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

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

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.

in the Scotch Dialect

in the English Dialect

Live 2025

Featherston Free Sound Ensemble

A new collaboration with turntablists Guy Walker and Alex Vfree improv electronica for the regions.

Live @ the Bakehouse 29-11-25

Our live debut – more to come in 2026!

Experiments Under the Hills

October-November, with Guy Walker and Alex V

First Experiments

September-October, with Guy Walker

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

Sparkle Tube

Dave and Antony duo

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:

about

Continue reading “The Troubled Times: Smudge (2025)”

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 “The Troubled Times: Sparkle Tube (2025)”

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

Live 2022-24

Live solo electric tracks, 2022-2024

Recorded at:

Dave Edwards – electric guitar, loop pedal, harmonica (2,5), e-drum (7), banjo (8), vocal, lyrics

John Collie (1834-1893) – lyrics (5-6)

Continue reading “Live 2022-24”

Radio Dolby 89.6FM interview

A big thank you to Radio Dolby 89.6FM for this podcast interview – hopefully an interesting audio documentary, and a chance to put the music (and stories behind it) over the years into context… here’s my life story so far, or at least a lot of the music parts!

Continue reading “Radio Dolby 89.6FM interview”

The Troubled Times: Live at the Pyramid Club 28/09/24

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”