A track from the Loose Autumn Moans album – originally recorded in 2003, and recently played live for the first time in 20 years!
Continue reading “The Hurricane Wrangle”The Hurricane Wrangle
Category: tracks
Auld Satan when ye first gae through
A ‘darker’ piece from Poems & Lyrics by John Collie (1856)
AULD Satan , when ye first gae through Your regions dark and awful , A sma ‘ bit favour I would crave , Gif ye but think it lawful .
Gie my respects to Souter Will , The first time ye forgather ; And tell him that I’m wae to think Him lost for a ’ thegither .
For ministers and others say He straught to you was taken ; ‘ Cause he the creed o ‘ Scotland’s kirk Had mony a day forsaken .
Gif that be true , as it may be , Though faith I’m misbelieving , You ne’er met wi ‘ a slier coof , Since ye took to deceiving.
But use him well , and gif ye can , Oh gie ‘ im a bit promotion ; O ‘ a ‘ your buts and a ‘ your bens He ‘ shortly hae a notion .
But keep him aye beneath your thumb , And work him smooth and sweetly ; Or o’er your head he’ll tak your trade , And dam your luck completely .
credits
from Poems & Lyrics (in the Scotch dialect) (1856), releases August 10, 2023
The Wind Always Gets Through
Music video by The Troubled Times (Antony Milton, Dave Edwards, David Heath)
from forthcoming CD ‘Another Sunday’
Continue reading “The Wind Always Gets Through”Assembling disconsonant
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
“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
Autumn
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”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 .
w/ Hans Landon-Lane, 3 January 2022
Happy new year! Here are some first recordings for 2022, made on 3rd of January,
with Hans Landon-Lane (my nephew) on accordion, ukulele and vocal:
‘Here’s a Health to my Cronies’
Continue reading “w/ Hans Landon-Lane, 3 January 2022”Outono 21
A new multilayered Dave Black electric improv / xenochronous composition.
The track continues the evolution of my Wairarapa one man band 2020s ‘late style’, which began with Glimpses of Utopia (2020) and Spastic Rhythms (2021)
It was originally created for the Psi-solation+1 – 2021 compilation album curated by fellow Featherston resident Campbell Kneale. He’s known for his noise music, paintings of cats, and as proprietor of the Miracle Room.
Continue reading “Outono 21”PSI-SOLATION + 1 (one year on)
2021 compilation album curated by Campbell Kneale. He’s known for his noise music, paintings of cats, and as proprietor of the Miracle Room gallery in Featherston.
A sequel to his acclaimed 119-track Psi-solation compilation of music made in lockdown 2020.
Both albums are pay what you want via Campbell’s label, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon.
I contributed a new Dave Black piece, Outono 21.
Continue reading “PSI-SOLATION + 1 (one year on)”ilhas Atlânticas
This track is dedicated to my great-great-grandfather Manuel Bernard.
He was born in 1847 in Ponta Delgada, Flores Island, Azores, Portugal.
It appeared as the last track on Spastic Rhythms vol 1 (2021), in a Dave Black solo rendition of a piece by the Electricka Zoo.
It originally appeared on The Electricka Zoo (2017), and on the Other Islands: 2012-2018 compilation. It’s based around a (non-diatonic) Cmaj7 – Amaj7 pattern, with a bossa nova rhythm.
The words are in (beginner) Portuguese:
Eu gosto de falar
no meus ancestrais
de as ilhas Atlânticas
Madeiras e Açores
Portugal is the westernmost country in Europe, with its back to it geographically and culturally. It was the edge of the known world for Europeans until the Age of Discovery. The Azores islands are even further west.
As a teenager, Manuel Bernard stowed away on a passing American whaling ship.
From a remote island in the Atlantic ocean, he ended up on an equally remote island in the Pacific – on the opposite side of the world, in Wellington, New Zealand.
Continue reading “ilhas Atlânticas”Gar mar par da nee sa
the opening track from Ruasagavulu
by Dave Black & Snake-Beings
recorded in Suva, Fiji, 2nd November 2019
This short warmup improv is based on an Indian scale, inspired by Dr Emit Snake-Beings‘ travels to Kerala in India, and harmonium lessons in Suva.
There’s an Indian influence throughout the album, as several sections are based on drones and modal improv (rather than the chord changes)… though this is not a traditional Indian album, we’ve borrowed ideas to inform our own experiments.
The temple in the photo is Sri Siva Subramaniya in Nadi. It’s built in the Dravidian style from southern India, which is also found in Singapore and Malaysia.
In contrast to other Pacific Island countries, Fiji has a large – almost half – population of Indian descent. Indians came to Fiji in the 19th century, as indentured labourers to work the sugar cane plantations.
fiffdimension 