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, 2015

Gamelan Taniwha Jaya

Gamelan Taniwha Jaya, 2015

Wellington Southeast Asian Night Market

Gamelan Taniwha Jaya

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.

a coiled didgeridoo

in Western Australia, 2013

acoustic guitar & banjo

The Road to Bogandoor

Election night 2013 in Australia mix –

At the time I lived in Perth, WA.

And Australia Day music video from an unfinished Aussie album… enjoy!

Music by Nat da Hatt & Dave Black with Snake Beings, video by Dave Black and Cylvi Manthyng

See also – our first Australian album, After Maths & Sciences,

and Dave Black & Nat da Hatt in Japan: ネオン列車の風景 Neon Train Landscapes

2014 roundup

Bye 2014 – overall a pretty good year here.

Most importantly we put out two new albums in contrasting styles: ネオン列車の風景 Neon Train Landscapes and in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway.

The first was a composed Japanese psychedelic rock album while the second showcased the free improvised music I’d been influenced by in my earlier years in Wellington.

It was also a good year for travel to southeast Asia: I visited Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia for the first time… and I finally returned home to New Zealand after two years living in Western Australia and a year before that in Okinawa.

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Dada Songwriting: Rejection dryrot ripple Gombage

Dave and Cylvi contributed to Postmoderncore‘s first volume of Dada Songwriting Compilation, Rejection dryrot ripple Gombage.

Condo Encyclopedia coalseam egg 2:02

by Uneasy Chairs (USA, guitar) / T4x0n0m13s (España, bass + distortion pedal) / Dave Black (NZ, banjo) / Cylvi Manthyng (NZ, shaker)

Download entire album / View album at archive.org

Each contributor created two mins of raw sound – a single track recorded live with no post-processing. After each set of four tracks arrived, they were blindly put together to create each track – as & when they arrived in Corporal Tofulung’s inbox.
The title of the album was created by writing the 40 contributed words on individual pieces of paper & drawing them randomly out of a bucket. Continue reading “Dada Songwriting: Rejection dryrot ripple Gombage” →

Little India, Singapore

A major highlight of 2014 for me was visiting some new parts of Southeast Asia. I enjoyed the Tamil Indian culture in Singapore and Malaysia, which has sated my curiosity for India itself for the moment.

The sensory overload of the Hindu temples was an intriguing contrast from the elegant minimalism of the Japanese approach, and the mix of Indian, Chinese and Malay cultures is like having three different Asian countries in one.

Pyramid Power festival 10-13 December

I’ll be performing on day 4 of the
PYRAMID POWER!
Festival of experimental music and art
10-13 December 2014 at the Pyramid Club

Pyramid Power festival, Wellington, 10-13 December 2014

The SOUND & LIGHT EXPLORATION SOCIETY is pleased to present PYRAMID POWER!!!!
A four day spectacular of MUSIC and ART of staggering proportions!!!!

Sound experiments, psychedelic jazz, hotwired synths, free improvisation, noise, experimental films, and more!

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East to West: Japan

Back in April we performed Dave Black & Snake Beings: East to West at the Audio Foundation in Auckland. Here’s a first excerpt from the show, which took the audience all the way from NZ to Portugal. This chapter is set in mainland Japan, and takes in Kyoto, Mount Fuji, and 1990s Tokyo. The soundtrack was performed live.

We’ve recorded an album’s worth of material, which is now available: Ngumbang

www.fiffdimension.com www.snakebeings.co.nz

In the meantime for other original music inspired by Japan, and more Japanese mountaineering, see ネオン列車の風景 Neon Train Landscapes by Dave Black & Nat da Hatt.

Sam Prebble, RIP

Sad this week to hear of the early passing of Sam Prebble (aka Bond Street Bridge).

Our condolences to Sam’s family and friends.

He was a friend I hadn’t seen for a few years as I’ve been living abroad, but he played violin on ‘Loose Autumn Moans‘ and I’d always hoped to work with him again.

I loved the historical turn his recent music was taking.

Definitely a loss to NZ music as well as a personal tragedy to lose him before his time.

https://bondstreetbridge.bandcamp.com/

https://fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/album/loose-autumn-moans

Bali, Indonesia

There’s my first video from Bali, from footage taken on my earlier visit in August. Note the gamelan (bronze percussion) and rindik (bamboo percussion) soundtrack.

I left my job in Perth and am on my way home to New Zealand, so I’m nervous about jobhunting & starting all over again (again). On the way home I’m spending a week on a smaller island, Nusa Penida, doing conservation volunteer work with www.fnpf.org If you’d like to help me afford to stay longer and make more of a contribution ($20 = 1 day’s expenses) please – or even better, buy some of our music.

Bali is (once you get away from the main city and the tacky resorts in the south) an almost absurdly beautiful place… frangipani and Indonesian flags (preparing for the August 17th independence day celebrations) everywhere, majestic hillsides lined with centuries-old rice terraces, and too many Hindu temples to count (each family has t…heir own). That plus the many international flights, and entertainment options from adventure sports to nightclubbing to traditional arts make it easy to see why it’s such a popular destination (I read somewhere that 80% of visitors to Indonesia go to Bali and nowhere else, which makes me glad I saw Java first).

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