Tag: experimental

Top 10 albums*

by Dave Edwards (aka Dave Black) and collaborators,

2020s – 2010s – 2000s – 1990s – 1850s

(*as picked by casual streaming listeners, based on % of tracks played in full minus % of tracks skipped… not necessarily the ones I would have picked – there’s little or no correlation between the “important” works and the parts other people like!).

#1 After the Filmshoot (2002)

Dave Edwards solo postpunk spoken word free improv guitar spasms (2002)

[send us your review]

#2 Other Islands: 2012-2018

Gamelan Taniwha Jaya at Te Papa, Wellington, 2016

Compilation made in New Zealand, Okinawa, Western Australia, Indonesia and Fiji,,

by Dave Black with The Winter, The Electricka Zoo, Dr Emit Snake-Beings, Nat da Hatt, Campbell Kneale, Gamelan Sekar Puri, Gamelan Padhang Moncar, and Gamelan Taniwha Jaya

“The 20 song album covers traditional Javanese and Balinese gamelan, Asia–Pacific folk music, free jazz, and free noise…. If you have an open inquiring mind and love hearing a variety of sound, this is excellent. – Darryl Baser, muzic.net.nz“

# 3 After Maths & Sciences (2005/06)

An Australian novel for the ear – a double album recorded in Melbourne, Victoria,

and Sydney and Gosford New South Wales,

by Dave Black with Cylvi M, Mike Kingston and Francesca Mountfort (2005-2006)

“Dave Black’s debut release (and a re-birth, if you like, for David Edwards) is as much a post-modern piece of Performance Journalism as it is a static batch of “songs” or tracks, After Maths & Sciences is a pleasing challenge of an album. It lives up to the cliché of presenting something new with each listen,”– Simon Sweetman

#4 Live 1999

Solo postpunk live at the old Bar Bodega, Wellington NZ, opening for Chris Knox

“If only I could play guitar like that… bastard” – Chris Knox

# 5 Glimpses of Utopia (2020)

Palette-cleansing Dave Black solo electric guitar improv.

[send us your review]

#6: Fame & Oblivion: 2005-2012

Taking a Korean gayageum lesson, 2007

vol2 – made in New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Thailand, Mongolia, and Japan,

by Dave Black with Ascension Band, The Winter, Nat da Hatt, Wellington’s Most Famous Orchestra, and Cylvi M

“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“

# 7 Live 2019

Solo acoustic set plus an interview, live streamed from Wairarapa TV

“Great skills and a refreshing rebirth of a beatnik sensibility, this is folk the way folk should be” – Andi Verse

#8 The Electricka Zoo (2017)

The duo of live electronica by the Digitator, and Dave Black on bass and electric guitar (2017)

The Electricka Zoo, 2017

“A totally original, mind warping album that smacks you across the face with big sound…. I salute anyone that makes a whole album out of EDM post-punk avant-garde rock / jazz, reggae, Balkan, [and] Portuguese music” – Corrinne Rutherford, www.muzic.net.nz

# 9 Ngumbang (2015)

Dave Black & Snake Beings

Our first collaboration with the even more legendary & underground artist Dr Emit Snake Beings (2015)

[send us your review]

# 10 Ruasagavulu (2020)

by Dave Black & Snake Beings

Made in Fiji, with Dr Emit Snake-Beings – tropical avant-garde instrumentals for keyboards, ukulele, dholak, duduk, harmonicas, DIY kitchen gamelan, and video.

“So easy to get totally lost in this music, recommend for helping with your inner peace” – Andi Verse

see full catalogue www.fiffdimension.bandcamp.com

Glimpses of Utopia

Palette cleansing electric solo improv.

Recorded in Featherston, New Zealand, 2019-20.

I’m not a trained jazz musician, but nor do I fit neatly into the ‘NZ noise‘ genre.

Further listening

Continue reading “Glimpses of Utopia”

Articulation Incommunicate (2004)

Previously unreleased! 

Dave Edwards dictaphone cassette recordings 2004, for spoken word and improvised guitar – a trip down a road not taken for New Zealand music.

Bomb the Space Festival, Wellington NZ, 2004

These tracks were primitively recorded, not just obscure but completely unheard by anyone else, and seemed like raw unfinished demos at the time – but in hindsight may be the culmination of my 1997-2005 early period (a fusion of original songs, spoken word and free improv).

By 2004 my style was wordy, dense with allusions, and deliberately flouted not only verse/chorus structures but grammatical convention in parts; the influences here were literary modernists as much as music – eg  Joyce, Beckett, Burroughs, Pynchon, Dylan (Thomas), and New Zealand poets James K Baxter, Alan Brunton and Hone Tuwhare. I was a postgrad journalism student that year, so partly it was spare time relief from the constraints of non-fiction writing.

My guitar heroes included British free improviser Derek Bailey and my Mississippi bluesman namesake David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards – and fellow explorers in the New Zealand underground music scene.
Wellington, New Zealand

The album is rounded out by an abrasive noise guitar, dictaphone and electric razor performance at the Bomb the Space Festival (the youtube clip is one of my few music videos to have over a thousand views… go figure),

and a pair of free improvisations, with percussionists Simon O’Rorke and Simon Sweetman, and Korean bassist Youjae Lee.

Next, needing a change of scenery, having pushed the singer/songwriter envelope as far as I could, and following some last ensemble collaborations with Ascension Band,

and The Winter

the next year I left the country on my OE and took a different approach again….

Continue reading “Articulation Incommunicate (2004)”

Ruasagavulu

‘Ruasagavulu‘ (made in Fiji

by Dave Black & Dr Emit Snake-Beings)

is now a free/name-your-price download – enjoy!

Thanks for your interest, and happy Matariki if you’re in NZ…

“So easy to get totally lost in this music, recommend for helping with your inner peace” – Andi Verse

Indo-Fijian inspired tropical devotional avant-garde instrumentals for keyboards, ukulele, dholak, duduk, harmonicas, DIY kitchen gamelan, and video.

  

Snake Beings & Dave Black in Fiji

This was one of the last in-person international collaborations from before the world ended… it’s got nothing to do with the pandemic.

It was recorded in Suva, Fiji, 2nd and 4th of November 2019.

The title ‘ruasagavulu’ means ‘twenty’ in Fijian, to kick off the new decade optimistically.

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Further listening

Our first duo recording was ‘Ngumbang‘  (2015) –

a fusion of several genres and a DIY manifesto – “Pick up the pieces and make them into something new, it’s what we do…”

Continue reading “Ruasagavulu”

Loose Autumn Moans (2003)

“Wellington, NZ composer Dave Edwards with some able assistance from duo or trio the Winter... Guitars, violin, cello, and percussion all stack up… He’s got a persona that’s all his own.”

– George Parsons, Dream Magazine #5

All acoustic, with a string section, recorded and mixed on analogue equipment, and originally released on cassette in 2003 – new 2020 remaster.

Featuring

Sam Prebble (violin)

Mike Kingston (cello)

sam & san

and Simon Sweetman on percussion.

simon w newspaper

Wellington, New Zealand

Bats Theatre, Wellington NZ 2003

 

Loose Autumn Moans consists of five acoustic ensemble tracks:
1.
Summer Skin 06:20
2.
Mouth of the Caveman 03:26
3.
Redressing Depression Regression 06:02
4.
The Hurricane Wrangle (Live at Bats Theatre) 07:22
5.
The Winter – O Henry Ending (Live at Photospace Gallery) 12:46

The album is structured as a progression from summer (with a NZ pohutukawa tree in flower on the cover) through autumn – a time of harvest, preparation, shortening daylight, and the shedding of old dead layers – and finishes with an extended live version of ‘O Henry Ending’, recorded at the Winter’s first gig.

 

The original C60 cassette (and later online) release included solo interludes recorded in 2002. These are now available separately as

After the Filmshoot (2002)

By focusing on the 2003 sessions Loose Autumn Moans becomes concise, emphasising the lyrics and the jazzy acoustic instrumental interplay – a mini orchestra to bring colour.

Sam Prebble RIP, 2014

Loose Autumn Moans is dedicated to Sam Prebble (aka Bond Street Bridge), who died in 2014.

Further listening

The collaboration with these guys followed on from

The Winter: Parataxes

The Winter live at Photospace Gallery, July 2003 (photo by James Gilberd)

The Winter‘s debut: electric and acoustic trio improvisations for guitars, cello and percussion, by Dave Edwards, Mike Kingston, and Simon Sweetman (2003)

“A strange sonic brew that includes dissonant rock textures, rough outsider folk-blues mysteries, electric and acoustic improvisations and a considerable part of tasty feedback. Imagine equal parts Derek Bailey, New Zealand’s Pumice and classic ’60s blues/folk and you’re in the right ballpark.” – The Broken Face

Continue reading “Loose Autumn Moans (2003)”

After the filmshoot (2002)

Dave Edwards solo cassette tracks, in Wellington NZ, 2002.
Wellington, New Zealand

 

Hey so the new (2020) album Ruasagavulu is out!

(go there, like, share etc)…

 

& in the meantime, until the next new project, here’s one from the vault:

 
1.
After the Filmshoot (take 1) 03:25
 
 
2.
Interlude: the sociopolitical context 00:51
 
 
 
3.
Sleep/Grease 02:57
 
 
 
4.
Etude, for electric saxophone 03:16
 
 
 
5.
Working Like a Fountain in the Slender Morning Chill 05:11
 
 
 
6.
Interlude: les paul tapdance 01:36
 
 
 
7.
After the Filmshoot (take 2) 04:51
 
 
 
8.
WLAF reprise 03:32

In 2002, a year whose digits are an anagram of this one’s,  I was living in Wellington (New Zealand’s capital, and my birthplace), looking for a way to follow up the almost-success of The Marion Flow (part 2).

But I was moving further away from conventional 3min song formats into the avant-garde.

This is the second largely solo album I made in 2002.

Continue reading “After the filmshoot (2002)”

Ruasagavulu

Out now – the new album

by Dave Black & Dr Emit Snake-Beings

Made in Fiji

“So easy to get totally lost in this music, recommend for helping with your inner peace” – Andi Verse

Indo-Fijian inspired tropical devotional avant-garde instrumentals for keyboards, ukulele, dholak, duduk, harmonicas, DIY kitchen gamelan, and video.

  

Snake Beings & Dave Black in Fiji

This was one of the last in-person international collaborations from before the world ended… it’s got nothing to do with the pandemic.

It was recorded in Suva, Fiji, 2nd and 4th of November 2019.

The title ‘ruasagavulu’ means ‘twenty’ in Fijian, to kick off the new decade optimistically.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Further listening

Our first duo recording was ‘Ngumbang‘  (2015) –

a fusion of several genres and a DIY manifesto – “Pick up the pieces and make them into something new, it’s what we do…”

Continue reading “Ruasagavulu”

Gar mar par da nee sa

the opening track from Ruasagavulu

by Dave Black & Snake-Beings

recorded in Suva, Fiji, 2nd November 2019

Snake Beings and Dave Black in Fiji

This short warmup improv is based on an Indian scale, inspired by Dr Emit Snake-Beings‘ travels to Kerala in India, and harmonium lessons in Suva.

There’s an Indian influence throughout the album, as several sections are based on drones and modal improv (rather than the chord changes)… though this is not a traditional Indian album, we’ve borrowed ideas to inform our own experiments.

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The temple in the photo is Sri Siva Subramaniya in Nadi. It’s built in the Dravidian style from southern India, which is also found in Singapore and Malaysia.

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In contrast to other Pacific Island countries, Fiji has a large – almost half – population of Indian descent. Indians came to Fiji in the 19th century, as indentured labourers to work the sugar cane plantations.

The following videos are made in India, courtesy of www.snakebeings.co.nz

Continue reading “Gar mar par da nee sa”

2002: self-isolation before it was cool?

The difficult third album – recorded during a time of intense introspection in 2002. I locked myself in my room in Wellington for all of November with an analogue 4-track cassette recorder.The results rapidly put an end to my promising New Zealand music career!

Wellington, New Zealand

In 2002, a year whose digits are an anagram of this one’s, I locked myself in my room for a month of self-isolation.

It had nothing to do with a pandemic!

Kia kaha Aotearoa…

It was just me living in Wellington and looking for a way to follow up The Marion Flow (part 2).

I was moving further away from conventional 3min song formats into the avant-garde. Continue reading “2002: self-isolation before it was cool?”

Ruasagavulu – with Snake Beings in Fiji

Made in Suva, Fiji – the new album by Dave Black & Dr Emit Snake-Beings

“So easy to get totally lost in this music, recommend for helping with your inner peace” – Andi Verse

Indo-Fijian inspired tropical devotional avant-garde instrumentals for keyboards, ukulele, dholak, duduk, harmonicas, DIY kitchen gamelan, and video.

This was one of the last in-person international collaborations from before the world ended.

 

The title ‘ruasagavulu’ means ‘twenty’ in Fijian, to kick off the new decade.

recorded in Suva, Fiji, 2nd November 2019

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Further listening

Our first duo recording was ‘Ngumbang‘  (2015) –

Continue reading “Ruasagavulu – with Snake Beings in Fiji”