The Digitator: New Zealand Producer, Songwriter, Vocalist, Drummer, Synth Driver, Live Looping Musician.
A fellow traveller from Taranaki, New Zealand, who formed The Electricka Zoo in late 2015 with Dave Black.
Continue reading “The Digitator”
Tag: Dave Black
the Ballad of William Knife
Music video from the album ‘South Island Sessions‘, set in 19th century New Zealand with an ecological theme. ‘The Ballad of William Knife’ was the name of the show we took to the Dunedin Fringe Festival in 2006.
See also the videos for ‘Bandit Joe on a Scraded Gat’ and ‘BFD’
1861 revisited – Continue reading “the Ballad of William Knife”
安里屋ユンタオーバードライブ Asadoya Yunta Overdrive (Okinawa)
Here’s a new bonus track we’ve added to the album ネオン列車の風景 Neon Train Landscapes – our version of a traditional shima uta (island song) from 沖縄 (Okinawa).
Dave Black – sanshin, harmonica, field recordings
Nat da Hatt – acoustic & electric guitars, electronics
Cylvi Manthyng – shakuhachi
As you can hear, the music of Okinawa is quite distinct from that of mainland Japan.
Ngumbang
The first collaboration with even more legendary & underground NZ artist Snake Beings.
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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.
The album was recorded in and near Auckland, New Zealand in 2014–2015 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”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
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”
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.
Dave Black & Snake Beings: East to West
East to West brings together for the first time two of New Zealand’s more unusual artist/musician/filmmaker/ethnomusicologists, taking the audience on an epic journey from one side of the Eurasian continent to another in the space of an hour. Continue reading “Dave Black & Snake Beings: East to West”
ネオン列車の風景 Neon Train Landscapes (Japan, 2012)
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About
Like 日本 itself, this music offers a surrealistic fusion of ancient and modern. released 31 January 2014
Crossing the Japan Alps
As well as recording music together, we completed a six-day hiking mission across the northern alps in July 2012, from Kamikochi to Toyama.
Asadoya Yunta Overdrive (Okinawa)
The album closes with our rendition of a traditional Okinawa shima uta (island song). It’s a tribute to Japan’s southernmost island prefecture, where Dave lived in 2011/12. The ‘overdrive’ is a tribute to early Pink Floyd, reflecting the psychedelic update of the tune.
Credits
Nat da Hatt – electric & acoustic guitars, drum machine, synths, laptop, samples
Dave Black – bass, banjo, acoustic guitar (5), electric guitar (3), loop pedal, electronics, laptop, field recordings
Tracklist
| 1. | 東京から槍ヶ岳 Tokyo to Yarigatake 03:38 |
| 2. | 携帯電話 Keitai Denwa 05:43 |
| 3. | 幸せとは何？What actually is happiness? 04:17 |
| 4. | 剃毛電球ブルース Shaved Lightbulb Blues 04:18 |
| 5. | 福岡に到着 Arrival in Fukuoka 04:41 |
| 6. | 電機市 Denki Ken 03:58 |
| 7. | 平仮名 Hiragana 04:57 |
| 8. | 薬師岳から漓江まで Yakushidake to Li Jiang 05:07 |
| 9. | 安里屋ユンタオーバードライブ Asadoya Yunta Overdrive (Okinawa) 05:20 |
Further listening: see ethnomusicology
Dave solo trip across Kyushu, March 2012
Nat da Hatt solo albums
Other duo tracks
Nat da Hatt also contributes guest tracks to
in a Wildflower State (WA, 2013)
and
Gamelan Dimensi Kelima (Indonesia, 2014)
Fame & Oblivion: 2005-2012
“This is something that he has to do, that he will do, come fame or oblivion” –Chris Knox
- Made in New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Thailand, Mongolia, and Japan.
- Includes tracks by Ascension Band, The Winter, Cylvi M, Wellington’s Most Famous Orchestra of Miraculous Delights, Dave Black & Nat da Hatt.
“As Dave Edwards he has explored fuzzy punk, free-jazz, spoken word, alternative-folk and demented pop… as Dave Black, the palette is broadened” – Simon Sweetman
by Dave Black (acoustic & electric guitars, banjo, harmonica, laptop, bass, tenor saxophone, field recordings, piano, gayageum, vocal), with
- Mike Kingston (acoustic guitar),
- Simon Sweetman (percussion),
- Nat da Hatt (electric guitar, keyboards),
- Cylvi M (vocal, field recordings, percussion, shakuhachi),
- Hayden Gifkins (electric guitar),
- Nigel Patterson (hammond organ),
- Ryan Prebble (tone generator),
- Matthew Thornicroft (electric guitar),
- Jeff Henderson (drums),
- Noel Meek (vocal),
- Hans Landon-Lane (ukulele)
- and field recordings from Australia, South Korea, Thailand, Mongolia, and Japan.
“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“
- This is a sequel to the Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005 compilation.
- The third part of the trilogy, Other Islands: 2012-2018, documents my return to NZ via other Asia-Pacific countries,
- A fourth volume águas Brilhantes: 2018-2022 covers more recent works made in the Wairarapa and Fiji.
fiffdimension 
