acoustic
The Marion Flow, March 2019
Since last year I’ve been getting back into playing solo acoustic. Here’s a 6 March 2019 version of ‘the Marion Flow‘:
Originally recorded in New Plymouth in 1999, it became the title track of my second album.
The 1999 recording had quite a different vibe – spoken word delivery, electric guitars panned left & right, and Paul Winstanley playing a cymbal through a pitch shifter, turning it into a deep sea gong sound.
On other occasions it became a rock riff, based around just an E note and its octave.
I was surrounded by wider & weirder music too. I moved to Wellington and found a kiwi avant-garde scene with free jazz, noise, and theatre gallore. We eventually finished The Marion Flow album in 2001, after recording sessions at Thistle Hall.
The lyrics are some of my favourite. They were scribbled in a notebook sometime in the late 90s. I was digesting the influence of literary modernism (eg lines like ‘yea take in that wake’ a shout out to James Joyce, using nouns as verbs and vice versa, and other general flouting of grammatical rules).
Taranaki and its coastlines inspired much of the atmosphere.
The Land of My Youth (by John Collie, 1856)
Poem by John Collie (1834-1893),
from his book Poems and Lyrics in the English and Scotch Dialects, published in Scotland in 1856
Performed by his great-great-grandson Dave Edwards in Featherston, New Zealand, January 2019.
John Collie emigrated to New Zealand in 1858. This poem seems to anticipate his leaving Scotland forever, to start a new life in a new country on the opposite side of the world.
Lyrics
2005
2005
The year got off to a good start, with Ascension Band: Evolution
The successful collaboration with Nigel Patterson, Ryan Prebble, and over a dozen other musicians, from jazz-schooled to untrained punks, won the best music award in the NZ Fringe Festival.
I had my first taste of success (the fame part of Fame & Oblivion 2005-2012)…
…But by this time I was ready to see the world beyond Aotearoa. I shifted across the Tasman Sea to Melbourne – in Australia, the West Island.
For the next few months I lived in Brunswick, and worked in temp jobs around the city and in rural Victoria.
The results became After Maths & Sciences
The Blast of a Wintry Day (by John Collie, 1856)
A song written by my great-great-grandfather John Collie, in Banffshire, Scotland, in 1856
from Other Islands: 2012-2018
lyrics
Scratched Surface 20th anniversary
“Worth searching out coz this lo-fi singer/songwriter oddball has a unique take on the genre. He’s pissed off, a tad fucked up (as usual), but not full of lugubrious self-pity (as unusual) and is happy to get raucous & obnoxious in just the right kinda way.” – Chris Knox
In December 1998 I self-released my debut album . Scratched Surface was a teenage no-budget lo-fi postpunk pakeha singer-songwriter album from the Taranaki, Aotearoa underground, recorded on analogue reel-to-reel tape.
I burned it on CDR and sent out copies to anyone who would listen. It was the opening salvo in a recording career that’s gone on for over 20 years now, occasionally dismissed, largely ignored, gloriously unsuccessful. A career nonetheless; I’ve made an album most years since.
20 years on I’m still creating – here’s some of what I’ve done more recently:
Isa Lei, and the Yasawa islands, Fiji
This odd arrangement of a traditional Fijian folk song was inspired by hearing the real thing.
In May I visited the Yasawa Islands, to the northwest of Nadi and the main Fijian island Viti Levu.
The boat ride took 3 hours, and enjoyably scenic. Each of the many small islands we passed was different in some way but all stunning
The marine life included
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Part of Other Islands: 2012-2018
– recent highlights recorded in New Zealand, Western Australia, Fiji, Indonesia and Okinawa
Half way to summer, 21 June 2018
Thursday 21 June, 8pm @ Fringe Bar
26-32 Allen Street, Wellington, NZ
fiffdimension is an umbrella name for music and multimedia projects by Dave Edwards, solo or with various collaborators. Shows may include acoustic songs, spoken word, distorted postpunk, free improvisation, lo fi electronica, Eurasian folk music, 19th century ballads, video installations, or all or none of the above.
www.facebook.com/fiffdimension
www.fiffdimension.com
MuscleMan are an alt. country band that write dark, sweet, melancholy songs about love, loss, and questionable life decisions. Their performances range from intimate, acoustic sessions, to loud, raucous, throw the drum kit into the crowd encounters. Most of all though, they play with feeling.
https://www.facebook.com/musclemannz/
Fredd Marshall is a sonic shaman. Using his voice he takes you on a journey to the unknown. Improvising loops, drones and overtones he will bring you to contemplate the universe and rethink what it means to be human. He has been to the realms of infinity and brought back treasures to share.
http://www.soundcloud.com/theshaman/
As a solo acoustic bassist, Vince Cabrera draws inspiration from sources such as the Argentine folk music of his childhood, American primitive guitarists such as John Fahey, and composer Erik Satie for a rich ambient, acoustic experience.
