The Troubled Times

2020s Psychedelic garage rock trio: Antony Milton (guitar & keyboards), Dave Edwards (bass & guitar), and David Heath (drums) – in Masterton, New Zealand.

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2025

Smudge

‘Lounge music’ – nutso falling over kind of wonkiness from mid-winter.

Sparkle Tube

A return to the duo lineup of our earliest recordings (Antony Milton and Dave Edwards).

Available on CDR – 🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

Unsteady Ground

A new collection of songs for the Times, starting off with a weirdly upbeat track recorded pre- US election – the tone drifts somewhat astray as the collection proceeds.

Available on cassette – 🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

No Maxim But Now

The Troubled Times feature on the new compilation Homo Homini Lupus, by Kentucky-based label Humanhood Recordings.

🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

ddA

Our first recording session of the year, on 20 January – an instrumental role reversal, this time with Dave on guitar and Antony on bass… probably our least representative album as a result!

🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

2024

Live at the Pyramid Club Wellington, NZ – 28 September

🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

two new albums, available on cassette:

Boa

Available on cassette -🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

” a new album dominated by the squeals of tortured amps and seriously tormented drums […] the poor bloody neighbours” – Antony Milton

The Latest Poll

Available on cassette – 🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

Available on cassette, The Latest Poll is the debut release for the new Troubled Times Tapes imprint, and a departure from our psychedelic garage rock sound into freeform noise/folk.

Cellophane (7″ single)

7″ sold out -🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

Radio Dolby 89.6FM interview

Dave explained the origins of the band:

🎧 Listen / free download on Bandcamp

The Margins: 21/04/24

🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

An even more avant-garde side project: Antony and Dave with free improv legend Simon O’Rorke – music from The Margins!

2023

Another F***ing Sunday

Available on CD! – 🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

Fizzy dreamy shambolic ramblings from the Wairarapa’s dustiest garage.
Instant songs committed to disk for posterity.

Elevate

🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

Avant-jazz meets squealing rambunctious noise – a contrasting companion piece to the ‘Another Sunday’ CD

Sun Son Sum

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For the third year in a row, we had a recording session on the first day of daylight savings – a short session of spaced out noisy psychedelic ‘rock jams’ this time.

Live in Featherston

Our live debut, at Common Ground in Featherston NZ:

The Troubled Times’ first live appearance, in Featherston NZ, July 2023

🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

Hill Road in Winter

Available on cassette -🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

“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. All recorded ‘New Zealand style’ in [my] garage.”

Antony Milton

2022

A Second Sun

🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

Exactly one year on from our first recording session, now with drums.

State Highway 2

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First recordings by the new trio, pieces evoking the Wairarapa landscapes.

and guest appearances on

(the otherwise acoustic) Poems & Lyrics by John Collie (1856) – with an electric swamp blues arrangement of The Dying Monarch;Negentropic Diatribes, a spoken word album by award-winning painter James Robinson;
🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp
🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

The Troubled Times also appear on fiffdimension vol4 águas brilhantes: 2018-2022

🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

2021

Started as a duo of Antony Milton and Dave Edwards in Masterton, NZ

🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp
🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

“They realy inform n deepen each other – James Robinson

Prehistory: 20032004

Antony Milton and Dave Edwards first crossed paths in Wellington, in the early 2000s.

Antony released the Winter‘s debut album Parataxes on CDR on his PseudoArcana label in 2003,

🎧 Listen / buy on Bandcamp

and played electric violin in the 2004 lineup of Ascension Band.

🎧 Listen / free download on Bandcamp