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.
There’s my first video from Bali, from footage taken on my earlier visit in August. Note the gamelan (bronze percussion) and rindik (bamboo percussion) soundtrack.
I left my job in Perth and am on my way home to New Zealand, so I’m nervous about jobhunting & starting all over again (again). On the way home I’m spending a week on a smaller island, Nusa Penida, doing conservation volunteer work with www.fnpf.org If you’d like to help me afford to stay longer and make more of a contribution ($20 = 1 day’s expenses) please 
– or even better, buy some of our music.
A few years ago I wrote a chapter of Jazz Aotearoa, a book about New Zealand jazz music history, discussing the free improvisation and avant-garde jazz scene in Wellington at the turn of the millennium.
in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway is a collection of improvised instrumental music with some of the musicians in that scene, from the point of view of my own attempts as an untrained outsider to fit in with these advanced jazz players – including Jeff Henderson, Blair Latham , Paul Winstanley, Dan Beban, Julie Bevan and more.
The title is a reference to Simon’s house on Norway Street, where the recordings took place. The ‘non idiomatic idiom’ suggests the paradox that improvising non-idiomatically (eg in an original personal style without reference to any genre – playing neither jazz, nor rock, blues, reggae, classical etc) is an idiom in itself.
It was recorded in Wellington in two halves, in 1999
Simon O’Rorke – percussion
Paul Winstanley – synth bass
Blair Latham – alto sax
Jeff Henderson – clarinet
Bridget Kelly – tenor sax
Dan Beban – electric guitar
Dave Edwards – electric and acoustic guitars
and 2014, to show an evolution.
Simon O’Rorke – synthesisers
Blair Latham – bass clarinet
Julie Bevan – acoustic guitar
Michael Hall – alto sax
Chris Prosser – violin
Dave Edwards – bass, electronics, tenor sax
In 2024 Simon O’Rorke struck up a new collaboration with Dave Edwards, this time in the Wairarapa, as a trio with Antony Milton named The Margins:
Free improvisation is a genre of music with a self-explanatory name. Nothing is planned in advance, and the performers create the music on the spot by responding to what the others are doing in that moment.
Continue reading “in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway (part 1, 1999)”Nusa Penida is a smaller island between Bali and Lombok, about an hour by boat from Sanur in Bali.
I spent a week as a volunteer with Friends of the National Parks Foundation. I helped with feeding the Bali starlings (critically endangered due to poachers – the population was down to 10 at one point but is now over 100 thanks to the translocation project), along with plant nursery maintenance, a beach cleanup of plastic waste, and construction of the new FNPF premises (thatched huts on a terraced hillside, and gardens that will be beautiful once established).
Nusa Penida is much less developed than Bali, and resembles Bali as it might have been 40 years ago before the tourism boom. Accomodation is simple, with basic facilities (eg cold showers – actually very pleasant in the tropical climate – bucket-flush toilets, and limited food variety).
For tourists it offers great snorkelling & diving,
and enough Hindu temples & local colour to make it interesting culturally. It’s nice to not be hassled to buy things as much as in Bali. Mostly people just say ‘hello’ (in some cases it’s the only English word they know).
I also need to mention The Gallery, run by an English expat Mike Appleton – it’s THE place to go for local information, language interpretation, western food, and to support local artists.
The main amenity I missed was reliable internet connections – there was no access at all for five of the nine days I was there, and when it was available it was patchy & unreliable even at the one internet cafe in town. Lesson from this for me was to finish all travel bookings before going somewhere remote like this. Even back here in Bali the connection is too slow for me to upload any sounds or other photos, so I’ll add more later.
I also had a motorbike accident, though not the kind you’d expect. Continue reading “Nusa Penida, Indonesia”
A White Suit Walking:
30 Days a Statue.
If you’ve never been to Asia before, don’t speak any Asian languages, and have only a day or two available, Singapore would be a great introduction.
You can find tropical rainforest and the sea, traditional and modern architecture, and the cultures of China, India, the Middle East and the West all in one city.Most people speak English, buses are frequent and on time, and it even has a nice airport complete with indoor gardens.
Just try not to think what it would cost to live here… and with Malaysia and Indonesia still to go on this trip I imagine things will get more chaotic as I go! I made some sound recordings, which will find their way into some new music pieces eventually. In the meantime here are a few photos.
Richard Morrison: jaw harp, Korg synthesizer, samples
Nathan Palmer: guitar, Korg vocoder, samples, thumb piano
Mixed and engineered by Nathan Palmer. Continue reading “Mezcla de Refresco”
East to West brings together for the first time two of New Zealand’s more unusual artist/musician/filmmaker/ethnomusicologists, taking the audience on an epic journey from one side of the Eurasian continent to another in the space of an hour. Continue reading “Dave Black & Snake Beings: East to West”
As well as recording music together, we completed a six-day hiking mission across the northern alps in July 2012, from Kamikochi to Toyama.
The album closes with our rendition of a traditional Okinawa shima uta (island song). It’s a tribute to Japan’s southernmost island prefecture, where Dave lived in 2011/12. The ‘overdrive’ is a tribute to early Pink Floyd, reflecting the psychedelic update of the tune.
Nat da Hatt – electric & acoustic guitars, drum machine, synths, laptop, samples
Dave Black – bass, banjo, acoustic guitar (5), electric guitar (3), loop pedal, electronics, laptop, field recordings
| 1. | 東京から槍ヶ岳 Tokyo to Yarigatake 03:38 |
| 2. | 携帯電話 Keitai Denwa 05:43 |
| 3. | 幸せとは何？What actually is happiness? 04:17 |
| 4. | 剃毛電球ブルース Shaved Lightbulb Blues 04:18 |
| 5. | 福岡に到着 Arrival in Fukuoka 04:41 |
| 6. | 電機市 Denki Ken 03:58 |
| 7. | 平仮名 Hiragana 04:57 |
| 8. | 薬師岳から漓江まで Yakushidake to Li Jiang 05:07 |
| 9. | 安里屋ユンタオーバードライブ Asadoya Yunta Overdrive (Okinawa) 05:20 |
Nat da Hatt also contributes guest tracks to
and
fiffdimension 