1999

At the close of the 90s, aged 20, I left New Plymouth, the large rural town in Taranaki province, where I grew up.

I moved to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city, where I’d been born and where my 19th century pakeha settler ancestors had lived.

My second album, The Marion Flow reflected this journey. It showed a musical and lyrical evolution beyond my debut Scratched Surface.

(part 1, Taranaki).

The Marion Flow

Electric and acoustic songs, spoken word and instrumentals – an almost-recognised New Zealand classic (1999–2001)

“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

Paul Winstanley, recording The Marion Flow (1999)

Paul Winstanley played bass on and engineered the recording sessions, which were hosted by Brian Wafer.

The “hit single” Banana Wizard was released on a compilation of Taranaki music and had some student radio airplay around the country… about the extent of my commercial success to date.

I was also opening my ears and mind to more experimental sounds, and moving beyond conventional pop song structures.

At the same sessions we recorded free improvisations, which Paul later overdubbed and rearranged into

dAdApApA: Waiting for the Drummer

Taranaki improvised rock/noise deconstruction with sputtering synth, air-sucking turntables, didgeridoo and sundry toys providing layers of surreal abstraction (1999)

“after recording tracks for The Marion Flow at Wafer HQ in New Plymouth, an ad hoc group of associated locals assembled to record… the only rock references here come from the guitars… throw in some spoken word and a special guest appearance by N.P. record mogul Brian Wafer on vacuum cleaner and the dAdApApA nova had blazed and fizzled in the blink of an eye” – Eden Gully

& then I got to the capital city, and was suddenly a small fish in a bigger pond…

Part 2, Wellington

Dave Edwards, at Bar Bodega, Wellington NZ, 1999

Here’s what I sounded like around the time I arrived in Wellington – this solo postpunk set at Bar Bodega, opening for Chris Knox, was preserved (in lo-fi, a 90s aesthetic):

Live 1999

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But apart from songs I also fell under the influence of the burgeoning avant garde and free improv scene in Wellington.

This was centred around a venue called the Space (later Fred’s and then the Pyramid Club)… the dissonant flipside of the more popular smooth Pasifika/jazz sound the city became known for (Fat Freddy’s Drop et al).

Although way out of my depth technically, I met up with improvising percussionist Simon O’Rorke, and jazz-trained players including Blair Latham and Jeff Henderson to make

in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway

Free (in both senses) jazz from Wellington, Aotearoa (1999)

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Click here for more detail on the free improv scene in New Zealand

The Wellington jazz sound informed the second half of The Marion Flow, recorded over the next two years

Further Listening

For an overview of my early period, try

1997-2005

Continue reading “1999” →

The Marion Flow (part 1, Taranaki 1999)

“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

Listen

Credits

Produced by Paul Winstanley, & featuring Steve Duffels, the Digitator, and the Dadapapa Magickclone Orchestra.

Recorded at the TFC Lounge, New Plymouth, 1999 – with special thanks to Brian Wafer.

About

The Marion Flow is a pre-millennial fusion of warm acoustic pop, spoken word and postpunk discord.. An almost-acknowledged New Zealand classic from Taranaki – of its time (the ’90s!) yet timeless.

As the sophomore fiffdimension release (following 1998’s Scratched Surface), The Marion Flow began to mix more experimental elements alongside the songwriting. It shows an evolution in ambition and production values, and a more complex & impressionistic lyrical style.

“I sit in this tower of tongues & bells, & move to the groove

Or so that I’m reckoned, & then I am beckoned

Back to these shoes, nigh marion blues

And so to the seashore our body now go, & tale shall flow & power ye know…” – The Marion Flow

In 1999, aged 20, I left New Plymouth, a large rural town, where I grew up, and moved to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city, where I was born. The Marion Flow reflects this journey, geographically, sonically and spiritually.

The Marion Flow was originally a longer album spanning recordings from New Plymouth in 1999 and Wellington in 2001. I’ve now reissued the two halves separately – to emphasise the sense of time and place, and stylistic evolution, and to re-present each more concisely (for the short-attention-span 21st century).

This page is for the 1999 New Plymouth sessions; for the 2001 Wellington followup recordings see The Marion Flow (part 2);

“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

Tracklist

Continue reading →

Cafes in Conversation

4th May 2019 at Wairarapa TV May Music Marathon

I wrote this in 1999, after moving to Wellington. I was at an open mic night, at an upstairs bar in Cuba Mall that no longer exists, waiting for my turn to play. I had to wait a while – hence a lot of lyrics.

It was my attempt at a beat poet vibe, reflecting my move to the capital city and discovery of a local jazz scene. Continue reading “Cafes in Conversation” →

Live 1999

This is what ‘partying like it’s 1999’ actually sounded like at the time:

by Dave Edwards – electric and acoustic guitars, harmonica, vocal, lyrics
Live at Bar Bodega, Wellington, New Zealand, June 1999.

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

Wellington, New Zealand

Tracklist

1.	Cafes in Conversation 03:44
2.	Banana Wizard 02:59
3.	I Don’t Need You (to Grind Me Down) 02:15
4.	Given in Clouds (a wedding) 04:05
5.	Chairs to Tie the Revolution Down 03:31
6.	Midwinter Night 03:35
7.	Locked Without March 04:02
8.	You Can’t Complain 04:48
9.	Open the Dogs 04:43
10.	Summer in Fairyland 03:28
11.	Tony Was Here (but they put him on ice) 03:19
12.	The Marion Flow 09:47

Chris Knox

On this occasion I was privileged to be the opening act for Chris Knox. So this album is (obviously) dedicated to him.
Chris influenced generations of artists in NZ and abroad; his place in the pantheon is secure.

Background

I was 20 years old, and had moved back to Wellington (my birthplace, though not my hometown). I had with me a cheap imitation Stratocaster; some notebook scribblings; a harmonica in my pocket; and an album and a half recorded.

Continue reading →

The Digitator

The Digitator: New Zealand Producer, Songwriter, Vocalist, Drummer, Synth Driver, Live Looping Musician.

A fellow traveller from Taranaki, New Zealand, who formed The Electricka Zoo in late 2015 with Dave Black.
Continue reading “The Digitator” →

in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway (part 1, 1999)

A few years ago I wrote a chapter of Jazz Aotearoa, a book about New Zealand jazz music history, discussing the free improvisation and avant-garde jazz scene in Wellington at the turn of the millennium.

in the non-idiomatic idiom in Norway is a collection of improvised instrumental music with some of the musicians in that scene, from the point of view of my own attempts as an untrained outsider to fit in with these advanced jazz players – including Jeff Henderson, Blair Latham , Paul Winstanley, Dan Beban, Julie Bevan and more.

The title is a reference to Simon’s house on Norway Street, where the recordings took place. The ‘non idiomatic idiom’ suggests the paradox that improvising non-idiomatically (eg in an original personal style without reference to any genre – playing neither jazz, nor rock, blues, reggae, classical etc) is an idiom in itself.

It was recorded in Wellington in two halves, in 1999

Listen

Simon O’Rorke – percussion

Paul Winstanley – synth bass
Blair Latham – alto sax
Jeff Henderson – clarinet
Bridget Kelly – tenor sax
Dan Beban – electric guitar
Dave Edwards – electric and acoustic guitars

and 2014, to show an evolution.

Simon O’Rorke – synthesisers

Blair Latham – bass clarinet
Julie Bevan – acoustic guitar
Michael Hall – alto sax
Chris Prosser – violin
Dave Edwards – bass, electronics, tenor sax

In 2024 Simon O’Rorke struck up a new collaboration with Dave Edwards, this time in the Wairarapa, as a trio with Antony Milton named The Margins:

Background

Free improvisation is a genre of music with a self-explanatory name. Nothing is planned in advance, and the performers create the music on the spot by responding to what the others are doing in that moment.

Continue reading →

dAdApApA: Waiting for the Drummer (1999)

Listen

About

A companion to The Marion Flow, recorded in 1999 by the same lineup who provided that album’s longest (and least conventionally song-based track, pointing the way towards the increasingly radio-unfriendly Mantis Shaped and Worrying), “Lucifer Directing Traffic (at 3AM)”

Recording engineer Paul Winstanley, head of the excellent, now San Francisco-based avant-garde music label Eden Gully recalls it thus:

“after recording tracks for The Marion Flow at Wafer HQ in New Plymouth an ad hoc group of associated locals assembled to record for several sessions of improvised rock/noise deconstruction. really, the only rock references here come from the guitars, with the sputtering synth, air-sucking turntables, didgeridoo and sundry toys providing layers of surreal abstraction. throw in some spoken word and a special guest appearance by N.P. record mogul Brian Wafer on vacuum cleaner – and the dAdApApA nova had blazed and fizzled in the blink of an eye.

“it wasn’t until several years later after the master mixes had been lost, partially recovered and then rediscovered intact again that “Waiting for the Drummer’ was given a final mastering and released as a CDR on EdenGully. it’s been a long strange journey…..”

credits

released 01 August 2006 on Eden Gully as EG15

Fiff Dimension Dave – guitars, spoken word and furbie / Speed Cook – turntables and recording / Pal Diddly – synth and pithy observations / The Digitator – guitar, didgeridoo / BWafer – vacuum cleaner and coffees

Tracklist

1.	just in time for christmas 09:03
2.	making merry 09:00
3.	singing and drinking blood 08:31
4.	elves are farting bodies 14:10
5.	groan in extra stuffing 12:19
6.	smashed robots litter the pine 05:34
7.	an orgy of turkey gobble 08:04

Gleefully Unknown: 1997-2005

A compilation of songs, spoken word and instrumentals from the early phase of my gloriously unsuccessful career:

“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