2016 roundup

2016 has been another busy year here, with several new projects that should come to fruition in 2017.

Two audience videos at the Indonesia Festival at Te Papa national museum in Wellington, NZ:

Gamelan music, in styles from Bali by Gamelan Taniwha Jaya

and central Java by Gamelan Padhang Moncar.

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Te Marae, Level 4
Sunday 23 October 2016, 10am-5pm

This was a full day of music, dance, song, and batik fashion from Indonesia.

Continue reading “Indonesia Festival at Te Papa” →

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” →