Tracks from the Masterton gigs appear on
Live 2022-24
Thanks everyone !

Looking forward to returning on 15 July with The Troubled Times!
1856 to 2026 – DIY outsider music, from Aotearoa NZ and beyond
Tracks from the Masterton gigs appear on
Thanks everyone !

Looking forward to returning on 15 July with The Troubled Times!
This was chronologically the last piece recorded on the Acoustic yin / Electric yang 2CD, released to celebrate the 25th anniversary of fiffdimension in 2023.
“I liked the lyrics… the the way meaning gets assembled through shattered snap shots of a picture we may never see”
– Dr Emit Snake-Beings
New improvisational raw material post-composed & aleatory generative texts added, in a kiwi accent:
I did the bass improvisation first, then played along with it on guitar and banjo, then improvised vocals with nonsensical words (Paul McCartney conjuring ‘get back’ in the documentary), transcribed, rewrote into English words (if not grammar), and fed that into Google search and read out cutups (Burroughs) of the search results to supplement it… I’ve had hangups for years about writing, so was looking for ways to short circuit my conscious doubt.
the title ‘assembling disconsonant’ describes the method?
meaning is optional
chance methods are supplementary
but starting with the bass part ensures the whole thing is built on a (human) groove
& stylistically a middle aged update of (early 2000s) solo pieces like https://fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/track/in-a-who-gets-to-who-who-does-him :
Assembling disconsonant,
(fine do it all in half take);
hours of wisdom, years of folly.Far digressed – how far digressed at a woeful seed inconsolate engraver’s nest
How hard to be in vainHow many times of an awkward persuasion upon the twenty years and twenty more and hence the days of which were gone & now to rest.
A suitor sang he was inclined to raise the best achievements blessed & heard the worst & called a hearse & vain & vaguely followed favour on the rest declined.
Declined in favour on the rest to be the best & live in vain achiever’s nest with leave was blesst & obviating scrying
Meticulously dragged upon & a bird’s beak greed construed with macroeconomic trade sessions, subscriptions now open declined (the underappreciated Old Testament Galatians had suffered great reproach). Many afflictions & persecutions, theoretical thrifty gene.Nothing more than had to be at said, nothing more that had to be at days, tomb towards them in time, hand the rest in brave the test in mouth begotten porcupine time expands in furtive graze to grind.
The only hope for awkward days
In said to be at sun was said to set in severed set in needle’s rest in groove.Nonsensical of syllables attempting to reinstitute a thing for an institution only slightly half dizzy – he’d gotten off work at only 5:20…
released May 6, 2023
Dave Black – bass, classical guitar, banjo, vocal
Recorded in Featherston, New Zealand, May 2023
It’s the first day of autumn (2023) here in the southern hemisphere (good riddance to Cyclone Gabrielle, which caused devastation in other parts of the North Island), so here’s a track from Poems & Lyrics (in the English Dialect) (1856):
Continue reading “Autumn (by John Collie, 1856)”AGAIN old Autumn murmurs from the hill , His annual toils already are begun ; His angry blast howls down the fertile vale , Gust after gust with melancholy moan .
The first physical format release from Masterton trio The Troubled Times is a loud and noisy nocturnal romp – through the hills and onto the gravel back roads of one of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s least visited regions.
Whilst earlier digital releases have veered from arty drone pieces to synth pop and heavy space rock the music on ‘Hill Road In Winter’ is more like a psychedelic pub jam band gone BRILLIANTLY ‘wrong’. Woozy blues paeans slip sideways into feedback freakouts and heavy Hawkwind-like stomps attempt to transition into songs by The Fall.
All recorded ‘New Zealand style’ in my garage.If we weren’t such raving greenies here at Small Town Electron we’d put this tape forward as the PERFECT album for a lengthy nocturnal drive. – Antony Milton
