The fiffdimension 2CD compilation features original NZ music…. but none of it appears here.
Instead, each of these albums was made while living in or visiting another Asia–Pacific country. They include field recordings and indigenous instruments:
Ruasagavulu ka lima (Fiji, 2025)
Short acoustic instrumentals and Pacific islands tropical ambience – recorded in the Yasawa islands of Fiji.
(a followup to)
Ruasagavulu (Fiji, 2019-2020)
by Dave Black & Snake Beings
Made in Suva, Fiji, with Dr Emit Snake-Beings – tropical avant-garde instrumentals for keyboards, ukulele, dholak, duduk, harmonicas, DIY kitchen gamelan, and video. (2019-2020)
“So easy to get totally lost in this music, recommend for helping with your inner peace”
– Andi Verse
Gamelan Dimensi Kelima (Indonesia, 2010-2018)
Field recordings in central Java, Bali, and Nusa Penida, 2014; with gamelan ensembles recorded there – and in Perth, Australia and Wellington, New Zealand (www.gamelan.org.nz) from 2010-2018.
in a wildflower state (Western Australia, 2012-2014)
Instrumentals for guitar, banjo, didgeridoo and field recordings; made in Perth and surrounding regions, 2012-2014.
ネオン列車の風景 Neon Train Landscapes (Japan, 2011-2012)
Japanese psychedelic rock made by kiwi expats Dave Black & Nat da Hatt (2011-2012)
First Time Around: South Korea (2007-2008)
Field recordings, electro-acoustic ethnography, Asian industrial soundscapes from the land of morning calm – made in Suwon and Busan, South Korea, by Dave Black and Cylvi M (2007–2008)
First Time Around: East Asia (2007-2008)
Field recordings, sketches, soundscapes and stories fromJapan, Thailand, Vietnam, China and Mongolia, by Dave Black and Cylvi M (2007-2008)
After Maths & Sciences (Australia, 2005-2006)
An Australian double-album novel for the ear, recorded in Melbourne VIC, and Sydney and Gosford NSW, by Dave Black with Cylvi M, Mike Kingston and Francesca Mountfort (2005-2006)
“There are New Zealand artists working in this medium (Montano, Seht, Audible 3) combining concrete poetry, field recordings, found-sounds and electro-acoustic manipulations to sit as aural wallpaper, but Dave Black’s debut release (and a re-birth, if you like, for David Edwards) is an actual document – as much a post-modern piece of Performance Journalism as it is a static batch of “songs” or tracks, After Maths & Sciences is a pleasing challenge of an album. It lives up to the cliché of presenting something new with each listen,”
– Simon Sweetman
Poems and Lyrics by John Collie (Scotland, 1856)
A folk-influenced adaptation of the book, written in 19th century Scotland by my great-great-grandfather:
“T’were a noble sight to see the mighty men of old, who bled that their countries might be free from the tyrants’ fatal hold – yet I’d deem it a nobler sight by far to behold the sons of the harp & lyre!” – John Collie
fiffdimension 