1856 to 2026 – DIY outsider music, from Aotearoa NZ and beyond
Latest release from The Troubled Times… weirdly ‘relevant’ this year. And available on cassette.
A new collection of songs for the Times.
Starting off with a weirdly upbeat track recorded pre- US election the tone drifts somewhat astray as the collection proceeds.
Trying to find purpose amongst all the doom scrolling.
Following the 25th anniversary of fiffdimension in 2023, it was in some ways tempting to leave it there, and retire…
… but I soon found myself creating new music in 2024:
January: Solo suite for electric guitar, bass and electronic percussion.
April: New combination of old free improv collaborators Simon O’Rorke and Antony Milton.
“A virtual infusion of ‘ants-in-the-pants’ for the entomologically deficient.” –Antony Milton
“The album blends Antony Milton‘s and my styles, with Dave Edwards often occupying a pivotal midpoint. It’s an exhilarating session.” – Simon O’Rorke
June-August: A pair of new albums from The Troubled Times (trio with Antony Milton and David Heath):
The Latest Poll marked a departure into semiacoustic freak folk; whereas Boa leaned more towards noisy electric rock.
June-July: Recorded a couple more of my ancestor’s poems for this epic acoustic/folk work-in-progress (& hoping to finish it off this summer when my nephews visit):
September: A long-overdue return (after six years!) to live performance in Wellington, and The Troubled Times‘ first appearance there at the Pyramid Club.
October: A career-spanning longform interview, telling my life story and the background influences behind the music.
October: An international performance across the ditch :
The Sydney performance can now be heard on the Live 2022-24 album:
November: A new solo 7″ on vinyl (first one since 2016):
“Some seriously scrambled dissonance. 80’s vocals hits 60’s electro/cut-up nonsense whilst smothering an ever mutating bassline […] the track contains more musical ideas in its 5 mins than some exhibit in musical careers.” – Simon Baker, What Lies Beneath
December: A thoughtful birthday present (thanks Talei!): a t-shirt featuring the cover art from The Troubled Times’ A Second Sun album.
I also enjoyed a visit to my hometown of New Plymouth (& hope to play a gig there next time!)
2x new 7″ lathe cut singles:
“Some seriously scrambled dissonance. 80’s vocals hits 60’s electro/cut-up nonsense whilst smothering an ever mutating bassline […] the track contains more musical ideas in its 5 mins than some exhibit in some musical careers.” – Simon Baker, What Lies Beneath
(Dave solo – A-side is bass & electronics, B-side is clarinet & electronics)
and
Discs manufactured in NZ by Johnny Electric
Continue reading “7″ singles”Thank you SkirtedRecords for the video snippets, and Pyramid Club for hosting, Termite Lounge and Christian Wolves (Campbell Kneale and Sarah Bingle) for playing, Thomas Lambert for running the show, and everyone who came to the gig on Saturday! We had a blast… hopefully it won’t be another six years til the next time in Wellington!
The full video of all three bands is available to stream (free) at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2262357709
The gig also marked the release of The Troubled Times’ new limited edition 7″ single Cellophane – only a couple of physical copies left so get in quick, or download from Bandcamp:
Continue reading “The Troubled Times: Live at the Pyramid Club 28/09/24”With all the subtlety of a peacock in a pigeon coop The Troubled Times return with a new album, dominated by the squeals of tortured amps and seriously tormented drums.
Boa features inadvertent post-rock gliding that crashes and bursts into jagged flames; some kind of illicit NZ spaghetti pizza western folds in on itself to become a fractalized polaroid of a dessicated lizard.
This tendency toward excess doesn’t preclude the odd lapse into a mumbled ad hoc song or 2 but the focus here seems to be on ‘loud’, ‘fucked’ and ‘intense’.
The poor bloody neighbours…
Tape version available at troubledtimestapes.bandcamp.com
Continue reading “The Troubled Times: Boa”The first physical CD by The Troubled Times (Antony Milton, Dave Edwards, David Heath),
Fizzy dreamy shambolic ramblings from the Wairarapa‘s dustiest garage.
Instant songs committed to disk for posterity.
This was the first chapter in Antony Milton’s acclaimed ‘Another Sunday‘ series of CDs:
anothersunday.bandcamp.com – different artists, each making an album with the same title.
Other discs in the series include Michael Morley, Greymouth, Seht, Teen Haters, Perpets, and Sunset Temples
released August 1, 2023
David Heath- drums
Dave Edwards– bass
Antony Milton– guitar/vocals, video, CD producer
A contrasting companion piece to the ‘Another Sunday‘ CD –
Avant jazz meets squealing rambunctious noise. A frenetic blast down to the end of the driveway and back. The set finishes with a tribute to Albert Ayler.
What more could you want? (well there’s The Troubled Times’ live debut coming up on 15 July….)
Antony Milton – electric guitar Dave Edwards – bass David Heath – drums
releases July 15, 2023
Continue reading “The Troubled Times: Elevate”Newly discovered 2010 ‘lost recordings’ by The Winter –
An improvised music trio of Mike Kingston, Dave Edwards, and Simon Sweetman –
Includes live performances at Fred’s (the only known video of the band), and previously unheard recording sessions on 25-4-10 and 6-6-10.
releases June 6, 2023
Continue reading “The Winter: 2010”The first physical format release from Masterton trio The Troubled Times is a loud and noisy nocturnal romp – through the hills and onto the gravel back roads of one of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s least visited regions.
Whilst earlier digital releases have veered from arty drone pieces to synth pop and heavy space rock the music on ‘Hill Road In Winter’ is more like a psychedelic pub jam band gone BRILLIANTLY ‘wrong’. Woozy blues paeans slip sideways into feedback freakouts and heavy Hawkwind-like stomps attempt to transition into songs by The Fall.
All recorded ‘New Zealand style’ in my garage.If we weren’t such raving greenies here at Small Town Electron we’d put this tape forward as the PERFECT album for a lengthy nocturnal drive. – Antony Milton
Loosely a sequel to The Troubled Times’ debut, Return of the Sun (2021) –
These new recordings were made exactly one year later – again on the first day of daylight savings, Spring 2022 in the southern hemisphere – now joined by David Heath on drums.
The anniversary prompted the title – then possible alternative meanings of which (binary star systems, colonising other planets) led down a science fiction wormhole…
Recorded in Masterton, New Zealand, 25 September 2022
The album also features a key crossover track, with the Poems & Lyrics by John Collie (1856) project:
This track links the various spoken word, electric improv, and folk strands of fiffdimension music. While the rest of Poems & Lyrics by John Collie (1856) is acoustic based, in this case, the electric arrangement seemed to add a ‘kingly’ majesty, and pathos – as the monarch discovers the limits of his worldly power.
“The monarch ceased. The courtier train shook, muttered, gazed and shook again.
They saw life’s dying embers fade, they felt the sting of horror’s blade.
Before them lay a lifeless form, which once with life had passions warmed.
The hand was stiff which oft had reigned, the warhorse and the prisoner chained.
A lifeless lump of senseless clay, the stern despotic monarch lay.” – John Collie (1834-1893)
(track also appears on fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/album/poems-lyrics-in-the-english-dialect-1856 )
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