1856 to 2026 – DIY outsider music, from Aotearoa NZ and beyond
Newly discovered 2010 ‘lost recordings’ by The Winter –
An improvised music trio of Mike Kingston, Dave Edwards, and Simon Sweetman –
Includes live performances at Fred’s (the only known video of the band), and previously unheard recording sessions on 25-4-10 and 6-6-10.
releases June 6, 2023
Continue reading “The Winter: 2010”A compilation by Wellington NZ free improv trio The Winter
Simon Sweetman – drums, percussion
Mike Kingston – guitars, cello (2-5), clarinet (7,11,14), charango (7,10)
Dave Edwards – guitars, vocal (3), harmonica (4,7,9), banjo (7), ukulele (7,9,11), saxophone (10,14), piano (10), bass (12,13), electronics (6,8,13)
Wellington, New Zealand,
free improv music trio, formed on winter solstice day June 2003.
An archive compilation,
Continue reading “The Winter: Shortest Days 2003-2015”‘Articulation Incommunicate‘ includes an abrasive electric guitar, dictaphone and electric razor performance at the Bomb the Space Festival 2004. This is my earliest extant gig footage, and one of my very few music videos to have over a thousand views. Go figure!
Dave Edwards – acoustic guitar, harmonica, dictaphone, electronics, electric guitar (11-12), violin (13), vocal & lyrics
with
Perhaps the most lo-fi fiffdimension album of all. These tracks were primitively recorded on a cassette dictaphone; based on words scribbled in notebooks; unmelodic; unheard by anyone else at all (until their release in 2020); and seemed like unfinished demos at the time…
… but in hindsight may represent the culmination of my early period (a lo-fi postpunk fusion of songs, spoken word and free improv – www.fiffdimension.com/1997-2005).
Continue reading “Articulation Incommunicate (2004)”“Emptying out of yr nautical caveman comfort / programming lines in size laden torridness hill upon plains / dense foreclosure and venomous worry / salute me and line / burrow tunnel and moth / soon I taste the next pavement / I invent to cause home”
“Wellington, NZ composer Dave Edwards with some able assistance from duo or trio the Winter... Guitars, violin, cello, and percussion all stack up… He’s got a persona that’s all his own.” – George Parsons, Dream Magazine #5
All acoustic, no overdubs, and complete with a string section! Recorded and mixed on analogue equipment, and originally released on cassette in 2003 – new 2020 remaster.
“Edwards‘ art is always an interactive experience, and the spontaneous nature of his audio output encourages descriptions such as abrasive, discordant, sombre and atmospheric. Such adjectives contribute but never tell the whole tale.” – Real Groove
The album is structured as a progression from summer. The cover image shows a NZ pohutukawa tree in flower. It continues through autumn, a time of harvest, preparation, shortening daylight, and the shedding of old dead layers.
It finishes with an extended live version of ‘O Henry Ending‘, recorded at the Winter’s first gig.
“O Henry falling leaves & branches, talk a worried sad refrain
Your eyes half tilt, your brain half mast
To tie the fond anonymous bond beyond yr aching shelter lying walls
That fall to fall, & raise the days, museum haze …”
Dave Edwards (archtop acoustic guitar, harmonica, vocal, lyrics)
Sam Prebble (violin) / Mike Kingston (cello)
Simon Sweetman (percussion)
Recorded in Wellington, NZ, 2003
1. | Summer Skin 06:19 |
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Mouth of the Caveman 03:26
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Loose Autumn Moans is dedicated to Sam Prebble (aka Bond Street Bridge), who died in 2014.
Rest easy Sam, and thank you..
Continuing the seasonal theme, Dave Edwards, Mike Kingston, and Simon Sweetman (occasionally joined by Sam Prebble) formed a regular free improvising instrumental trio , the Winter.
“A strange sonic brew that includes dissonant rock textures, rough outsider folk-blues mysteries, electric and acoustic improvisations and a considerable part of tasty feedback. Imagine equal parts Derek Bailey, New Zealand’s Pumice and classic ’60s blues/folk and you’re in the right ballpark.” – The Broken Face
The original C60 cassette release of Loose Autumn Moans included solo interludes recorded the previous year, in 2002. These have since been reissued as a separate album.
By shortening to just the 2003 ensemble sessions, Loose Autumn Moans becomes concise. It emphasises the lyrics, and the jazzy acoustic instrumental interplay.
A different take of ‘O Henry Ending‘ was recorded in Melbourne, Australia in 2005. I had just bought a banjo (which I still have), Mike Kingston played acoustic guitar this time, and Francesca Mountfort took the cello role, along with Cylvi M on percussion.
While much of the album was in a new style, incorporating electronica and field recordings, ‘O Henry Ending’ and the presence of fellow expat kiwis provided a thematic bridge from the Wellington days.
To illustrate how a song can be interpreted in multiple ways, the fiffdimension 25th anniversary 2CD features Mouth of the Caveman – and both the 2005 Melbourne version and a new (2022) a live electric arrangement of O Henry Ending
Three of the Loose Autumn Moans tracks were revived in new solo arrangements for these more recent live albums:
Tracks from Loose Autumn Moans also appear on this compilation, that gives an overview of the early years.
My great-great-grandfather (himself a young man at the time) self-published a book of poems in 19th century Scotland. It includes a piece about Autumn.
Adapting John Collie’s words to music is a current major work-in-progress, that .allows a new ‘mature’ version of my acoustic style, and shows the early works, like Loose Autumn Moans, in a new light!
“The 20 song album covers traditional Javanese and Balinese gamelan, Asian folk music, to free jazz, and free noise. It’s not for anyone with narrow preconceived ideas about what music is, but it is for everyone else.
“If you have an open inquiring mind and love hearing a variety of sound, this is excellent.” – Darryl Baser, muzic.net.nz
by Dave Black (acoustic & electric guitars, banjo, harmonica, laptop, bass, tenor saxophone, field recordings, piano, ukulele, sanshin, saron, jublag, demung, vocal), with
- and field recordings from Western Australia, Indonesia, Okinawa (Japan), and Fiji.
Featuring tracks from the albums
If you enjoy this, try the previous compilations
Today is the last day of winter in the southern hemisphere – so to celebrate, here’s the fifth album from The Winter – a New Zealand free improvisation trio of Mike Kingston, Simon Sweetman and Dave Edwards… with a sound that swerves from acoustic folk/blues with hints of Asian, Celtic, and Balkan influences, to electroacoustic soundscapes, abstract dissonance, and pots & pans percussion.
Mike Kingston: guitar, bass, clarinet, electronics
Dave Edwards: guitar, bass, banjo, harmonica, ukulele, sanshin, electronics
Simon Sweetman: drums and percussion, electronics
Thanks to Brent for the photos and to everyone who came along to the Pyramid Club on Thursday!
The Winter’s new album ‘Exit Points’ is now available!
Continue reading “The Winter at Pyramid Club, 2015”Simon Sweetman is a Wellington NZ author and musician.
He is best known for his music criticism and poetry, and for his distinctive homemade ‘pots & pans’ percussion for The Winter (trio with Mike Kingston and Dave Edwards) and (more recently) Dirty Spoons, Yo (with Sam Walters);
Simon blogs at https://simonsweetman.substack.com/ ;
and records spoken-word albums as Second Storey Teller;
his books include The Death of Music Journalism (2020),
and he has a new book coming out later in 2024…
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
by Dave Edwards (acoustic & electric guitars, harmonica, bass, banjo, vocal), with
Featuring tracks from the albums
… if you enjoy this, try the sequels Fame & Oblivion: 2005-2012 and Other Islands: 2012-2018
Acoustic instrumental music by Wellington, New Zealand, improvising trio The Winter.
Mike Kingston: charango, guitar, clarinet
Dave Edwards: ukulele, sanshin, tenor sax, piano
Simon Sweetman: xylophone, percussion
fiffdimension 