East to West brings together for the first time two of New Zealand’s more unusual artist/musician/filmmaker/ethnomusicologists, taking the audience on an epic journey from one side of the Eurasian continent to another in the space of an hour. Continue reading “Dave Black & Snake Beings: East to West”
Tag: NZ
The Winter: Flying Visit
Acoustic instrumental music by Wellington, New Zealand, improvising trio The Winter.
Mike Kingston: charango, guitar, clarinet
Dave Edwards: ukulele, sanshin, tenor sax, piano
Simon Sweetman: xylophone, percussion
Mantis Shaped and Worrying
I spent days alone in my room with a borrowed 4-track cassette recorder (thank you Jeff Henderson) and bass guitar (thank you Simon O’Rorke). I’d never had a bass lesson so came up with my own improvised atonal punk/funk style.
The thin walls and neighbours below meant I couldn’t use an amp but could only play in headphones. This added to the sense of implosion. Likewise vocals couldn’t be done in a loud voice. I mostly eschewed effects pedals, and went more for dissonance than distortion. The technology was all analogue.
The result was Mantis Shaped and Worrying. It received mixed reviews, but was unlike anything else (as far as I was aware) at the time. File under: sui generis.
Track one was a major composition in three movements entitled And in a who gets to who and who does and him:
fiffdimension 