DIY outsider music, from Aotearoa NZ and beyond
Around September 2020 I’d planned to travel to Scotland, on my first visit. There was to be a family gathering for my sister’s wedding in Edinburgh.
The trip’s now postponed indefinitely, for obvious reasons
I’d planned to visit Boyndie, Banffshire, where my great-great-grandfather John Collie grew up.
In 1856, in his early 20s he published a book : Poems and Lyrics (in the English and Scotch Dialects).
I‘ve started setting some of it to music.
‘Solitude‘ appears on this new compilation of lockdown sounds from around the world, curated by Campbell Kneale …
(who I collaborated with in 2018… the full length version of ‘a ton of feathers’ is coming later this year)
Psi-solation has 119 tracks, you can pay what you want, and it wins album of the year by default!
Dearest fellow music-hounds and shut-aways, CELEBRATE PSI PHENOMENON proudly presents…
‘PSI-SOLATION: A GLOBAL COMPILATION OF MUSIC MADE IN LOCKDOWN’
by John Collie, 1856
OH give me near some swelling stream to stray, 0r tread the windings of some pathless wood, For I am wearied of the bustling day, And long to meet thee, gloomy Solitude: That I with thee may climb those shelfy steeps, Which frown majestic o’er the boiling deeps. Continue reading “Solitude”
I played solo acoustic at the Fernside Gardens Open Day on Sunday 16th February, 11am.
At the end of the decade, and looking for a way to follow up the eclectic Asia-Pacific Odyssey of Other Islands: 2012-2018, I stripped things back down to the solo acoustic format of my early years with Live 2019.
The set, at Wairarapa TV in Masterton, New Zealand, was streamed live on the internet on 4th of May 2019.
For the past couple of years I’ve been living in a small town and don’t get to as many gigs as I used to… so here was an opportunity to use 21st century technology to play ‘virtually’ everywhere.
On the other hand musically this was closer to a traditional folk/singer-songwriter set than I’d done for quite a while. I eschewed dissonant improv, multitracking, live backing musicians, field recordings, or electronic trickery this time, and used just acoustic guitar, banjo, and harmonica (and a few seconds of wah pedal on ‘Eastern’).
The set was followed by an interview.
I also released a companion album to Live 2019 – its stroppier lo-fi postpunk ‘official bootleg’ predecesor Live 1999. This was recorded on cassette 20 years (or half my lifetime) ago, when I opened for Chris Knox at Bar Bodega in Wellington NZ last millennium:
I started and finished both live sets on the same two songs, to show continuity and evolution.
It’s been quite a journey in between!
My other 2019 works in progress included
* experiments with animated visuals and electric improvisations (the ‘yang’ flipside of the deliberately toned down ‘yin’ Live 2019)
* a duo with Emit Snake-Beings, for an as-yet-untitled sequel to Ngumbang, coming in 2020 (we had a recording session in Suva, Fiji, of all places);
* a couple of informal jam sessions with the Electricka Zoo (which has otherwise been on hold since last year); ( http://www.soundcloud.com/darrel-hannon/jamming-with-dave)
* and I continued to adapt the 19th century book ‘Poems & Lyrics by John Collie’, which I’d learned was written by my Scottish great-great-grandfather in 1856 before he came to NZ. Three of his poems featured on Live 2019, with more in the pipeline.
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.
An acoustic solo set, live at Wairarapa TV in Masterton, New Zealand
– which took place live on the internet. This was simulcast on Freeview CH41, ArrowFM 89.7FM and YouTube.
The set was part of the Property Law Service May Music Marathon – 12 straight hours of live Music to Television screens during NZ Music Month on May the 4th 2019.
Living in a small town I don’t get to as many gigs as I used to… so here using 21st century technology to play ‘virtually’ everywhere.
On the other hand musically this was closer to a traditional folk/singer-songwriter set than I’d done for quite a while, eschewing dissonant improv, multitracking, live backing musicians or electronic trickery.
I kept my half hour minimal and acoustic (the discord and electric noise I’m saving for another time soon) and updated my past – with
31 July 2019
electric guitar and video by Dave Black,
Featherston, NZ.
One in a series of quickfire improvisations with video effects. Rather than finish an album before releasing anything in 2019, I’m opening a curtain on some of my demo ideas in progress.
Live 4th May 2019, at Wairarapa TV May Music Marathon, in Masterton NZ.
Solo guitar & harmonica version of track http://www.fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/track/summer-skin
Originally recorded in Wellington NZ, September 2003, for the album ‘Loose Autumn Moans‘, with a mini string section of Mike Kingston on cello and Sam Prebble (RIP) on violin. It also appears on the Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005 compilation.
fiffdimension 