1997-2005

For a compilation of music from these years see Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005

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

1997-1998

I was born in 1978 in Wellington, New Zealand, but grew up in New Plymouth – near the sleeping volcano Mt Taranaki, rolling green hills, and black sand beaches with surf pounding on the shore of the Tasman. I’m a sixth-generation Pākehā  (European-descended) New Zealander.

As a teenager I learned a few guitar chords and started writing songs. Despite (or maybe because of) the fact I hadn’t come from a musical background or studied music at school, I skipped learning cover songs and went straight to writing my own.  I was inspired by the DIY postpunk ethos, exemplified in NZ by Chris Knox, Peter Jefferies, Alastair Galbraith, The Dead C et al, and Taranaki bands like Sticky Filth , Nefarious, 1080, Schizophrenia….

I self-released my first album Scratched Surface on CDR in 1998, the launch of the fiffdimension label (a reappropriated high school nickname). Tim McVicar played electric guitar and bass in parts.

“Worth searching out coz this lo-fi singer/songwriter oddball has a unique take on the genre. He’s pissed off, a tad fucked up (as usual), but not full of lugubrious self-pity (as unusual) – and is happy to get raucous & obnoxious in just the right kinda way.” – Chris Knox

1999

Early in the year I met an older fellow Taranaki experimental musician Paul Winstanley (aka Paul H Locasta – his 1993 avant-garde bass/synth album ‘Heaven on Earth‘, made while living in Texas, was a revelation for me). I played guitar with a knife & fork in his multimedia noise ensemble the Bird & Truck Collision at the Sweetwaters 1999 festival.

At some point mid year Paul and I convened in New Plymouth, with the Digitator, Brian Wafer and others, to record (the first half of) my 2nd album The Marion Flow.

The Marion Flow 

As well as the songs, we also recorded layers of overdubbed electroacoustic improvisations -some of which came out years later (on the Eden Gully label, after Paul moved back to the USA):

Waiting for the Drummer

In 1999 I also moved from Taranaki back to my birthplace – Wellington, New Zealand, and lived there for the next six years.

Live 1999

“If only I could play guitar like that… bastard” – Chris Knox

Of course my interest in free jazz and literary modernism,  along with my rudimentary conventional musicianship… meant I had zero commercial chance. Nor did I fit neatly into either the ‘free jazz‘ or ‘noise/drone’ camps in the capital’s burgeoning avant-garde music scene, based around the venue The Space (other artists included Jeff Henderson, Campbell Kneale, Antony Milton, Leila Adu, mr sterile Assembly, Lucien Johnson et al).

in the Non-Idiomatic Idiom in Norway

Simon O’Rorke was a British free-improvising percussionist who became another mentor, and hosted regular jam sessions at his house (on Norway Street). Although I’m not a trained jazz musician, Simon let me join more accomplished players, including this ‘septet’ session with Jeff Henderson, Bridget Kelly, Blair Latham, Paul Winstanley and Daniel Beban:

2000

2001

Two years later came a chance to finish recording The Marion Flow. Paul Winstanley again engineered, and played bass on, the remaining tracks – at Thistle Hall in 2001, with Wellington musicians Chris O’Connor, Simon O’Rorke, Chris Palmer, Joe Callwood, and Dean Brown (2001)

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

2002

Throughout 2002 I recorded solo postpunk spoken word free improv guitar spasms onto 4-track cassette tapes. I was underemployed and broke, so made my own entertainment.

The difficult third album, an idiosyncratic spoken word + instrumental voyage into inner space – I locked myself in my room for a month with a 4-track tape recorder and a guitar & a bass and wrestled with the void.

“Four tracks over 45 minutes allow the artist suitable space for his forum of spoken word and instrumental colour, with the latter lurching from acoustic strums to occasional cacophony. On the final track, ‘Revenge of the Smur‘ Edwards uses a primarily percussive accompaniment [by Simon O’Rorke] whose impact is as dramatic as his wordplay” – Real Groove

NZ Musician also gave it an uncomprehending bad review (‘random squeaks, squawks & squeals accompanied by a dreary monotone voice reciting obscure diatribes’); minor notoriety and dark hilarity ensued.

[send us your review]

After the Filmshoot

Further solo tracks… for some reason the most ‘popular’ of the early works (as based on play stats – definitely not an attempt to go ‘mainstream’!).

[send us your review]

2003

Next, finding lyrics harder to write as I got older (and not wanting to repeat myself or get pigeonholed), I left the solo singer/songwriter genre and took a collaborative and mainly instrumental approach in The Winter, a trio with Mike Kingston and Simon Sweetman:

The Winter – plus Sam Prebble on violin – also appeared on

Loose Autumn Moans

Acoustic ensemble songs with string section, recorded on all-analogue equipment (2003)

2004

.

Articulation Incommunicate

Lo-fi spoken word (salad) & improvised guitar. A journey down a road not taken for NZ music, by Dave Edwards with Simon O’Rorke, Youjae Lee, and Simon Sweetman (2004)

[send us your review]

The next logical step was to expand the sonic palette and canvas. The result was a big-band collaboration with Nigel Patterson, Ryan Prebble, Belle Campanita and over a dozen other musicians, from jazz-schooled through to untrained punks – the

Ascension Band.

2005

Ascension Band won the best music award in the NZ Fringe Festival, with an ‘electric symphony’

Ascension Band: Evolution

Ascension Band marked a culmination of my time in Wellington… But by then I was restless to see more of the world, so moved ‘across the ditch’ to Melbourne, Australia.

Inspired by my new Australian surroundings, I took up the banjo, and also began to incorporate field recordings and electronica elements. The result was the first half of After Maths & Sciences…

-> 2005-2012

->2012-2018

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