“Worth searching out coz this lo-fi singer/songwriter oddball has a unique take on the genre – he’s happy to get raucous & obnoxious in just the right kinda way […]

“This is something that he has to do – that he will do – come fame or oblivion.” – Chris Knox

Start with the

2CD compilation 1998​-​2023

🎧 Listen / Buy on Bandcamp

“Double disc collection of more than two decades’ worth of live and studio-recorded tunes by Dave Edwards, who you may have heard recently as part of The Troubled Times with Antony Milton. It’s quite a diverse listen!

You get some concise and catchy pop songs, some full-on rockers, banjo excursions, improv freak-out, poetry, acoustic blues, folk songs, scrambled noise… there’s something here for everybody. A good intro to Dave’s dauntingly deep discography.”

– Howard Stelzer, Noisy Bandcamp.

…or hear the stories behind the music:

Radio Dolby 89.6FM interview

🎧 Listen / free download on Bandcamp

Catalogue

Albums of Dave solo and/or his own compositions (as opposed to collaborations and ethnomusicology) include:

1. Ruasagavulu ka lima (Fiji, 2025)
2. Live 2022-24
3. Jovial Blade 7″ (2024)
4. Quietism (2024)
5. Spastic Rhythms ’22 (2022)
6. Spastic Rhythms vol 1 (2021)
7. Glimpses of Utopia (2020)
8. Live 2019
9. in a Wildflower State (Western Australia, 2013)
10. South Island Sessions (2006)
11. After Maths & Sciences (Australia, 2005/06)
12. Articulation Incommunicate (2004)
13. Loose Autumn Moans (2003)
14. After the Filmshoot (2002)
15. Mantis Shaped & Worrying (2002)
16. The Marion Flow (part 2, Wellington, 2001)
17. The Marion Flow (part 1, Taranaki, 1999).
18. Live 1999
19. Scratched Surface (1998)

Biography

David Edwards was born in Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand in 1978, and grew up in New Plymouth. A self-taught music outsider, he started writing songs as a teenager.

1997-2005

He recorded a debut album Scratched Surface on reel-to-reel analogue tape, released it on CD-R in 1998 – launching the fiffdimension label (a reappropriated high-school nickname, with phonetic spelling) – and played live as an opening act for Chris Knox, Peter Jefferies, Sticky Filth et al.

1997-2005 compilation – 🎧 Listen / Buy on Bandcamp

From 1999-2005 Dave lived in Wellington (& yes was an extra in Lord of the Rings, far left).

During this time (before social media), he released a series of increasingly idiosyncratic further albums on CD-R (now available on Bandcamp).

Recording collaborators included Paul Winstanley, Mike Kingston, Simon Sweetman, Simon O’Rorke, Nigel Patterson, Francesca Mountfort, Chris Palmer, Chris O’Connor, and Joe Callwood.

Dave’s music blended acoustic folk and electric postpunk with free improvisation and impressionistic spoken word – without fitting neatly into either the ‘free jazz‘ or ‘noise/drone’ camps in the capital’s burgeoning avant-garde music scene.

In 2002 Dave wrote an article for The Wire magazine, and in 2009 a chapter for the book ‘Jazz Aotearoa‘, about this era in NZ music history (from which some of the better-known other artists include Jeff Henderson, Campbell Kneale, Antony Milton, Daniel Beban, Leila Adu, mr sterile Assembly, Lucien Johnson et al).

In 2003 The Winter trio formed, with multi-instrumentalist Mike Kingston and percussionist Simon Sweetman, offering a distinctive clattering free improv / folk fusion. They performed in the 2003 Wellington Jazz Festival, and infrequently throughout the following decade.

The Winter compilation – 🎧 Listen / Buy on Bandcamp

From 2003-2005 Dave also formed Ascension Band with keyboardist Nigel Patterson (The Black Seeds) and others. Named after the John Coltrane album, the idea was to create a big band opportunity for untrained outsiders to collaborate with professional musicians.

Ascension Band won Best Music Award in the 2005 NZ Fringe Festival with ‘Evolution‘, a 50-minute electric symphony for 18-piece punk orchestra conducted by Nigel. 

Ascension Band: Evolution – 🎧 Listen / free download on Bandcamp

2005-2012

The success of Ascension Band was a culmination of Dave’s time in Wellington – but the big band was logistically impractical to continue, and by this point he was keen to see more of the world. He commenced a ‘big OE‘, starting with six months in Melbourne, Australia.

The change of country and sonic influences prompted a new musical persona Dave Black (his maternal grandfather’s surname). He bought a banjo (now the oldest instrument in his collection, and has circumnavigated the globe!), and also began to experiment with field recordings, electronica and ‘world music’ elements.

fiffdimension evolved from a CD-R label to releasing online music, and launched www.fiffdimension.com and a YouTube channel.

In 2006 Dave moved to the South Island of NZ (Te Wai Pounamu), studied at the Nelson School of Music, and performed solo at the Liquid Architecture Festival in Brisbane (Australia) and Lines of Flight Festival in Dunedin.

2005-2012 compilation – 🎧 Listen / Buy on Bandcamp

From 2007-208 Dave and then-partner Cylvi M lived abroad in South Korea, and Montenegro, before returning home for a couple of years.

2012-2018

From 2011-2014 Dave left NZ again, and lived in Okinawa (Japan), and Western Australia, and made a series of electroacoustic/ethnographic/field-recording albums.

(For details see the ethnomusicology page)

2012-2018 compilation – 🎧 Listen / Buy on Bandcamp

After returning to NZ via Indonesia, Dave first settled in Titahi Bay. From 2015-2018 he played in the Wellington gamelan ensembles Gamelan Taniwha Jaya, led by composer Gareth Farr; Gamelan Padhang Moncar, led by Budi Putra; and rock/electronica duo The Electricka Zoo.

2018-2022

Since 2017 he lives in Featherston, in the Wairarapa region, and continues to create original music.

2012-2018 compilation – 🎧 Listen / Buy on Bandcamp

In 2021 Dave and Antony Milton (a better known and even more prolific underground NZ composer!) formed The Troubled Times in Masterton. In 2022 the duo became a trio, with drummer David Heath, and in 2023 released their first CD.

The Troubled Times – Another ****ing Sunday – 🎧 Listen / Buy on Bandcamp

From 2018-2025, Dave and other relatives recorded Poems & Lyrics by John Collie (1856) – an adaptation of the book. It was written by their early pakeha settler ancestor in Scotland, and set to music along with Dave’s nephew Hans Landon-Lane and other relatives.

The Troubled Times contributed the sole electric track, a swamp-blues arrangement of ‘The Dying Monarch’.

Poems & Lyrics (in the English Dialect, 1856) – 🎧 Listen / Buy on Bandcamp

Other recent collaborators include:

• award-winning painter James Robinson;
• noise maestro Campbell Kneale;
• multimedia ethnomusicologist Dr Emit Snake-Beings; 
• Japan-based kiwi expat Nat da Hatt; and
• a new free improv collaboration with Antony Milton and Simon O’Rorke as The Margins
• Featherston-based turntablist Guy Walker (watch this space)

recent solo works

 Dave also continues to play solo:

Live 2022-24 – 🎧 Listen / Buy on Bandcamp

in both electric

Quietism (2024) – 🎧 Listen / Buy on Bandcamp

and acoustic styles. His most recent solo album to date is:

Ruasagavulu ka lima (Fiji, 2025) – 🎧 Listen / Buy on Bandcamp