The Winter: 2003-2015

Simon Sweetman – drums, percussion

Mike Kingston – guitars, cello (2-5), clarinet (7,11,14), charango (7,10)

Dave Edwards – guitars, vocal (3), harmonica (4,7,9), banjo (7), ukulele (7,9,11), saxophone (10,14), piano (10), bass (12,13), electronics (6,8,13)

Wellington, New Zealand,
free improv music trio, formed on winter solstice day June 2003.

An archive compilation,

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Articulation Incommunicate (2004)

Previously unreleased!

Dictaphone cassette recordings, Wellington NZ, 2004

Spoken word and improvised guitar; a journey down the road not taken for New Zealand music.

Dave Edwards – acoustic guitar, harmonica, dictaphone, electronics, electric guitar (11), violin (12), vocal

w/
Youjae Lee – bass (12)
Simon O’Rorke – percussion (12)
Simon Sweetman – ukulele, toys, percussion (15)

The tracks were primitively recorded, based on words scribbled in notebooks, unheard by anyone else (until 2020), and seemed like unfinished demos at the time; but in hindsight represent the culmination of my early period (a lo-fi postpunk fusion of songs, spoken word and free improv – www.fiffdimension.com/1997-2005).

By 2004 my style was wordy; the influences here were literary modernists as much as music – eg Burroughs, Joyce, Beckett, Pynchon, Dylan (Thomas), and NZ poets James K Baxter, Alan Brunton and Hone Tuwhare. My guitar heroes included free improviser Derek Bailey, my Mississippi bluesman namesake David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards, and the kiwi musicians found in my bandcamp collection – www.bandcamp.com/fiffdime

‘Articulation Incommunicate’ includes an abrasive electric guitar, dictaphone and electric razor performance at the Bomb the Space Festival (youtu.be/8UFpX7catqw – one of my very few music videos to have over a thousand views… go figure…

Huia Vortex

Animated visuals, 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 Hatt

The title ‘Huia Vortex’ refers to the location where the track was recorded, in Huia, a small village on the outskirts of west Auckland.

It’s not necessarily related to ‘Swansong (for the Huia)‘ (2004), the second album by The Winter, an electro-acoustic trio improvisation in tribute to the extinct New Zealand bird the huia by Dave Edwards, Mike Kingston, and Simon Sweetman. Its 19-minute final track remains an underrated fiffdimension epic. [send us your review]

Ascension Band 2004

The post-punk big band Ascension Band convened in 2003-2005… here’s the 2004 lineup performing at the Meatwaters Festival at Happy in Wellington.

Nigel Patterson – hammond organ & conductor
Dave Edwards – guitar & electronics
Mike Kingston – guitar
Jesse Toews – bass
Warwick Donald – bass
Antony Milton – violin & electronics
Damian Stewart – laptop
Jason Secto – cornet
Simon O’Rorke – percussion
Myles Climo – drums

The following year we won best music award in the 2005 Wellington Fringe Festival

Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005

“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

Now available from Spotify, Bandcamp etc

A compilation of songs, spoken word and instrumentals from the first half of my gloriously unsuccessful career to date: