Thanks to Brent for the photos and to everyone who came along to the Pyramid Club on Thursday!
The Winter’s new album ‘Exit Points’ is now available!
Continue reading “The Winter at Pyramid Club, 2015”Category: Music
Mike Kingston
Mike Kingston is a multi-instrumentalist front-man and composer in bands such as Cumbia Blazera, ‘Bella Cajon‘ , ‘The Wagtails‘, and Phantasticus. He continues to perform regularly throughout Wellington and New Zealand.
From 2003-2015 he was a key member of The Winter (with Dave Edwards and Simon Sweetman).
He also played cello on Loose Autumn Moans (2003),
electric guitar in the 2003-2004 lineups of Ascension Band (in his San Shimla alias),
and acoustic guitar on (the Melbourne half of) After Maths & Sciences (2005).
Some of Mike’s other projects (besides the fiffdimension collaborations) include:
Scratched Surface
The debut album from fiffdimension!
“Worth searching out coz this lo-fi singer/songwriter oddball has a unique take on the genre. He’s pissed off, a tad fucked up (as usual), but not full of lugubrious self-pity (as unusual) and is happy to get raucous & obnoxious in just the right kinda way.” – Chris Knox
Listen
About
Scratched Surface is a genuine 1990s teenage no-budget lo-fi post-punk singer-songwriter artifact from the Taranaki, New Zealand underground. It includes both electric and acoustic tracks1.
The title alludes to its status as a first effort from fiffdimension2, with much more to come (‘scratching the surface’). It also suggests scratches on a disc, reflecting the lo-fi production values and a slightly ‘damaged’ pre-millennial teenager outlook.
I didn’t come from a conventional musical background. Instead of learning to play cover songs first, I skipped straight to writing my own3. The musicianship is rudimentary, and the lyrics are full of youthful angst – but also self-aware humour and ironic detachment.
“One day I’m gonna be a star, but I can’t be bothered to practice my guitar.
I’m not gonna sing you a cover song, ’cause I’d only make it sound all wrong.
I got the ‘can’t play for shit and my voice is shot to hell’ blues”
The album also includes early forays into free improvisation, in tracks like King Street Boogie and Eat the Noise.
It was recorded on analogue reel-to-reel and cassette tapes, and self-released on CD-R. The online reissue includes download-only bonus tracks and previously unreleased material.
Credits
- Dave Edwards – acoustic and electric guitar, harmonica, vocal, lyrics
- Tim McVicar – bass (2, 12, 14), percussion (3), electric guitar (12, 13)
- Brett, Ross, Tammy, Dawn et al – percussion and vocals (15-16)
Recorded in New Plymouth, NZ, 1997-1998
Special thanks to Alastair Edwards, Keith Finnerty, Karl Taylor, Brian Wafer
Tracklist
Continue reading “Scratched Surface”Snake Beings
Dr Emit Snake-Beings – founder of the Hamilton Underground Film Festival, composer, musician and electrical shrine maker – is a New Zealand / British experimental filmmaker and musician. He has produced over 40 independently released film soundtrack CDs, and made a number of short experimental and narrative films in Spain, U.K. and New Zealand.
His music includes two duo albums with fiffdimension:
Ngumbang (Huia, 2014/15)
and
Ruasagavulu (Fiji, 2019/20)
He also appears on
Gamelan Dimensi Kelima (Indonesia)
His other projects include:
- / 2014 Maggotism International (on-going self-generating travelogue sound collage)
- / 2010 The construction of Karen Karnak (novel)
- / 2010 A D Normal Snakebeings Lake Train Temple
- / 2010 Oscillator Maggotman
- / 2004 Ghost Ship Creakings RG Shaw Snakebeings
- / 2004 Fracture Floor With Anthony Milton
- / 2003 Kaosphere Orchestra Circus Mutations
- / 2002 Kaosphere Orchestra Soundscapes For Alchemical Pilgrimage
- / 1999 Sinister Makes A Snakebeings Compilation
- / 1994 Horror FLutes International Instruments
- / 1991-1995 Film Soundtracks Of Snakebeings
www.snakebeings.co.nz
Nat da Hatt: Kleptomania
Presenting the new solo album from Nat da Hatt!
Nat da Hatt is a political refugee from New Zealand who has settled in Japan where he spends his days in a cave creating tone paintings on an array of devices and instruments including: guitar, thumb piano and a Korg vocoder.
He’s also collaborated with fiffdimension’s Dave Black on the 2014 explicitly Japanese psychedelic album
ネオン列車の風景 Neon Train Landscapes
and some 2015 collaborations in progress
as well as with American jaw-harp maestro Richard Morrison as Mezcla de Refresco
and here’s his previous 2012 solo masterpiece, Twango
Ngumbang
The first collaboration with even more legendary & underground NZ artist Snake Beings.
Listen
About
Ngumbang is the first collaborative album by two of New Zealand’s more unusual artist/musician/filmmaker/ethnomusicologists.
Performed on guitars, bass, banjo, percussion, saxophones, clarinets, harmonicas, synthesisers, Okinawan sanshin, ukulele, violin, loop pedal, piano, drums and spoken word.
The title ‘Ngumbang’ is an Indonesian word that refers to the slight difference in tuning between a pair of gamelan instruments, which gives gamelan music its shimmering quality.
The album name reflects a shared interest in ethnomusicology and experimentation, and the almost-but-not-quite-equivalent approaches of these two artists.
The album was recorded in and near Auckland, New Zealand in 2014–2015 and includes live performances at Vitamin S and the Audio Foundation.
Emit Snake-Beings,
who over several decades has travelled intensively in Spain, Holland, the Middle East, Mexico, America and Japan, is a New Zealand / British experimental filmmaker and musician who has produced over 40 independently released film soundtrack CDs and made a number of short experimental and narrative films in Spain, U.K. and New Zealand. www.snakebeings.co.nz
Dave Black,
originally from Taranaki and active since the late 90s on the NZ underground music scene, began by fusing acoustic songs, noisy postpunk, spoken word and avant-garde improvisation – and has diversified further from there. Notable performances include the award-winning 14-piece Ascension Band, appearing as an international artist at the Liquid Architecture Festival in Brisbane, Australia, and teaching a thousand Okinawan school students to perform a haka. www.fiffdimension.com
Tracklist
| 1. | Huia Vortex (feat. Nat da Hatt) 03:56 |
| 2. | The Feathered Serpent Sings Again 05:13 |
| 3. | Illbelly Gritts 03:57 |
| 4. | Watching a Painting Melt 01:47 |
| 5. | さくら さくら (Japanese folk song) – live at the Audio Foundation 04:52 |
| 6. | Pig in the Bamboo 01:47 |
| 7. | Live at Vitamin S (#1.5) 04:37 |
| 8. | Pick up the Pieces (after the gig) 04:48 |
| 9. | Pick up the Pieces (after the jam session) 04:45 |
| 10. | Ornery Return Cravings 02:40 |
| 11. | kuningan dan perunggu (Indonesian brass and bronze) 02:50 |
| 12. | So Long Notes 06:01 |
Further Listening
Continue reading “Ngumbang”Gamelan Taniwha Jaya 2015
Thanks to everyone who came to see Gamelan Taniwha Jaya play in Wellington recently!
Gopala
Tabuh Telu
In 2015 we’ve also performed at the Newtown Festival, the Southeast Asian Night Market, and Indonesia Day.
Wellington Southeast Asian Night Market
Gamelan Taniwha Jaya
Gamelan Taniwha Jaya
Gamelan Taniwha Jaya
Gamelan Taniwha Jaya, 2015
Gamelan Taniwha Jaya, 2015
Gamelan Taniwha Jaya
Gamelan Taniwha Jaya, 2015
Gamelan Taniwha Jaya, 2015
Gamelan Taniwha Jaya
Gamelan Taniwha Jaya
Gamelan Taniwha Jaya, 2015
Here are a couple of recordings of two of the pieces we played:
https://soundcloud.com/user521325057/margapati-rehearsal-feb-2015/s-rQW6u
These are in the Balinese gong kebyar style of gamelan, which is loud, fast, intricate and modernist. For more info see http://gamelan.org.nz/
Gamelan Taniwha Jaya is a group of New Zealand musicians dedicated to the study and performance of Balinese music. They specialise in contemporary music for Gamelan Gong Kebyar, and frequently incorporate western instruments into the ensemble. Continue reading “Gamelan Taniwha Jaya 2015”
Kalbarri, Western Australia
Music and video by Dave Black & Cylvi Manthyng from a road trip north from Perth, Western Australia. Kalbarri is a small town of just over a thousand people, known for its rocky coastline, red landscape, spring flowers, and pounding surf.
a coiled didgeridoo
in Western Australia, 2013
acoustic guitar & banjo
The Road to Bogandoor
Election night 2013 in Australia mix –
At the time I lived in Perth, WA.
And Australia Day music video from an unfinished Aussie album… enjoy!
Music by Nat da Hatt & Dave Black with Snake Beings, video by Dave Black and Cylvi Manthyng
See also – our first Australian album, After Maths & Sciences,
and Dave Black & Nat da Hatt in Japan: ネオン列車の風景 Neon Train Landscapes
2014 roundup
Bye 2014 – overall a pretty good year here.
Most importantly we put out two new albums in contrasting styles: ネオン列車の風景 Neon Train Landscapes 
and in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway.
The first was a composed Japanese psychedelic rock album while the second showcased the free improvised music I’d been influenced by in my earlier years in Wellington.
It was also a good year for travel to southeast Asia: I visited Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia for the first time… and I finally returned home to New Zealand after two years living in Western Australia and a year before that in Okinawa.
fiffdimension 
