New live album!
With New Zealand in lockdown this might be the next best thing to an actual gig..
Track 1 recorded live at the Fringe Bar, Wellington NZ, 27-02-18
Tracks 2-7 recorded live at Escape Velocity, Featherston NZ, 10-03-18
As part of the New Zealand Fringe Festival
The Digitator – midi, laptop, vocal
Dave Black – bass, electric guitar
(*as picked by casual streaming listeners, based on % of tracks played in full minus % of tracks skipped… not necessarily the ones I would have picked – there’s little or no correlation between the “important” works and the parts other people like!).
Dave Edwards solo postpunk spoken word free improv guitar spasms (2002)
Compilation made in New Zealand, Okinawa, Western Australia, Indonesia and Fiji,,
by Dave Black with The Winter, The Electricka Zoo, Dr Emit Snake-Beings, Nat da Hatt, Campbell Kneale, Gamelan Sekar Puri, Gamelan Padhang Moncar, and Gamelan Taniwha Jaya
“The 20 song album covers traditional Javanese and Balinese gamelan, Asia–Pacific folk music, free jazz, and free noise…. If you have an open inquiring mind and love hearing a variety of sound, this is excellent. – Darryl Baser, muzic.net.nz“
An Australian novel for the ear – a double album recorded in Melbourne, Victoria,
and Sydney and Gosford New South Wales,
by Dave Black with Cylvi M, Mike Kingston and Francesca Mountfort (2005-2006)
“Dave Black’s debut release (and a re-birth, if you like, for David Edwards) is 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
Solo postpunk live at the old Bar Bodega, Wellington NZ, opening for Chris Knox
“If only I could play guitar like that… bastard” – Chris Knox
Palette-cleansing Dave Black solo electric guitar improv.
vol2 – made in New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Thailand, Mongolia, and Japan,
by Dave Black with Ascension Band, The Winter, Nat da Hatt, Wellington’s Most Famous Orchestra, and Cylvi M
“Experimental and avant-garde…. There is a clear passion, and a commitment to pushing the boundaries… This will challenge your perceptions of what constitutes music and open the mind to new possibilities of sounds that surround us – muzic.net.nz“
Solo acoustic set plus an interview, live streamed from Wairarapa TV
“Great skills and a refreshing rebirth of a beatnik sensibility, this is folk the way folk should be” – Andi Verse
The duo of live electronica by the Digitator, and Dave Black on bass and electric guitar (2017)
“A totally original, mind warping album that smacks you across the face with big sound…. I salute anyone that makes a whole album out of EDM post-punk avant-garde rock / jazz, reggae, Balkan, [and] Portuguese music” – Corrinne Rutherford, www.muzic.net.nz
Our first collaboration with the even more legendary & underground artist Dr Emit Snake Beings (2015)
Made in Fiji, with Dr Emit Snake-Beings – tropical avant-garde instrumentals for keyboards, ukulele, dholak, duduk, harmonicas, DIY kitchen gamelan, and video.
“So easy to get totally lost in this music, recommend for helping with your inner peace” – Andi Verse
A new archival release, of early postpunk instrumental improv by ex-Taranaki duo the Electricka Zoo
recorded in 2016, this has nothing to do with Brexit or Trump!
These informal recordings are a precursor to our 2017 debut album proper, The Electricka Zoo
Continue reading “Streaming Silver (2016)”2021 compilation album curated by Campbell Kneale. He’s known for his noise music, paintings of cats, and as proprietor of the Miracle Room gallery in Featherston.
A sequel to his acclaimed 119-track Psi-solation compilation of music made in lockdown 2020.
Both albums are pay what you want via Campbell’s label, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon.
I contributed a new Dave Black piece, Outono 21.
Continue reading “PSI-SOLATION + 1 (one year on)”The last track on Spastic Rhythms vol 1 is a Dave Black solo rendition of a tune by the Electricka Zoo.
It originally appeared on The Electricka Zoo (2017), and on the Other Islands: 2012-2018 compilation. It’s based around a (non-diatonic) Cmaj7 – Amaj7 pattern, with a bossa nova rhythm.
The words are in (beginner) Portuguese:
Eu gosto de falar
no meus ancestrais
de as ilhas Atlânticas
Madeiras e Açores
It’s dedicated to my great-great-grandfather Manuel Bernard.
He was born in 1847 in Ponta Delgada, Flores Island, Azores, Portugal.
Portugal is the westernmost country in Europe, with its back to it geographically and culturally. It was the edge of the known world for Europeans until the Age of Discovery. The Azores islands are even further west.
As a teenager Manuel Bernard stowed away on a passing American whaling ship.
Continue reading “ilhas Atlânticas”A quickfire Dave Black solo EP, recorded one summer morning, 24 January 2021
It adds banjo and electric drums to the 2020s Wairarapa DIY solo electric improv style begun in
Palette cleansing electric solo improv.
Recorded in Featherston, New Zealand, 2019-20.
I’m not a trained jazz musician, but nor do I fit neatly into the ‘NZ noise‘ genre.
releases October 17, 2020
Campbell Kneale – electric guitar, analogue synth
Dave Black – bass, electric toothbrush, key ring
A 3min excerpt appeared on Other Islands: 2012-2018 –
but you need to hear the full length version to truly enter Campbell’s world.
Continue reading “Campbell Kneale & Dave Black: A Ton of Feathers”the opening track from Ruasagavulu
by Dave Black & Snake-Beings
recorded in Suva, Fiji, 2nd November 2019
This short warmup improv is based on an Indian scale, inspired by Dr Emit Snake-Beings‘ travels to Kerala in India, and harmonium lessons in Suva.
There’s an Indian influence throughout the album, as several sections are based on drones and modal improv (rather than the chord changes)… though this is not a traditional Indian album, we’ve borrowed ideas to inform our own experiments.
The temple in the photo is Sri Siva Subramaniya in Nadi. It’s built in the Dravidian style from southern India, which is also found in Singapore and Malaysia.
In contrast to other Pacific Island countries, Fiji has a large – almost half – population of Indian descent. Indians came to Fiji in the 19th century, as indentured labourers to work the sugar cane plantations.
Film footage by my father, Alastair Edwards, in Nadi and around Viti Levu in 1976.
It’s from a couple of years before I was born.
There was no sound, so I’ve added a soundtrack from Ruasagavulu, which Dr Emit Snake-Beings and I recorded in Suva decades later.
My Dad’s interest in film (then video) and photography was one of the key influences on my own travel and videomaking. He was doing this long before youtube or instagram!
I miss you Dad…
