1856 to 2026 – DIY outsider music, from Aotearoa NZ and beyond
A compilation by Wellington NZ free improv trio The Winter
Simon Sweetman – drums, percussion
Mike Kingston – guitars, cello (2-5), clarinet (7,11,14), charango (7,10)
Dave Edwards – guitars, vocal (3), harmonica (4,7,9), banjo (7), ukulele (7,9,11), saxophone (10,14), piano (10), bass (12,13), electronics (6,8,13)
Wellington, New Zealand,
free improv music trio, formed on winter solstice day June 2003.
An archive compilation,
Continue reading “The Winter: Shortest Days 2003-2015”Multimedia spoken word and music collaboration between two unique NZ artists:
James Robinson is a mid career contemporary New Zealand mixed media artist, exhibiting widely since 1989 – www.jamesrobinson.nz
fiffdimension is music and multimedia by Dave Edwards (aka Dave Black) and collaborators, since 1998 – www.fiffdimension.com
We met in the early 2000s, and finally collaborated 20 years on. Negentropic Diatribes was recorded in Otago in 2022, as James used spoken word recordings to discuss his creative process and innermost thoughts.
The musical settings were created by Dave in Featherston – plus contributions from other collaborators.
with
James won 2007 paramount prize in the wallace award for
” Taniwaha dragon mother ( spirit bones)”
Continue reading “w/ James Robinson – Negentropic Diatribes (2022)”‘… a great big flatulent belch of fresh air amongst all the tight-sphinctered, deodorised boys and girls of the accepted national art world….. off-kilter and threatening but always sumptuously, gloriously beautiful.’
– Chris Knox.
Featherston, NZ – early 2022 – spontaneous compositions, two wet weekends in a row.
A sequel to Spastic Rhythms vol 1 (2021)
Dave Black – guitars, bass, banjo (2), clarinet (6), sanshin (10), loop pedal, e-drum
Oscar – vocal (3,9)
released February 13, 2022
| 1. | Drums on Waitangi Day 00:54 |
| 2. | Estado Novo 01:20 |
| 3. | Oscar – Oscar’s Blues 01:28 |
| 4. | fiffdimension / snakebeings – Arising (into Fragments) 03:51 |
| 5. | Black Mountain (Црна Гора) 00:59 |
| 6. | Shuffling the Tarot 03:39 |
| 7. | Classical rain bucket 01:41 |
| 8. | Rebooting 02:52 |
| 9. | Oscar – At home pants ft. cannon bone 02:12 |
| 10. | Removing a bandaid 00:51 |
| 11. | Shuri Jo (琉球諸島) 01:03 |
| 12. | Waiting for Dovi 05:24 |
A compilation of tracks from the Wairarapa in these years.
“It is unusual to find someone playing so confidently in such diverse areas, and anyone into independent music will certainly find something on here to enjoy – Kev Rowland, muzic.nz
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Antony Milton is a sound artist based in Masterton, New Zealand.
He has been active in the underground and experimental music scenes since the early 1990s.
Continue reading “w/ Antony Milton: Return of the Sun”The 2021 debut album by The Troubled Times!
This was our first recording session, as an electric guitar improv duo – in collaboration with antonymilton.bandcamp.com
Recorded in Masterton, New Zealand, 26 September 2021 – on the first day of daylight savings, in the southern hemisphere Spring,
Antony Milton is a sound artist based in Masterton, New Zealand.
He has been active in the underground and experimental music scenes since the early 1990s.
Continue reading “w/ Antony Milton: Return of the Sun”New live album!
With New Zealand in lockdown this might be the next best thing to an actual gig..
Track 1 recorded live at the Fringe Bar, Wellington NZ, 27-02-18
Tracks 2-7 recorded live at Escape Velocity, Featherston NZ, 10-03-18
As part of the New Zealand Fringe Festival
The Digitator – midi, laptop, vocal
Dave Black – bass, electric guitar
2021 compilation album curated by Campbell Kneale. He’s known for his noise music, paintings of cats, and as proprietor of the Miracle Room gallery in Featherston.
A sequel to his acclaimed 119-track Psi-solation compilation of music made in lockdown 2020.
Both albums are pay what you want via Campbell’s label, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon.
I contributed a new Dave Black piece, Outono 21.
Continue reading “PSI-SOLATION + 1 (one year on)”A quickfire Dave Black solo EP, recorded one summer morning, 24 January 2021
It includes ilhas Atlânticas, a tribute to my Portuguese ancestor Manuel Bernard.
| 1. | banjo trio 24/1/21 03:01 |
| 2. | drums 1 24/1/21 00:49 |
| 3. | guitar trio (ringtone) 24/1/21 02:07 |
| 4. | gritches blerk 24/1/21 01:12 |
| 5. | spastic drum solo 24/1/21 04:38 |
| 6. | ilhas Atlânticas 03:12 |
| 7. | Outono 21 08:49 |
The album adds banjo and electric drums to the 2020s Wairarapa DIY solo electric improv style begun in
The first of the ‘late period’ solo instrumental albums.
A compilation of tracks from the Wairarapa in these years.
“It is unusual to find someone playing so confidently in such diverse areas, and anyone into independent music will certainly find something on here to enjoy – Kev Rowland, muzic.nz
| Campbell Kneale – electric guitar, analogue synth | Dave Black – bass, electric toothbrush, key ring |
One continuous piece, unabridged, no overdubs – the first time we’d played together.
Featherston NZ, 2018.
Two 3min excerpts appear on the compilations Other Islands: 2012-2018
and aguas brilhantes: 2018-2022 :
…but you need to hear the full length version to truly enter Campbell’s world.
Campbell Kneale is an internationally renowned sound artist, a prolific recording artist and performer and relentless collaborator. He currently releases albums as Our Love Will Destroy The World. Previous projects include Black Boned Angel, Birchville Cat Motel, Ming and Brilliant Swords.
Campbell curated the epic 119-track Psi-solation compilation during the Covid-19 pandemic:
Dave contributed an acoustic track, John Collie‘s poem ‘Solitude’ from 1856.
‘Articulation Incommunicate‘ includes an abrasive electric guitar, dictaphone and electric razor performance at the Bomb the Space Festival 2004. This is my earliest extant gig footage, and one of my very few music videos to have over a thousand views. Go figure!
Dave Edwards – acoustic guitar, harmonica, dictaphone, electronics, electric guitar (11-12), violin (13), vocal & lyrics
with
Perhaps the most lo-fi fiffdimension album of all. These tracks were primitively recorded on a cassette dictaphone; based on words scribbled in notebooks; unmelodic; unheard by anyone else at all (until their release in 2020); and seemed like unfinished demos at the time…
… but in hindsight may represent the culmination of my early period (a lo-fi postpunk fusion of songs, spoken word and free improv – www.fiffdimension.com/1997-2005).
Continue reading “Articulation Incommunicate (2004)”“Emptying out of yr nautical caveman comfort / programming lines in size laden torridness hill upon plains / dense foreclosure and venomous worry / salute me and line / burrow tunnel and moth / soon I taste the next pavement / I invent to cause home”
“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.
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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.
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…”
fiffdimension 