Quietism (2024)

Solo improvisations for electric guitar, bass and electric drums – using single-take overdubs to create a virtual trio.

By Dave Edwards– early 2024, summertime in NZ – start of the fiffdimension 2nd quarter-century.

Tracks 1-3 and 12 recorded early January 2024 – the rest recorded 6th February 2024, in Featherston, Aotearoa / New Zealand

These are the first new recordings made since the 25-year-spanning 2CD compilation

The title ‘Quietism‘ refers not so much to the sound, but to the absence of vocals – or any reference to current news or politics. Part of the fiffdimension aesthetic is a certain wilful irrelevance, and ignoring of trends.

The last track ‘Hypnopompia’ (waking up) experiments with a possible new ambient style.

Featherston, New Zealand

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Assembling disconsonant

New improvisational raw material post-composed & aleatory generative texts added, in a kiwi accent:

I did the bass improvisation first, then played along with it on guitar and banjo, then improvised vocals with nonsensical words (Paul McCartney conjuring ‘get back’ in the documentary), transcribed, rewrote into English words (if not grammar), and fed that into Google search and read out cutups (Burroughs) of the search results to supplement it… I’ve had hangups for years about writing, so was looking for ways to short circuit my conscious doubt.
the title ‘assembling disconsonant’ describes the method?

meaning is optional

chance methods are supplementary

but starting with the bass part ensures the whole thing is built on a (human) groove

& stylistically a middle aged update of (early 2000s) solo pieces like https://fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/track/in-a-who-gets-to-who-who-does-him
“I liked the lyrics… the the way meaning gets assembled through shattered snap shots of a picture we may never see”
– Dr Emit Snake-Beings

in a wildflower state (Western Australia, 2013)

In late 2012, after leaving Japan, I moved to Australia for the second time – this time to Western Australia for a couple of years…

in a wildflower state is a lost album – recorded in Perth WA, 2012-2014 – unreleased at the time.

The music here is rustic, reflecting the vast ancient arid landscape, overlaid with touches of Nyoongar and bogan sounds. It also includes appearances by Nat da Hatt, Cylvi M, and Renato Salvador.

Known as the Wildflower State, Western Australia covers an enormous area – the size of India, but with a population of under three million. Metaphorically, to be a ‘wildflower’ can also mean a wandering spirit or traveller (such as a kiwi expat on an OE).

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w/ James Robinson – Negentropic Diatribes

James Robinson – words, voice, paintings & drawings, bell drum

Dave Black – electric guitar, bass, loop pedal

James Robinson is a mid career contemporary New Zealand mixed media artist, exhibiting widely since 1989 – www.jamesrobinson.nz

fiffdimension is music and multimedia by Dave Edwards (aka Dave Black) and collaborators, since 1998 – www.fiffdimension.com
‐‐——-

James won 2007 paramount prize in the wallace award for
” Taniwaha dragon mother ( spirit bones)”

‘… a great big flatulent belch of fresh air amongst all the tight-sphinctered, deodorised boys and girls of the accepted national art world….. off-kilter and threatening but always sumptuously, gloriously beautiful.’
– Chris Knox.

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Spastic Rhythms ’22

Featherston, NZ – early 2022 – spontaneous compositions, two wet weekends in a row.

A sequel to Spastic Rhythms vol 1 (2021)

– a series of ‘quickfire’ DIY solo albums created in a couple of days each.

This one features interspecies guest collaboration with Oscar the huntaway.

credits

released February 13, 2022

Dave Black – guitars, bass, banjo (2), clarinet (6), sanshin (10), loop pedal, e-drum

Oscar – vocal

w/ Antony Milton: Return of the Sun

Electric guitar improv duo – in collaboration with antonymilton.bandcamp.com

Recorded in Masterton, New Zealand, 26-09-21

Antony Milton is a sound artist based in Masterton, New Zealand.

He has been active in the underground and experimental music scenes since the early 1990s.

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Antony Milton is a sound artist based in Masterton, New Zealand.

He has been active in the underground and experimental music scenes since the early 1990s.

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Escape Velocity: the Electricka Zoo live

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

credits

The Digitator – midi, laptop, vocal
Dave Black – bass, electric guitar

www.fiffdimension.com/the-electricka-zoo

PSI-SOLATION + 1 (one year on)

PSI-SOLATION | a global compilation of music made in lockdown | CELEBRATE PSI PHENOMENON (bandcamp.com)

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.

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ilhas Atlânticas

This track is dedicated to my great-great-grandfather Manuel Bernard.

He was born in 1847 in Ponta Delgada, Flores Island, Azores, Portugal.

It appeared as the last track on Spastic Rhythms vol 1 (2021), in a Dave Black solo rendition of a piece 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

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.

From a remote island in the Atlantic ocean, he ended up on an equally remote island in the Pacific – on the opposite side of the world, in Wellington, New Zealand.

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