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,

Continue reading “The Winter: 2003-2015”

Articulation Incommunicate (2004)

Previously unreleased! 

Dave Edwards dictaphone cassette recordings 2004, for spoken word and improvised guitar – a trip down a road not taken for New Zealand music.

Bomb the Space Festival, Wellington NZ, 2004

These tracks were primitively recorded, not just obscure but completely unheard by anyone else, and seemed like raw unfinished demos at the time – but in hindsight may be the culmination of my 1997-2005 early period (a fusion of original songs, spoken word and free improv).

By 2004 my style was wordy, dense with allusions, and deliberately flouted not only verse/chorus structures but grammatical convention in parts; the influences here were literary modernists as much as music – eg  Joyce, Beckett, Burroughs, Pynchon, Dylan (Thomas), and New Zealand poets James K Baxter, Alan Brunton and Hone Tuwhare. I was a postgrad journalism student that year, so partly it was spare time relief from the constraints of non-fiction writing.

My guitar heroes included British free improviser Derek Bailey and my Mississippi bluesman namesake David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards – and fellow explorers in the New Zealand underground music scene.

Wellington, New Zealand

The album is rounded out by an abrasive noise guitar, dictaphone and electric razor performance at the Bomb the Space Festival (the youtube clip is one of my few music videos to have over a thousand views… go figure),

and a pair of free improvisations, with percussionists Simon O’Rorke and Simon Sweetman, and Korean bassist Youjae Lee.

Next, needing a change of scenery, having pushed the singer/songwriter envelope as far as I could, and following some last ensemble collaborations with Ascension Band,

and The Winter

the next year I left the country on my OE and took a different approach again….

Continue reading “Articulation Incommunicate (2004)”

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.

Dave Black & Emit Snake-Beings

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:

by Dave Edwards (acoustic & electric guitars, harmonica, bass, banjo, vocal)

with

Mike Kingston (cello, acoustic guitar),

Paul Winstanley (fretless bass, turntables),

Simon Sweetman (percussion),

Nigel Patterson (hammond organ),

Cylvi M (percussion),

Simon O’Rorke (percussion),

Francesca Mountfort (cello),

Jeff Henderson (clarinet),

Blair Latham (alto sax),

Sam Prebble (violin, percussion),

Chris Palmer (electric guitar),

Chris O’Connor (drums),

Antony Milton (violin, keyboards),

Frey (laptop),

Dean Brown (drums)

and more…

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Featuring tracks from the albums

Scratched Surface (1997-1998)

in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway (1999/2014)

The Marion Flow (1999-2001)

Mantis Shaped and Worrying (2002)

The Winter: Parataxes (2003)

Loose Autumn Moans (2003)

Live 2004 (2004)

After Maths & Sciences (2005-2006)

… if you enjoy this, try the sequels Fame & Oblivion: 2005-2012 and Other Islands: 2012-2018