The Troubled Times: Hill Road in Winter

Happy new year – here’s our first new music release of 2023 – available for download or limited-edition cassette, courtesy of Antony Milton‘s Smalltown Electron label:

The first physical format release from Masterton trio The Troubled Times (and the debut release for Small Town Electron as a label) is a loud and noisy nocturnal romp through the hills and onto the gravel back roads of one of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s least visited regions.

(see also

The Troubled Times discography

)

Continue reading “The Troubled Times: Hill Road in Winter”

The Troubled Times: A Second Sun

credits

Antony Milton electric guitar, keyboard (1,4), drums (4), painting

Dave Edwards – bass, electric guitar (4), vocal (6), harmonica (7)

David Heath – drums


John Collie (1834-1893) – lyrics (6) (a crossover with fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/album/poems-lyrics-in-the-english-dialect-1856 )

Recorded in Masterton, New Zealand, 25 September 2022

Loosely a sequel to Antony Milton and Dave Edwards‘ first duo collaboration fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/album/return-of-the-sun-2021 – The Troubled Times’ debut.

Continue reading “The Troubled Times: A Second Sun”

The Troubled Times: State Highway 2

credits

released August 13, 2022

Antony Milton – electric guitar, banjo (6), drums & keyboard (7)

Dave Edwards – electric guitar (1,3,5), acoustic guitar (2,6,7), bass (4), aluminium ladder (7)

David Heath – drums

https://fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/album/state-highway-2-2022

——-

Masterton, New Zealand

Recorded in Antony’s garage,
17th July + 7th August 2022

Photo by Sara Rogers


Further listening: Antony and Dave also collaborated on fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/album/return-of-the-sun-2021
and
layyourburdensdown.bandcamp.com/album/-

Campbell Kneale & Dave Black: A Ton of Feathers

releases October 17, 2020

Campbell Kneale – electric guitar, analogue synth

Dave Black – bass, electric toothbrush, key ring

Featherston, New Zealand,
27-Nov-18

(one continuous take, unabridged, no overdubs – the first time we’d played together)

A 3min excerpt appeared on Other Islands: 2012-2018

but you need to hear the full length version to truly enter Campbell’s world.

Continue reading “Campbell Kneale & Dave Black: A Ton of Feathers”

Gar mar par da nee sa

the opening track from Ruasagavulu

by Dave Black & Snake-Beings

recorded in Suva, Fiji, 2nd November 2019

Snake Beings and Dave Black in Fiji

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”

Huia Vortex

Animated visuals, with electric guitar loops, one-stringed bass, and drums – the opening track from the ‘Ngumbang‘ album (get the free download) – w/ Emit Snake-beings & Nat da Hatt

The title ‘Huia Vortex’ refers to the location where the track was recorded, in Huia, a small village on the outskirts of west Auckland.

Dave Black & Emit Snake-Beings

It’s not necessarily related to ‘Swansong (for the Huia)(2004), the second album by The Winter, an electro-acoustic trio improvisation in tribute to the extinct New Zealand bird the huia by Dave Edwards, Mike Kingston, and Simon Sweetman. Its 19-minute final track remains an underrated fiffdimension epic. [send us your review]

The Electricka Zoo – new tracks, late 2019

Here’s a pair of new (late 2019) tracks from The Electricka Zoo

Keyboards & electronica by the Digitator

& Dave Black on electric guitar

in Upper Hutt, New Zealand, November 2019

the Electricka Zoo, 2017

Get our album if you haven’t already!

 

The Marion Flow, March 2019

Since last year I’ve been getting back into playing solo acoustic. Here’s a 6 March 2019 version of ‘the Marion Flow‘:

Originally recorded in New Plymouth in 1999, it became the title track of my second album.

The 1999 recording had quite a different vibe – spoken word delivery, electric guitars panned left & right, and Paul Winstanley playing a cymbal through a pitch shifter, turning it into a deep sea gong sound.

On other occasions it became a rock riff, based around just an E note and its octave.

I was surrounded by wider & weirder music too. I moved to Wellington and found a  kiwi avant-garde scene with free jazz, noise, and theatre gallore. We eventually finished The Marion Flow album in 2001, after recording sessions at Thistle Hall.

The lyrics are some of my favourite. They were scribbled in a notebook sometime in the late 90s. I was digesting the influence of literary modernism (eg lines like ‘yea take in that wake’ a shout out to James Joyce, using nouns as verbs and vice versa, and other general flouting of grammatical rules).

Taranaki and its coastlines inspired much of the atmosphere.

Continue reading “The Marion Flow, March 2019”