Phantasticusis a 5 piece high-energy gypsy-flavours ensemble hailing from Wellington, the Gypsy-Balkan capital of New Zealand.
The lineup combines the fearless fiddling skills of Ana Christie and Alex Hills, matched by the awesome forces of Michael Kingston* and Rick Shaw on guitar, all wrapped up in the powerful bass boutique of Jacqui Nyman.
With an album of delicious original tunes under their belt, Phantasticus are taking the world by storm. These musicians are so well-seasoned they will leave you asking for ‘Kiwi-hot please’.
*Mike Kingston is a key member of The Winter. He plays guitar or cello on several fiffdimension tracks
A pleasant surprise this week to get a small (single figure) royalty payment from APRA for radio airplay for the shortest track from The Marion Flow, recorded back in 2001!
That goes some way towards recovering the $600 or so I spent recording the album (a lot of money for a broke student back then). I can’t claim it’s a prescient political satire that predicted this week’s news events, but maybe like the album as a whole it’s just timeless…
If you’re a fan of World Music, Blues or Jazz, then ‘The Woods’ are a must have for your collection. With influences from John Lee Hooker to Pharaoh Sanders, from Africa to Peru, their music will take you some place else…
Today is the last day of winter in the southern hemisphere – so to celebrate, here’s the fifth album from The Winter – a New Zealand free improvisation trio of Mike Kingston, Simon Sweetman and Dave Edwards… with a sound that swerves from acoustic folk/blues with hints of Asian, Celtic, and Balkan influences, to electroacoustic soundscapes, abstract dissonance, and pots & pans percussion.
Mike Kingston: guitar, bass, clarinet, electronics Dave Edwards: guitar, bass, banjo, harmonica, ukulele, sanshin, electronics Simon Sweetman: drums and percussion, electronics
Presenting the second new solo album for 2015 from Nat da Hatt!
Volume V follows hot on the heels of Kleptomania
and his previous 2012 solo masterpiece, Twango
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
Mike contributed cello, electric guitar, slide whistle, and electronic interludes. The album builds from intimate acoustic pieces towards the electric climax of “Parataxes 9”.
dedicated to the extinct NZ bird. It was the band’s last session until 2009, while Dave and Mike each went overseas. The 19-minute last track was an epic finale and a (temporary) farewell to Wellington.
In 2005, Mike and Dave both relocated across the Tasman. After Maths & Sciencesis an Australian double album recorded in Melbourne, 2005 and Sydney and Gosford in 2006.
It’s a very different record fromLoose Autumn Moans or Parataxes – part field recordings, part improvised music, part electronic experiment and part documentary. Mike played acoustic guitar on the Melbourne half.
Another thread connects the records, as two different versions of “O Henry Ending” were recorded:
on-and-off over the next twelve years (when all three were in Wellington). Mike played guitar, bass, clarinet, and charango. For highlights from their later recordings, see the
The recordings above are Mike’s contribution to the fiffdimension catalogue to date. He added jazz-trained harmonic and rhythmic sophistication, multi-instrumental capability, and a wealth of ideas to Dave’s untutored conceptual approach.
Other projects
Mike Kingston is a multi-instrumentalist front-man and composer in bands including Cumbia Blazera, ‘Bella Cajon‘ , ‘The Wagtails‘, and Phantasticus. He continues to perform regularly throughout Wellington and New Zealand, and has toured Australia and Colombia.
“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
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 muchmore 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”
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)
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:
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
