The Dead C inspired sounds, South Island Sessions blended acoustic instruments with field recordings and electronic glitches. I played acoustic guitar, banjo and saxophone, and delegated the electric guitar role to two local players. We named this new genre “Steampunk Folktronica“4.
Recorded in Nelson NZ, 2006
An Australian novel for the ear, recorded in Melbourne VIC and Gosford NSW in 2005 – by kiwis.
2006 | Reviewed by Simon Sweetman
“After Maths & Sciences was recorded by Dave Black (some may know him as David A. Edwards, and if you don’t, then check his website, or the compilation of earlier recordings,Gleefully Unknown 1997-2005) in two parts: From May-July of 2005 in Melbourne, during the winter….
By 2005 I needed a change from Wellington, and bought a ticket to Melbourne – the first leg of my ‘big OE’.
I lived in Melbourne (in Brunswick) for six months, and had my mind blown by the sheer size of Australia, and exposure to new ideas and sounds – eg Aussie hip-hop, Middle Eastern music, and the noisier local birdlife. I loved the wide open spaces and the eucalyptus scent.
I didn’t have a guitar with me, so bought a banjo instead (which I still have). I also began to incorporate field recordings and laptop electronica. And rather than writing from within myself, I became more of an observer.
I released After Maths & Sciences (my last CDR for years, before the format became obsolete) under the name Dave Black (adopting my maternal grandfather’s surname), to signal this change of approach. The title suggests the ‘aftermath’ of my life in Wellington, and experimenting with a new approach.
For an overview of this new artistic era see the Fame & Oblivion: 2005-2012 compilation.
| 1. | 22-6-2005 04:23 |
| 2. | The Greenhough 05:19 |
| 3. | Melbourne Streets 02:10 |
| 4. | hic et ups e vol turface 02:43 |
| 5. | O Henry Ending 03:29 |
| 6. | Wealth & Riches (Mt Eliza) 07:13 |
| 7. | In Gippsland 03:26 |
| 8. | Moreland Station, Coburg 02:49 |
| 9. | Repent 03:31 |
“…And then from December of last year to January of 2006 in New South Wales; summer.”
On a second visit to Australia for Christmas and New Year 2005/06 – this time to New South Wales – Cylvi M and I created more Australian soundscapes (including political themes, such as the Cronulla Riots and burgeoning awareness of climate change, as well as bird and insect sounds).
| 1. | Welcome to Sydney 01:05 |
| 2. | Hot Weather (a premonition) 03:19 |
| 3. | Karaoke Queen 00:59 |
| 4. | BBQ post-Cronulla riots 03:39 |
| 5. | Cylvi M – Morning in Gosford 04:57 |
| 6. | New Year’s Eve 2005/06 07:42 |
| 7. | Hot Weather (@ Lines of Flight Festival 2006, Dunedin NZ) 03:45 |
| 8. | Slowing Cicadas 02:23 |
Later in 2006, on a third visit to Australia, and thanks to Lawrence English, I performed at Liquid Architecture Festival in Brisbane (unrecorded).
Returning to NZ, I then played a set at Lines of Flight in Dunedin – performing a live soundtrack to video footage I’d taken in Queensland. These Australian videos were some of my first uploads to www.youtube.com/@fiffdimension – now one of the platform’s longest-running channels!
“The album is a travel-document; a response to relocation, a series of sound-sketches and sonic-manipulations designed to confront (and possibly unhinge) the listener; a reflection of several journeys – an aural diary of events from time spent in Australia, evoking the mood of the place (geographically) and the mood of the time (politically).San Shimla’s occasional guitar, Francesca Mountfort’s cello and Cylvi Manthyng’s percussion and shakuhachi (a Japanese woodwind) support Dave Black.
“As Dave Edwards he has explored fuzzy-punk, free-jazz, spoken word, alternative-folk and demented pop, primarily using guitar, harmonica and voice; sometimes with a band or a backing cast at least – often as a solo artist(e). Here, as Dave Black, the palette is broadened: banjo, drums and the use of a laptop computer (triggering sounds via Fruityloops, Audacity and Audition programs) add extra textures. During 2005 Edwards studied journalism, his use of dictaphone and laptop on this recording see him reaching outside of music for influences to use in new contexts.
“The collages that form the pieces on After Maths & Sciences are modern-day field recordings, contemporary anxieties are explored (a typically frank Australian is overheard at a train station lamenting public transport in the wake of the London bombings). The juxtaposition of banjo (an instrument prominent in the work of Doc Boggs, Earl Scruggs and many of the earliest artists featured on the iconic U.S. Library Of Congress field recordings made by Alan Lomax and Harry Smith) helps to recontextualise the snapshots of modern-day Australia. And the name that Edwards has chosen, Dave Black, as well as having relevance within his family history, becomes a nice reference to the passing of The Man In Black (Johnny Cash) and various (possibly mythic) country-playing banjo pickers. For this is “country” music, though perhaps not as we know it. Birdsong, despite computer filtering, sits pure alongside the country’s archaic (near-redneck) political views. Abrasive bursts of white-noise are channelled via a throbbing electro pulse (Kraftwerk goes on safari sabbatical?).
“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
From 2012-2014 I moved to Australia a second time, and spent 2 1/2 years living in Perth, in Western Australia. Recordings from that period became the album in a Wildflower State.
I’ve also revisited ‘the lucky country’ a couple of other times since. In 2024 I played a gig in Sydney, alongside Sydneysiders Nick Dan, Anthony Guerra and Monica Brooks. The recordings are included on Live 2022-24.
fiffdimension 
