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

Listen

About

These solo recordings were originally released as interludes, between the acoustic ensemble pieces in the Loose Autumn Moans (2003) album. But they’re now re-presented separately as a standalone short album (with a different running order and some light remastering).

I wrote the words to the title track in a notebook during the wrap party for a short film I’d worked on – a surrealist description of the evening, based on deliberate mishearings of the conversations around me:

“Taking notes throughout the performance. Humans become worms, with a sameness that is frightening. Politics is bad: we knew this already, but now it’s confirmed. Collapse into laughter.

A cigarette chair from which comes a dictator; everyone in thrall to his conversation. A plastic wooden horse to capture the city – incongruous? Indeed. Expelled all the virtues? You to decide.”

I made the soundscape with electric guitar and a 4-track tape recorder.

The other tracks on the album expanded on this wordy fusion of postpunk singer/songwriter and free improvisation. Radio stations wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole.

Background

In the early 2000s,  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.

Although I lived not far from Courtenay Place I was more interested in the scene based around Newtown venue The Space (a precursor to the Pyramid Club), then in its baroque period.

I was an underemployed arts graduate, living in a scody flat doing casual work as a film extra (blink and you’ll miss me in Lord of the Rings) or builder’s labourer, and (trying &) failing to write a novel. Partly due to lack of money, I made my own entertainment.

Although the internet existed in early form, this was before social media – so instead of selfies, oversharing took a more oblique form, filtered through art.

In all, I was a noisy (as opposed to noise) guitar & spoken word footnote to the Wellington free jazz / avant garde music scene.

Tracklist

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

Further listening

The tracks on After the Filmshoot were originally part of

Loose Autumn Moans:

Acoustic songs with a string section, recorded on all-analogue equipment, by Dave Edwards, with Sam Prebble, Mike Kingston, and Simon Sweetman (2003)

Continue reading “After the filmshoot (2002)” →