You can copy, distribute, advertise and play this album as long as you: Read the rest of this entry »spoken word
interview by Nikki King
Live 2019 includes a post-gig interview with Dave Edwards by Nikki King.
We discussed the origins of fiffdimension (including where the name comes from), 19th century ancestors, life in the Wairarapa, and various projects, collaborators, and influences from New Zealand and abroad.
Nikki is the vocalist and trumpeter for Wairarapa postpunk band Spank, who also performed a set in the Wairarapa TV May Music Marathon that day.
A Visit to the Beehive
A pleasant surprise this week to get a small (single figure) royalty payment from APRA for radio airplay for the shortest track from The Marion Flow, recorded back in 2001!
That goes some way towards recovering the $600 or so I spent recording the album (a lot of money for a broke student back then). I can’t claim it’s a prescient political satire that predicted this week’s news events, but maybe like the album as a whole it’s just timeless…
It’s also, for fans of Wellington avant-garde music, a rare opportunity to hear Simon O’Rorke play a straight rock beat on drums!
The Beehive is the nickname for the Executive Wing of New Zealand’s government building in Wellington .
Ngumbang
Out now!! the new collaboration with even more legendary & underground NZ artist Snake Beings.
Ngumbang is the first collaborative album by two of New Zealand’s more unusual artist/musician/filmmaker/ethnomusicologists – performed on guitars, bass, banjo, percussion, saxophones, clarinets, harmonicas, synthesisers, Okinawan sanshin, ukulele, violin, loop pedal, piano, drums and spoken word. The album was recorded in and near Auckland, New Zealand in 2014–2015 and includes live performances at Vitamin S and the Audio Foundation.
Emit Snake-Beings, who over several decades has travelled intensively in Spain, Holland, the Middle East, Mexico, America and Japan, is a New Zealand / British experimental filmmaker and musician who has produced over 40 independently released film soundtrack CDs and made a number of short experimental and narrative films in Spain, U.K. and New Zealand. www.snakebeings.co.nz
Dave Black, originally from Taranaki and active since the late 90s on the NZ underground music scene, began by fusing acoustic songs, noisy postpunk, spoken word and avant-garde improvisation – and has diversified further from there. Notable performances include the award-winning 14-piece Ascension Band, appearing as an international artist at the Liquid Architecture Festival in Brisbane, Australia, and teaching a thousand Okinawan school students to perform a haka. www.fiffdimension.com
‘Ngumbang’ is Read the rest of this entry »
The Marion Flow
“It’s lo-fi, organic and about as eclectic as one could manage. Kind of reminds me of Nick Cave if he had grown up in Timaru. No pretentious American accents or catch phrase choruses, just a bunch of people making music. A little beauty!” – NZ Musician, August/September 2002
Turn-of-the-milennium fusion of warm acoustic pop, spoken word and postpunk discord. An almost-acknowledged New Zealand classic – of its time yet timeless.
$5 download includes hidden tracks, lyrics and original CDR artwork.
“Edwards’ music is often a sculpture rather than a melodic composition. Within this chosen form, amongst all the writings rantings & poetry there’s much difficult pleasure to be had for the musically adventurous.” – Brent Cardy, Real Groove, July 2002
Produced by Paul Winstanley, & featuring Chris O’Connor (drums), Chris Palmer (electric guitars), Simon O’Rorke (percussion), the Dadapapa Magickclone Orchestra and more. Recorded at the TFC Lounge, New Plymouth, 1999, and Thistle Hall, Wellington, 2001.
Simon O’Rorke
The Marion Flow (2001)
Dave Edwards at Patuha Acoustic Music Festival, Taranaki, 1998
Mt Taranaki, NZ
Chris Palmer, recording The Marion Flow (2001)
The Marion Flow (2001)
Paul Winstanley, recording The Marion Flow (1999)
Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005
A companion to this album, recorded at the same sessions in Taranaki in 1999 is DDPP: Waiting For the Drummer
]Fame & Oblivion: 2005-2012
“This is something that he has to do, that he will do, come fame or oblivion” –Chris Knox
Now available on Spotify, iTunes, Bandcamp, Deezer etc
fiffdimension vol2, a sequel to Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005, sees increasingly wide-ranging experimentation and exploration both sonically and geographically, from New Zealand and beyond to Australia and East Asia, and a reinvention as Dave Black.
Whereas Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005 showed a youthful kiwi fusion of songs with avant-garde spoken word and instrumental pieces, Fame & Oblivion: 2005-2012 documents me in my late 20s and early 30s moving beyond these parameters.
My approach became less introspective and more journalistic – thanks to new influences from years spent living abroad in Australia, South Korea and Japan. New elements include the banjo, electronica, field recordings, multimedia performances, and touches of traditional Asian music. I also adopted the moniker Dave Black, to differentiate from my earlier works.
The third part of the trilogy, Other Islands: 2012-2018, documents my return to NZ via other Asia Pacific countries, and more recent works.
Featuring tracks from the albums
Ascension Band: Evolution (2005)
After Maths & Sciences (2005-2006)
South Island Sessions (2006)
First Time Around: East Asia (2008)
The Winter: 2011 (2011)
The Winter: Exit Points (2010/2015)
ネオン列車の風景 Neon Train Landscapes (2010-2015)
and previously unheard tracks
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- Ascension Band: Evolution (2005)
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- After Maths & Sciences (2005-2006)
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- South Island Sessions (2006)
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- First Time Around: East Asia (2007-2008)
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- The Winter: 2011
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- Neon Train Landscapes (2010-2015)
by Dave Black (acoustic & electric guitars, banjo, harmonica, laptop, bass, tenor saxophone, field recordings, piano, gayageum, vocal), with
Mike Kingston (acoustic guitar),
Simon Sweetman (percussion),
Nat da Hatt (electric guitar, keyboards),
Cylvi M (vocal, field recordings, percussion, shakuhachi),
Hayden Gifkins (electric guitar),
Nigel Patterson (hammond organ),
Ryan Prebble (tone generator),
Matthew Thornicroft (electric guitar),
Jeff Henderson (drums),
Noel Meek (vocal),
Clever Hansel (ukulele)
and field recordings from Australia, South Korea, Thailand, Mongolia, and Japan.
If you enjoy this, try the first volume Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005 and the third, Other Islands: 2012-2018
Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005
“Whilst shopping from fiffdimension make sure to get hold of ‘Gleefully Unknown’, a best-of compilation of Dave Edwards’ music from 1997 to 2005. Rough outsider folk-blues mysteries, dissonant rock textures, electric and acoustic improvisations…
“Edwards strikes me as one of the most overlooked musicians from the fertile lands of New Zealand and if you need a fresh start this might very well be the place.” – Mats Gustafsson, The Broken Face
Now available from Spotify, Bandcamp etc
A compilation of songs, spoken word and instrumentals from the first half of my gloriously unsuccessful career to date:
by Dave Edwards (acoustic & electric guitars, harmonica, bass, banjo, vocal)
with
Mike Kingston (cello, acoustic guitar),
Paul Winstanley (fretless bass, turntables),
Simon Sweetman (percussion),
Nigel Patterson (hammond organ),
Cylvi M (percussion),
Simon O’Rorke (percussion),
Francesca Mountfort (cello),
Jeff Henderson (clarinet),
Blair Latham (alto sax),
Sam Prebble (violin, percussion),
Chris Palmer (electric guitar),
Chris O’Connor (drums),
Antony Milton (violin, keyboards),
Frey (laptop),
Dean Brown (drums)
and more…
Featuring tracks from the albums
Scratched Surface (1997-1998)
in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway (1999/2014)
The Marion Flow (1999-2001)
Mantis Shaped and Worrying (2002)
The Winter: Parataxes (2003)
Loose Autumn Moans (2003)
Live 2004 (2004)
After Maths & Sciences (2005-2006)
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- Scratched Surface, 1998
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- Dadapapa, 1999
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- in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway (1999/2014)
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- The Marion Flow (2001)
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- Mantis Shaped and Worrying (2002)
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- The Winter: Parataxes (2003)
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- Loose Autumn Moans (2003)
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- The Winter: Swansong (for the Huia) (2004)
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- After Maths & Sciences (2005-2006)
… if you enjoy this, try the sequels Fame & Oblivion: 2005-2012 and Other Islands: 2012-2018
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- Fame & Oblivion: 2005-2012
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- Other Islands: 2012-2018
Mantis Shaped and Worrying
Simon O’Rorke played percussion on
“On the first of the four tracks here, New Zealand experimental musician David A. Edwards spins out these dry verbal expositions of descriptive details in rhythmic and purely compulsive floods, while behind his NZ accented narrative various bloops, noodles and skittering musical sounds are smeared around the canvas. Almost poetry, but often more like verbal textures rather than a focus on the words themselves. His speaking delivery seem purposely emotionless. The second is an instrumental folkish thing that devolves into a battle between squids wearing black rubber raincoats. The third track is sung and perhaps the most “normal” moment here, with a meandering songlike structure and more compulsive verbiage. The fourth and final is almost 24 minutes of narration, swooping bass notes walking through the darkness, clattering spastic percussion, as the words seem to merge film noir dialog with surreal beat poetic train of consciousness.” – George Parsons, Dream Magazine #5
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