The Troubled Times: Sparkle Tube (2025)

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

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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.)

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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.

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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)

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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!

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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:

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Ascension Band: Live 2004

This was 20 years ago today!

Ascension Band played at the Meatwaters Festival at Happy, in Wellington. We look so young… happy anniversary guys!

By auspicious coincidence, this morning (exactly 20 years on) I found an original DVD of the full performance (as well as discs of the 2005 gigs with the 18-piece imperial phase lineup).

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The Troubled Times: Boa

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.

The Troubled Times also play live this month – in Wellington, at the Pyramid Club on 28 September!

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

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The Margins: 21/04/24

“A virtual infusion of ‘ants-in-the-pants’ for the entomologically deficient.” –Antony Milton

Recent (2024) recordings from a new combination of old collaborators – Antony Milton and Dave Edwards (The Troubled Times) with Wellington free-improv legend Simon O’Rorke.

“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

Credits

Simon O’Rorke– falcon software synth
Dave Edwards– guitar, bass, electro-drums, harmonica
Antony Milton– guitar, drums, microphonic feedback

Recorded at Fleet Street, Masterton, NZ/Aotearoa on 21 April 2024
Cover art by Antony Milton

Tracklist

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2CD compilation 1998​-​2023

Celebrating 25 years of fiffdimension!

Electric (yang) / Acoustic (yin)

A collection of short tracks by Dave Edwards and collaborators.

“Double disc collection of more than two decades’ worth of live and studio-recorded tunes by Dave Edwards, who you may have heard recently as part of The Troubled Times with Antony Milton. It’s quite a diverse listen!

“You get some concise and catchy pop songs, some full-on rockers, banjo excursions, improv freak-out, poetry, acoustic blues, folk songs, scrambled noise… there’s something here for everybody. A good intro to Dave’s dauntingly deep discography.”

– Howard Stelzer, Noisy Bandcamp.

Produced by Antony Milton; and features Paul Winstanley, Chris O’Connor, Simon O’Rorke,Chris Palmer, Sam Prebble, Mike Kingston, Francesca Mountfort, Damian Stewart, Emit Snake-Beings, Nat da Hatt, Steve Duffels, and Oscar (the dog).

2CD double album. 35 tracks spanning 25 years. Comes in gatefold card case with full colour photography by Jechtography and James Gilberd. Includes download of the digital album.

Review 

“Electric (Yang)/Acoustic (Yin) boasts some wildly different tracks; short instrumentals (the guitar and percussion of King Street Boogie, the piano and birdsong of Tui and Grey Sky, the guitar, rain, and bucket- possibly oboe too- of Classical Rain Bucket), song-length instrumentals (the gorgeous and floaty Kalbarri Coastline, the spaced-out psychedelia of Shuffling The Tarot, October Ring‘s sweet little guitar melody being countered by its evil twin sowing dissent and discord), spoken word over free-forming instruments (After The Filmshoot describing either a spiritual experience or very good drugs… or both, @Bomb The Space sounding like a guitar being attacked, Ornery Return Cravings spoken over sheer instrumental chaos), and occasionally, songs too (the stripped-back post-punk glory of Tony Was Here, the slithery, smoky, speakeasy feel of Cafes In Conversation, Inverno creeping in like a fever-dream of The Cramps, and the beautiful, emotionally-charged Paetumokai (Pua pua i te Koanga)). Dave Edwards is a thoughtful and talented writer, composer, and performer. This double album ably demonstrates that, from the soft, delightful guitar ramblings on Stromatolites, to Wealth And Riches that sounds for all the world like a battle to the death between a drumkit and a horde of toy robots.

“He doesn’t seem to so much want to push boundaries, as to act like he’s never heard of boundaries in the first place. At times soft and beautiful, at others dark and jarring, it makes for fascinating listening.” – Peter Malthus, muzic.nz

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The Troubled Times: Elevate

A contrasting companion piece to the ‘Another Sunday‘ CD –

  • all but the last track were recorded during the same session, on 28/05/23)
  • Elevate‘ is a thoroughly kinetic affair bursting with energy and ecstatic passion.

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….)

Videos

credits

Antony Milton – electric guitar Dave Edwards – bass David Heath – drums

releases July 15, 2023

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