w/ Antony Milton: Return of the Sun

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.

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.

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Escape Velocity: the Electricka Zoo live

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

credits

The Digitator – midi, laptop, vocal
Dave Black – bass, electric guitar

www.fiffdimension.com/the-electricka-zoo

PSI-SOLATION + 1 (one year on)

PSI-SOLATION | a global compilation of music made in lockdown | CELEBRATE PSI PHENOMENON (bandcamp.com)

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.

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Spastic Rhythms vol1 (2021)

A quickfire Dave Black solo EP, recorded one summer morning, 24 January 2021

Listen

[send us your review]

It includes ilhas Atlânticas, a tribute to my Portuguese ancestor Manuel Bernard.

Tracklist

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

Further Listening

The album adds banjo and electric drums to the 2020s Wairarapa DIY solo electric improv style begun in

Glimpses of Utopia (2020)

The first of the ‘late period’ solo instrumental albums.

águas brilhantes: 2018-2022

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 & Dave Black: A Ton of Feathers

Listen

About

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.

Featherston, New Zealand

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.

Further Listening

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 (2004)

Dictaphone cassette recordings, Wellington NZ, 2004.
Spoken word and improvised guitar; a journey down a road not taken for New Zealand music.

‘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!

Credits

Dave Edwards – acoustic guitar, harmonica, dictaphone, electronics, electric guitar (11-12), violin (13), vocal & lyrics

with

Youjae Lee – bass (13)
Simon O’Rorke – percussion (13)
Simon Sweetman – ukulele, toys, percussion (16)

About

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).

“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”

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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.

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A post shared by Dave Edwards (@fiffdimension)

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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” →

Gar mar par da nee sa

the opening track from Ruasagavulu

by Dave Black & Snake-Beings

recorded in Suva, Fiji, 2nd November 2019

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” →

Psi-solation

‘Solitude‘ appears on this compilation of 2020 lockdown sounds from around the world, curated by Campbell Kneale …

“Something about this global pandemic is inspiring people to create and/or curate art on a massive scale…. and this compilation, being offered for free/name-yr-price, is indeed M A S S I V E.” – Howard Stelzer

Psi-solation has 119 tracks, you can pay what you want, and it’s the 2020 album of the year by default!

Campbell and Dave also recorded a noise duo in 2018:

Dearest fellow music-hounds and shut-aways, CELEBRATE PSI PHENOMENON proudly presents…

‘PSI-SOLATION: A GLOBAL COMPILATION OF MUSIC MADE IN LOCKDOWN’
Continue reading “Psi-solation” →

Fiji 1976, by Alastair Edwards

Film footage by my father, Alastair Edwards (1936-2010), in Nadi and around Viti Levu in 1976.

It’s from my parents’ honeymoon, a couple of years before I was born.

There was no sound, so I’ve added a soundtrack from Ruasagavulu, which Dr Emit Snake-Beings and I recorded in Suva decades later.

My Dad’s interest in film (then video) and photography was one of the key influences on my own travel and videomaking. He was doing this long before youtube or instagram!

I miss you Dad…