Other Islands: 2012-2018

“The 20 song album covers traditional Javanese and Balinese gamelan, Asian folk music, to free jazz, and free noise. It’s not for anyone with narrow preconceived ideas about what music is, but it is for everyone else.

“If you have an open inquiring mind and love hearing a variety of sound, this is excellent.” – Darryl Baser, muzic.net.nz

by Dave Black (acoustic & electric guitars, banjo, harmonica, laptop, bass, tenor saxophone, field recordings, piano, ukulele, sanshin, saron, jublag, demung, vocal), with

Featuring tracks from the albums

If you enjoy this, try the previous compilations

Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005 

and Fame & Oblivion: 2005-2012
Fame & Oblivion: 2005-2013

The Winter: Exit Points (2015)

Today is the last day of winter in the southern hemisphere – so to celebrate, here’s the fifth album from The Winter – a New Zealand free improvisation trio of Mike Kingston, Simon Sweetman and Dave Edwards… with a sound that swerves from acoustic folk/blues with hints of Asian, Celtic, and Balkan influences, to electroacoustic soundscapes, abstract dissonance, and pots & pans percussion.

Mike Kingston: guitar, bass, clarinet, electronics
Dave Edwards: guitar, bass, banjo, harmonica, ukulele, sanshin, electronics
Simon Sweetman: drums and percussion, electronics

Continue reading “The Winter: Exit Points (2015)”

Ngumbang

The first collaboration with even more legendary & underground NZ artist Snake Beings.

Listen

About

Ngumbang is the first collaborative album by two of New Zealand’s more unusual artist/musician/filmmaker/ethnomusicologists.

Performed on guitars, bass, banjo, percussion, saxophones, clarinets, harmonicas, synthesisers, Okinawan sanshin, ukulele, violin, loop pedal, piano, drums and spoken word. 

The title ‘Ngumbang’ is an Indonesian word that refers to the slight difference in tuning between a pair of gamelan instruments, which gives gamelan music its shimmering quality.

The album name reflects a shared interest in ethnomusicology and experimentation, and the almost-but-not-quite-equivalent approaches of these two artists.

Dave Black & Snake Beings
Dave Black & Snake Beings

The album was recorded in and near Auckland, New Zealand in 20142015 and includes live performances at Vitamin S and the Audio Foundation.

Emit Snake-Beings,

who over several decades has travelled intensively in Spain, Holland, the Middle East, Mexico, America and Japan, is a New Zealand / British experimental filmmaker and musician who 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. www.snakebeings.co.nz

Dave Black,

originally from Taranaki and active since the late 90s on the NZ underground music scene, began by fusing acoustic songs, noisy postpunk, spoken word and avant-garde improvisation – and has diversified further from there. Notable performances include the award-winning 14-piece Ascension Band, appearing as an international artist at the Liquid Architecture Festival in Brisbane, Australia, and teaching a thousand Okinawan school students to perform a haka. www.fiffdimension.com

Tracklist

1.Huia Vortex (feat. Nat da Hatt) 03:56
2.The Feathered Serpent Sings Again 05:13
3.Illbelly Gritts 03:57
4.Watching a Painting Melt 01:47
5.さくら さくら (Japanese folk song) – live at the Audio Foundation 04:52
6.Pig in the Bamboo 01:47
7.Live at Vitamin S (#1.5) 04:37
8.Pick up the Pieces (after the gig) 04:48
9.Pick up the Pieces (after the jam session) 04:45
10.Ornery Return Cravings 02:40
11.kuningan dan perunggu (Indonesian brass and bronze) 02:50
12.So Long Notes 06:01

Further Listening

Continue reading “Ngumbang”