28 February – BTU zine launch

Join us to launch Beneath the Underdog (BTU), an old-school DIY, fanzine focusing on local music, arts and ideas from the fringes. With BTU we hope to shine a wee spotlight on people doing interesting and creative things and comment on things we think deserve attention.

Be the first to get your hands on Issue 1 (bound to become a rare collector’s item!), and get down to live sets from our friends and fellow contributors, Ken Double, Zac Winterwood and FFSE (Featherston Free Sound Ensemble).

And if that wasn’t awesome enough already, you will also be among the first ever visitors to Murtle Chickpea’s Tiny Travelling Art Gallery, full of tiny little pieces of art (for sale!), which Murtle will be bringing along for the night.

PLUS, merch and RAFFLE to boot!!

Entry $10 (includes a copy of the zine!)

4 Wakefield St, Featherston, New Zealand

Goblins (2024)

Electroacoustic, slow burn, noisy in part, moods inverted, deep in imaginary forest.

Listen

credits

released February 19, 2026

Dave Edwards – bass, glockenspiel (1,3,6), electric guitar (3,5,6), e-drum (2,4), pitch-shifted gong (3.6), clarinet (7)

Previously unreleased solo instrumental recordings from 2024;
expands on the possibilities of fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/album/jovial-blade-7-2024

————-
Recorded in Featherston, NZ, 2024. Editing finished off February 2026.

Photos taken in the ‘Goblin forest’ of Mt Taranaki, NZ (on a visit back to my hometown of New Plymouth)..

Tracklist

1.	Goblins 02:301.
2.	Trail of Breadcrumbs 03:12
3.	Oberon 07:49
4.	by Jupiter 04:42
5.	Hobgoblins 03:03
6.	Titania 11:28
7.	Extant Body & Weight Extended 10:58

Further listening: Jovial Blade 7″

Overgrowth (2003) ft The Troubled Times (2024)

A reading of one of my short stories from the early 2000s; a black comic piece, with music by The Troubled Times in the 2020s. Funny what you can find in the drawer years later…

Listen

lyrics

(& eventually resulting in monster on rampage through the kitchen)

Too many people forget what they find. He blemishes his self. He bends to suck food stain from his Hawaiian shirt; the dinner jacket coldly embraces him. The computer had a serious bug spasm […]

credits

Antony Milton – electric guitar

Dave Edwards – bass, vocal

David Heath – drums

Photo taken in the Marlborough Sounds, NZ, walking the Queen Charlotte track circa 2003.

Further listening:

The Troubled Times: Unsteady Ground

The instrumental used for ‘Overgrowth” appears as track 5, ‘titled ‘the Deeper Cut’

Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005

A compilation spanning the early years of fiffdimension; more chaotic wide ranging undiscovered brilliance, from the turn of the millennium…

FFSE: MiXtape X (2026)

Our first album release of 2026, by Featherston Free Sound Ensemble – courtesy of Antony Milton’s Troubled Times Tapes label. Available on cassette or download.

“Every few weeks the peace of a small hall in the otherwise quiet tiny town of Featherston at the very bottom of the North Island of New Zealand/Aotearoa is disrupted by a gathering of eccentric misfits with a ragtag collection of noise making electronics. Old tape decks playing home made loops, dusty turntables spinning even dustier vinyl festooned with tags of sellotape, and glitchy cheap effects pedals disrupting the signal of an array of instruments that are being force-fed into weirdly small amplifiers.
“The recordings here in are from a variety of said get togethers and performances. Noise collage meets odd techno dub butted up against distorted rock. Tapiness wins.” – Antony Milton

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credits

released January 14, 2026

Guy Walker – turntable, cassette loops
Alex V – turntable, MIDI, sampler
Dave Edwards – bass, e-drum, clarinet, guitar
Recorded Oct-Nov 2025

Edited and mastered (somewhat) by A.M
Cover photos by Guy Walker

Featherston, New Zealand

Further listening: Featherston Free Sound Ensemble

01-01-26

Recorded on new year’s day, 01 January 2026

in a garage in Featherston, NZ

credits

released January 1, 2026
Dave Edwards – percussion

Happy new year 2026!

Watch this space for new recordings.

In the meantime, see past releases

Live 2025

A late EP coda to the year –

Tracks 1-4 recorded live at the Bakehouse, 29-11-25 – opening act for Featherston Free Sound Ensemble /

Tracks 5-6 recorded 08 February 2025 at the Carterton Club.

includes two pieces from Poems & Lyrics in the Scotch Dialect (1856)

and the first live performance of Assembling Disconsonant

Tracklist

1.	さくらさくら / Paetumokai (Pua pua i te Kōanga) 03:00
2.	I Met Four Chiels (by John Collie, 1856) 03:22
3.	Death (by John Collie, 1856) 04:24
4.	fiffdimension + Self Help Sound System – Assembling Disconsonant 03:19
5.	Inverno 02:32
6.	Chairs to Tie the Revolution Down 05:25

Further listening: live albums

2025 roundup

Another productive year here! We released:

The Troubled Times: Smudge (2025)

“Nutso falling over kind of wonkiness from mid-winter” = Antony Milton

Listen

credits

The Troubled Times are:

Antony Milton – guitar, synths
Dave Edwards – guitar
David Heath – drums & percussion

Tracks 1-9 recorded July 2025; tracks 10-12 recorded August 2022
in Masterton, Aotearoa/NZ

about

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Experiments Under the Hills (2025)

Smalltown NZ free improv by Featherston Free Sound Ensemble

Paetumokai / Featherston,
Aotearoa / New Zealand,

credits

Guy Walker – turntable, cassette loops
Alex V – turntable, MIDI, sampler
Dave Edwards – bass, guitar, e-drum, harmonica

Recorded at the Bakehouse, October-November 2025

tracklist

1.	19-11-25 #1 orchestral overture 08:53
2.	27-11-25 #3 casino 03:39
3.	12-11-25 #4a static electricity 02:34
4.	12-11-25 #5c tremelo 03:48
5.	30-10-25 #2 Bulgarian 11:27
6.	27-11-25 #2 banjo 04:55
7.	12-11-25 #3b ukulele 03:27
8.	12-11-25 #5a EDM 03:51
9.	30-10-25 #3 guitar 04:27
10.	19-11-25 #4 towards the exit 03:25
11.	12-11-25 #3a orchestral reprise 04:53

Further listening:

“I was wide awake at 2.30am so listened to us on headphones in the dark in bed. I’m probably biased, but I think we sound bloody awesome” – Guy Walker

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