Gamelan Jadi Mata Kuliah di Selandia Baru

Gamelan Padhang Moncar featured on Metro TV news in Indonesia today.

Happy Indonesian Independence Day, 17th August!

the Ballad of William Knife

Music video from the album ‘South Island Sessions‘, set in 19th century New Zealand with an ecological theme. ‘The Ballad of William Knife’ was the name of the show we took to the Dunedin Fringe Festival in 2006.

1861 revisited – Continue reading “the Ballad of William Knife” →

安里屋ユンタオーバードライブ Asadoya Yunta Overdrive (Okinawa)

Here’s a new bonus track we’ve added to the album ネオン列車の風景 Neon Train Landscapes – our version of a traditional shima uta (island song) from 沖縄 (Okinawa).

Dave Black – sanshin, harmonica, field recordings
Nat da Hatt – acoustic & electric guitars, electronics
Cylvi Manthyng – shakuhachi

As you can hear, the music of Okinawa is quite distinct from that of mainland Japan.

Ascension Band 2004

The post-punk big band Ascension Band convened in 2003-2005… here’s the 2004 lineup performing at the Meatwaters Festival at Happy in Wellington.

Nigel Patterson – hammond organ & conductor
Dave Edwards – guitar & electronics
Mike Kingston – guitar
Jesse Toews – bass
Warwick Donald – bass
Antony Milton – violin & electronics
Damian Stewart – laptop
Jason Secto – cornet
Simon O’Rorke – percussion
Myles Climo – drums

The following year we won best music award in the 2005 Wellington Fringe Festival

Ascension Band 2005

“With elements of punk, post-punk, jazz, classical, straight rock, opera and music hall, the Ascension Band are that rare thing: Something Wholly Other. They retain avant garde cred and still manage to rock harder than AC/DC.” – www.varsity.co.nz

Dave Edwards – electric guitar & electronics
Nigel Patterson – hammond organ & conductor
Will Rattray – electric guitar
Bell Murphy – bass
Warwick Donald – bass
Murray Stewart – keyboards
Damian ‘Frey’ Stewart – laptop
Ryan Prebble – tone generator
Sam Jenks – trumpet
Felicity Perry – vocal
Atushi Iseki – vocal
Matt Baxter – drums
Greta Welson – drums

This riff

Continue reading →

Fringe Festival 2016: East to West

Here’s my first major project for 2016, as part of the New Zealand Fringe Festival:

The show is a big OE epic of video & music from the Tasman to the Atlantic, a decade in the making.

It takes the audience on a journey half way around the world from New Zealand, across Australia, via a dozen countries including Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, Russia, Albania, Portugal and more.

l’ll play a live soundtrack myself as a solo performance, to evoke each country… it’ll be a culmination of the travelling and field recording /world music direction I’ve taken over the past decade.

So far it’s screened in New Zealand Fringe Festival and also at the Southland Arts Festival in Invercargill.

My 2005 Fringe show Ascension Band won best music award. So did the 2006 Lines of Flight show in Dunedin that I was part of.

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:

www.snakebeings.co.nz

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Here’s video from my two visits to Indonesia in 2014 – a fascinating new country that I’m only just beginning to explore, and can continue to do so through gamelan (like Indonesia itself it gets more complex & interesting the more you look).

Partly because I’ve visited several countries in East Asia now, and lived in two (Japan and South Korea), Indonesia seems like something else entirely. It’s less Chinese-influenced and has a style of its own.

[Diary from September] This trip was just enough for an introductory sampler. I decided to focus on the arts this time rather than the mountains, ocean and jungle which would require more time, money and preparation.

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I had mixed results in my cultural studies mission this morning. Continue reading “Yogyakarta, Indonesia” →

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.

11949438_10153533387512380_2874393366942624543_n — Indonesian news article, 31/08/15, http://nasional.kompas.com

Gamelan Taniwha Jaya

Gamelan Taniwha Jaya, 2015

Gamelan Taniwha Jaya

Wellington Southeast Asian Night Market

Gamelan Taniwha Jaya, 2015

Gamelan Taniwha Jaya

Gamelan Taniwha Jaya, 2015

Gamelan Taniwha Jaya

Gamelan Taniwha Jaya, 2015

Gamelan Taniwha Jaya

Here are a couple of recordings of two of the pieces we played:

https://soundcloud.com/user521325057/gopala-rehearsal-feb-2015/s-l3LrV

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.