Goblins (2024)

Electroacoustic, slow burn, noisy in part, moods inverted, deep in imaginary forest. Alludes to Shakespeare, Tolkien, Brothers Grimm…

credits

released February 19, 2026

Dave Edwards – bass, glockenspiel (1,3,6), electric guitar (3,5,6), e-drum (2,4), pitch-shifted gong (3.6), clarinet (7)

Previously unreleased solo instrumental recordings from 2024;
expands on the possibilities of fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/album/jovial-blade-7-2024

————-
Recorded in Featherston, NZ, 2024. Editing finished off February 2026.

Photos taken in the ‘Goblin forest’ of Mt Taranaki, NZ (on a visit back to my hometown of New Plymouth)..

Tracklist

1.	Goblins 02:301.
2.	Trail of Breadcrumbs 03:12
3.	Oberon 07:49
4.	by Jupiter 04:42
5.	Hobgoblins 03:03
6.	Titania 11:28
7.	Extant Body & Weight Extended 10:58

Further listening: Jovial Blade 7″

Overgrowth (2003) ft The Troubled Times (2024)

A reading of one of my short stories from the early 2000s; a black comic piece, with music by The Troubled Times in the 2020s. Funny what you can find in the drawer years later…

lyrics

(& eventually resulting in monster on rampage through the kitchen)

Too many people forget what they find. He blemishes his self. He bends to suck food stain from his Hawaiian shirt; the dinner jacket coldly embraces him. The computer had a serious bug spasm […]

credits

Antony Milton – electric guitar

Dave Edwards – bass, vocal

David Heath – drums

Photo taken in the Marlborough Sounds, NZ, walking the Queen Charlotte track circa 2003.

Further listening:

The Troubled Times: Unsteady Ground

The instrumental used for ‘Overgrowth” appears as track 5, ‘titled ‘the Deeper Cut’

Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005

A compilation spanning the early years of fiffdimension; more chaotic wide ranging undiscovered brilliance, from the turn of the millennium…

FFSE: MiXtape X (2026)

Our first album release of 2026, by Featherston Free Sound Ensemble – courtesy of Antony Milton’s Troubled Times Tapes label. Available on cassette or download.

“Every few weeks the peace of a small hall in the otherwise quiet tiny town of Featherston at the very bottom of the North Island of New Zealand/Aotearoa is disrupted by a gathering of eccentric misfits with a ragtag collection of noise making electronics. Old tape decks playing home made loops, dusty turntables spinning even dustier vinyl festooned with tags of sellotape, and glitchy cheap effects pedals disrupting the signal of an array of instruments that are being force-fed into weirdly small amplifiers.
“The recordings here in are from a variety of said get togethers and performances. Noise collage meets odd techno dub butted up against distorted rock. Tapiness wins.” – Antony Milton

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credits

released January 14, 2026

Guy Walker – turntable, cassette loops
Alex V – turntable, MIDI, sampler
Dave Edwards – bass, e-drum, clarinet, guitar
Recorded Oct-Nov 2025

Edited and mastered (somewhat) by A.M
Cover photos by Guy Walker

Featherston, New Zealand

Further listening: Featherston Free Sound Ensemble

01-01-26

Recorded on new year’s day, 01 January 2026

in a garage in Featherston, NZ

credits

released January 1, 2026
Dave Edwards – percussion

Live 2025

A late EP coda to the year –

Tracks 1-4 recorded live at the Bakehouse, 29-11-25 – opening act for Featherston Free Sound Ensemble /

Tracks 5-6 recorded 08 February 2025 at the Carterton Club.

includes two pieces from Poems & Lyrics in the Scotch Dialect (1856)

and the first live performance of Assembling Disconsonant

Tracklist

1.	さくらさくら / Paetumokai (Pua pua i te Kōanga) 03:00
2.	I Met Four Chiels (by John Collie, 1856) 03:22
3.	Death (by John Collie, 1856) 04:24
4.	fiffdimension + Self Help Sound System – Assembling Disconsonant 03:19
5.	Inverno 02:32
6.	Chairs to Tie the Revolution Down 05:25

Further listening: live albums

2025 roundup

Another productive year here! We released:

Ruasagavulu ka lima (Fiji)

An acoustic solo album, made in the Yasawa islands, Fiji. Ukulele and field recordings, with acoustic bass and percussion.

Poems & Lyrics by John Collie (1856)

A musical adaptation of my ancestor’s book, finally ‘close enough’ to finished after seven years… or 169, depending how you count it.

Featherston Free Sound Ensemble

A new collaboration with turntablists Guy Walker and Alex V – free improv electronica for the regions.

Experiments Under the Hills

October-November, with Guy Walker and Alex V

The Troubled Times

with Antony Milton and David Heath in Masterton NZ.

Unsteady Ground

As close as we’ve come to a ‘political’ album

dDA

We swapped instruments and almost formed a new band.

Homo Homini Lupus

We appeared on this ‘various artists’ compilation from Louisville, Kentucky

Smudge

Winter was too cold for the garage, so we played ‘lounge music’

Thanks for listening! See you in 2026...

The Troubled Times: Smudge (2025)

“Nutso falling over kind of wonkiness from mid-winter” = Antony Milton

Listen

credits

The Troubled Times are:

Antony Milton – guitar, synths
Dave Edwards – guitar
David Heath – drums & percussion

Tracks 1-9 recorded July 2025; tracks 10-12 recorded August 2022
in Masterton, Aotearoa/NZ

about

Continue reading →

The Troubled Times: Sparkle Tube (2025)

A return to the duo lineup of our earliest recordings (Antony Milton and Dave Edwards).

Listen

CD-R edition

Limited edition physical copies of Sparkle Tube are available from Antony’s Grey Cyphers CDR label, along with other NZ artists including Rain Sleepers, Agentsss, L$D Fundraiser, CJA, Tower of Heaven, and more.

Old school cdr label out of back blocks New Zealand/Aotearoa releasing music by Agentsss and other lo-fi mystic wannabes
Antony Milton

About

Duo outing for The Troubled Times on this disk, ostensibly this is material Dave and Antony recorded while waiting for drummer David to show up for practice. He never showed up…
More of a weird improv noise album this one- except for the ‘musical’ bits..
Kind of dreamy.

(But you know what dreams are like, cruising one minute- terror the next.)

Continue reading →

Homo Homini Lupus compilation (2025)

The Troubled Times (Antony Milton, Dave Edwards, David Heath) feature on this new compilation by Kentucky-based label Humanhood Recordings.

Listen

Available on limited edition double cassette.

No Maxim But Now

Other artists include KNURL, EMIL BEAULIEAU, COCK ESP, Aaron Rosenblum, Thaniel Ion Lee, Mike Shiflet, Joe Tunis and more…

Tracklist

1.	Straight Panic – Ethik 06:02
2.	See Through Buildings – In This Defeat 07:00
3.	KNURL – The Resulting Deprivation 10:02
4.	EMIL BEAULIEAU – Live At Six Mohonk, Part Two 07:46
5.	COCK ESP – Miami Advice Remix 01:18
6.	Takeshita – For All His Boys Locked In a Fucking Cell 10:00
7.	LACKTHROW – Saturday 225 pm jan 25 2025 09:56
8.	Rudolf Eb.er – Red wine on sweaty women’s soles (Rotwein auf verschwitzten Frauensohlen) 10:00
9.	156 – Sleeping With A Clear Conscience 05:59
10.	Aaron Rosenblum – Mother Day 03:02
11.	ILLUSION OF SAFETY – Fahrenheit 451 06:01
12.	Nicholas Maloney – Cast/Current 07:05
13.	Thaniel Ion Lee – Trapazoid 03:04
14.	Mike Shiflet – White Grass 05:34
15.	Walter Campbell – Xenophobe 04:18
16.	Nathaniel Hendrickson and Douglas Lucas – Blue Stream 01:10
17.	Joe+N – Study #1 01:53
18.	{AN} Eel – Plodding Subtextual 05:58
19.	The Troubled Times – No Maxim But Now 09:53
20.	Sycamore Willow – Spider In The Basement 04:57
21.	Limestone Ziggurat – Black Atlas 09:45