Film footage by my father, Alastair Edwards (1936-2010), in Nadi and around Viti Levu in 1976.
It’s from my parents’ honeymoon, a couple of years before I was born.
There was no sound, so I’ve added a soundtrack from Ruasagavulu, which Dr Emit Snake-Beings and I recorded in Suva decades later.
My Dad’s interest in film (then video) and photography was one of the key influences on my own travel and videomaking. He was doing this long before youtube or instagram!
Dave and Cylvi at Dadaepo beach, Busan, South Korea
Korean gayageum, 2007
Busan, South Korea
Busan, South Korea
Geumjeong, Busan, South Korea
Busan, South Korea
Suwon, South Korea
The pieces here are made from remixed field recordings of traditional Korean musicians, and instruments such as the gayageum, taepyongso, buddhist chants and samulnori drumming, plus our live version of the folk song ‘Arirang’.
The set, at Wairarapa TV in Masterton, New Zealand, was streamed live on the internet on 4th of May 2019.
For the past couple of years I’ve been living in a small town and don’t get to as many gigs as I used to… so here was an opportunity to use 21st century technology to play ‘virtually’ everywhere.
On the other hand musically this was closer to a traditional folk/singer-songwriter set than I’d done for quite a while. I eschewed dissonant improv, multitracking, live backing musicians, field recordings, or electronic trickery this time, and used just acoustic guitar, banjo, and harmonica (and a few seconds of wah pedal on ‘Eastern’).
I also released a companion album to Live 2019 – its stroppier lo-fi postpunk ‘official bootleg’ predecesor Live 1999. This was recorded on cassette 20 years (or half my lifetime) ago, when I opened for Chris Knox at Bar Bodega in Wellington NZ last millennium:
* and I continued to adapt the 19th century book ‘Poems & Lyrics by John Collie’, which I’d learned was written by my Scottish great-great-grandfather in 1856 before he came to NZ. Three of his poems featured on Live 2019, with more in the pipeline.
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
“It’s lo-fi, organic and about as eclectic as one could manage. Kind of reminds me of Nick Cave if he had grown up in Timaru. No pretentious American accents or catch phrase choruses, just a bunch of people making music. A little beauty!” – NZ Musician, August/September 2002
The Marion Flow was originally a longer album which spanned recordings from New Plymouth in 1999 and Wellington in 2001.
In 1999, aged 20, I’d left New Plymouth, a large rural town, where I grew up, and moved to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city, where I’d been born and where my early pakeha settler ancestors had lived in the 19th century. The Marion Flow reflects this journey, geographically, sonically and spiritually.
By the time the opportunity arose to finish recording the Marion Flow I’d been thoroughly immersed in the Wellington free jazz and avant-garde music scene, and was very fortunate to have help from some of the top players there. I’d never studied music at school or been in a conventional band, and was out of my depth technically… so working around my limitations became a spark to creativity.
I’ve now reissued the two halves of the album separately – to emphasise the sense of time and place, and stylistic evolution, and to re-present them more concisely for the short-attention-span 21st century.
“Edwards’ music is often a sculpture rather than a melodic composition. Within this chosen form, amongst all the writings rantings & poetry there’s much difficult pleasure to be had for the musically adventurous.” – Brent Cardy, Real Groove, July 2002
Tracklist
1.
Seafriends 03:07 Dave Edwards – acoustic guitar, vocal Paul Winstanley – fretless bass Chris Palmer – electric guitars Chris O’Connor – drums
2.
A Wedding 03:48 Dave Edwards – electric guitar, piano innards, canvas sheet, vocal
3.
A Visit to the Beehive 00:45 Dave Edwards – acoustic guitar, vocal Simon O’Rorke – drums
4.
Monkeys with Typewriters 03:30 Dave Edwards – electric guitar Chris Palmer – electric guitar Simon O’Rorke – percussion
Seafriends (instrumental mix) 04:05 Dave Edwards – acoustic guitar Paul Winstanley – fretless bass Chris Palmer – electric guitars Chris O’Connor – drums
“It’s lo-fi, organic and about as eclectic as one could manage. Kind of reminds me of Nick Cave if he had grown up in Timaru. No pretentious American accents or catch phrase choruses, just a bunch of people making music. A little beauty!” – NZ Musician, August/September 2002
The “hit single” Banana Wizard was released on a compilation of Taranaki music and had some student radio airplay around the country… about the extent of my commercial success to date.
I was also opening my ears and mind to more experimental sounds, and moving beyond conventional pop song structures.
At the same sessions we recorded free improvisations, which Paul later overdubbed and rearranged into
Taranakiimprovisedrock/noise deconstruction with sputtering synth, air-sucking turntables, didgeridoo and sundry toys providing layers of surreal abstraction (1999)
“after recording tracks for The Marion Flow at Wafer HQ in New Plymouth, an ad hoc group of associated locals assembled to record… the only rock references here come from the guitars… throw in some spoken word and a special guest appearance by N.P. record mogul Brian Wafer on vacuum cleaner and the dAdApApA nova had blazed and fizzled in the blink of an eye” – Eden Gully
& then I got to the capital city, and was suddenly a small fish in a bigger pond…
Part 2, Wellington
Dave Edwards, at Bar Bodega, Wellington NZ, 1999
Here’s what I sounded like around the time I arrived in Wellington – this solo postpunk set at Bar Bodega, opening for Chris Knox, was preserved (in lo-fi, a 90s aesthetic):
But apart from songs I also fell under the influence of the burgeoning avant garde and free improv scene in Wellington.
This was centred around a venue called the Space (later Fred’s and then the Pyramid Club)… the dissonant flipside of the more popular smooth Pasifika/jazz sound the city became known for (Fat Freddy’s Drop et al).
Although way out of my depth technically, I met up with improvising percussionist Simon O’Rorke, and jazz-trained players including Blair Latham and Jeff Henderson to make
fiffdimension 