1856 to 2026 – DIY outsider music, from Aotearoa NZ and beyond
New live album!
With New Zealand in lockdown this might be the next best thing to an actual gig..
Track 1 recorded live at the Fringe Bar, Wellington NZ, 27-02-18
Tracks 2-7 recorded live at Escape Velocity, Featherston NZ, 10-03-18
As part of the New Zealand Fringe Festival
The Digitator – midi, laptop, vocal
Dave Black – bass, electric guitar
A new multilayered Dave Black electric improv / xenochronous composition.
The track continues the evolution of my Wairarapa one man band 2020s ‘late style’, which began with Glimpses of Utopia (2020) and Spastic Rhythms (2021)
It was originally created for the Psi-solation+1 – 2021 compilation album curated by fellow Featherston resident Campbell Kneale. He’s known for his noise music, paintings of cats, and as proprietor of the Miracle Room.
Continue reading “Outono 21”2021 compilation album curated by Campbell Kneale. He’s known for his noise music, paintings of cats, and as proprietor of the Miracle Room gallery in Featherston.
A sequel to his acclaimed 119-track Psi-solation compilation of music made in lockdown 2020.
Both albums are pay what you want via Campbell’s label, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon.
I contributed a new Dave Black piece, Outono 21.
Continue reading “PSI-SOLATION + 1 (one year on)”This track was originally recorded by The Electricka Zoo (2017), and appears on the Other Islands: 2012-2018 compilation. It’s based around a (non-diatonic) Cmaj7 – Amaj7 pattern, with a bossa nova rhythm.
It’s dedicated to my great-great-grandfather Manuel Bernard.
He was born in 1847 in Ponta Delgada, Flores Island, Azores, Portugal.
The words are in (beginner) Portuguese:
Eu gosto de falar
no meus ancestrais
de as ilhas Atlânticas
Madeiras e Açores
Portugal is the westernmost country in Europe, with its back to it geographically and culturally. It was the edge of the known world for Europeans until the Age of Discovery. The Azores islands are even further west.
As a teenager, Manuel Bernard stowed away on a passing American whaling ship.
From a remote island in the Atlantic ocean, he ended up on an equally remote island in the Pacific – on the opposite side of the world, in Wellington, New Zealand.
Continue reading “ilhas Atlânticas”A quickfire Dave Black solo EP, recorded one summer morning, 24 January 2021
It includes ilhas Atlânticas, a tribute to my Portuguese ancestor Manuel Bernard.
| 1. | banjo trio 24/1/21 03:01 |
| 2. | drums 1 24/1/21 00:49 |
| 3. | guitar trio (ringtone) 24/1/21 02:07 |
| 4. | gritches blerk 24/1/21 01:12 |
| 5. | spastic drum solo 24/1/21 04:38 |
| 6. | ilhas Atlânticas 03:12 |
| 7. | Outono 21 08:49 |
The album adds banjo and electric drums to the 2020s Wairarapa DIY solo electric improv style begun in
The first of the ‘late period’ solo instrumental albums.
A compilation of tracks from the Wairarapa in these years.
“It is unusual to find someone playing so confidently in such diverse areas, and anyone into independent music will certainly find something on here to enjoy – Kev Rowland, muzic.nz
Palette-cleansing electric solo improvisations.
Recorded solo in Featherston, New Zealand, 2019-20.
Not specifically a ‘lockdown album’, but nonetheless recorded solo at home during the pandemic.
It marked the emergence of a new ‘late period‘ solo style.
I’m not a trained jazz musician, but nor do I fit neatly into the ‘NZ noise‘ genre.
| 1. | Abbadebdab 03:00 |
| 2. | October ring 03:37 |
| 3. | 11 through the viewer 7 (acoustic) 01:24 |
| 4. | Torrential logistics 04:05 |
| 5. | Usquebaugh 03:53 |
| 6. | Walking through an aye (in Paparoa national park) 03:53 |
| 7. | Solstice Shards 19 05:07 |
| 8. | Teenager 01:39 |
| Campbell Kneale – electric guitar, analogue synth | Dave Black – bass, electric toothbrush, key ring |
One continuous piece, unabridged, no overdubs – the first time we’d played together.
Featherston NZ, 2018.
Two 3min excerpts appear on the compilations Other Islands: 2012-2018
and aguas brilhantes: 2018-2022 :
…but you need to hear the full length version to truly enter Campbell’s world.
Campbell Kneale is an internationally renowned sound artist, a prolific recording artist and performer and relentless collaborator. He currently releases albums as Our Love Will Destroy The World. Previous projects include Black Boned Angel, Birchville Cat Motel, Ming and Brilliant Swords.
Campbell curated the epic 119-track Psi-solation compilation during the Covid-19 pandemic:
Dave contributed an acoustic track, John Collie‘s poem ‘Solitude’ from 1856.
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 compilation of 2020 lockdown sounds from around the world, curated by Campbell Kneale …
“Something about this global pandemic is inspiring people to create and/or curate art on a massive scale…. and this compilation, being offered for free/name-yr-price, is indeed M A S S I V E.” – Howard Stelzer
Psi-solation has 119 tracks, you can pay what you want, and it’s the 2020 album of the year by default!
Campbell and Dave also recorded a noise duo in 2018:
Dearest fellow music-hounds and shut-aways, CELEBRATE PSI PHENOMENON proudly presents…
‘PSI-SOLATION: A GLOBAL COMPILATION OF MUSIC MADE IN LOCKDOWN’
Continue reading “Psi-solation”
The first piece from the book Poems & Lyrics by John Collie (1856).
Recorded by John Collie’s great-great-grandson, during pandemic lockdown, March 2020.
‘SOLITUDE’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”
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