Fiji
with Snake Beings in Fiji
www.snakebeings.co.nz
Dr Emit Snake Beings is a travelling artist/musician/filmmaker/shaman/academic who was an early influence on my music.
Most recently we’ve met up in Fiji and recorded a couple of new pieces which you’ll be able to hear soon.
A new sound for 2020 perhaps?
In the meantime have a listen to the ‘Ngumbang‘ album we made together in 2015 – a fusion of several genres and a DIY manifesto – “Pick up the pieces and make them into something new, it’s what we do…”
We also made a new Indonesia-inspired electro-acoustic track for Other Islands 2012-2018:
And Other Islands 2012-2018 concluded with a Fijian folk song, inspired by my earlier visits to Fiji in 2016 and 2018
2018
The main project for 2018 was Other Islands: 2012-2018;
The last five (of the 20) tracks were recorded in 2018 – each in a different genre:
Isa Lei, and the Yasawa islands, Fiji
This rearrangement of a traditional Fijian folk song was inspired by hearing the song sung there.
In May I visited the Yasawa Islands, to the northwest of Nadi and the main Fijian island Viti Levu.
The boat ride took 3 hours, and enjoyably scenic. Each of the many small islands we passed was different in some way but all stunning
The marine life included
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Part of Other Islands: 2012-2018
– recent highlights recorded in New Zealand, Western Australia, Fiji, Indonesia and Okinawa
Other Islands: 2012-2018
fiffdimension vol3
(see also Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005 and Fame & Oblivion: 2005-2012)
brings us into the current decade – with further wide-ranging experimentation and exploration sonically, temporally and geographically, in New Zealand, Western Australia, Indonesia, Okinawa (Japan), and Fiji.
by Dave Black (acoustic & electric guitars, banjo, harmonica, laptop, bass, tenor saxophone, field recordings, piano, ukulele, sanshin, saron, jublag, demung, vocal), with
Mike Kingston (charango, acoustic guitar),
Simon Sweetman (percussion),
Nat da Hatt (electric guitar, keyboards, banjo),
Emit Snake-Beings (banjo, vocal, percussion, flute, electronics),
the Digitator (electric drums, keyboards & loops),
Campbell Kneale (electric guitar, analogue synthesiser),
Cylvi M (vocal, field recordings, percussion, shakuhachi),
Blair Latham (bass clarinet),
Simon O’Rorke (keyboards),
Chris Prosser (violin),
Julie Bevan (acoustic guitar),
plus Indonesian gamelan ensembles led by Sofari Hidayat, Budi Putra, and Gareth Farr,
a song by my great-great-grandfather John Collie (1856),
and field recordings from Western Australia, Indonesia, Okinawa (Japan), and Fiji.
Featuring tracks from the albums
The Winter: Flying Visit (2012)
in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway (1999/2014)
ネオン列車の風景 Neon Train Landscapes (2010-15)
Ngumbang (2014-15)
The Winter: Exit Points (2015)
The Electricka Zoo (2017)
and previously unheard tracks.
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- The Winter: Flying Visit (2012)
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- 安里屋ユンタオーバードライブ Asadoya Yunta Overdrive (Okinawa), 2015
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- in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway (1999/2014)
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- Ngumbang (2015)
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- The Winter: Exit Points (2015)
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- The Electricka Zoo (2017)
And hear the previous compilations
Viti Levu, Fiji
My first visit to a Pacific island country, apart from my own (though the term is ambiguous – I’m not counting Australia, Indonesia or Japan). I’d always wanted to visit Fiji, due to family connections… I may have even been conceived there. A week’s visit to Viti Levu, the largest and most populated island, in September was all too short but still a great introductory taster.
First stop was Nadi, Read the rest of this entry »
