Assembling disconsonant

New improvisational raw material post-composed & aleatory generative texts added, in a kiwi accent:


I did the bass improvisation first, then played along with it on guitar and banjo, then improvised vocals with nonsensical words (Paul McCartney conjuring ‘get back’ in the documentary), transcribed, rewrote into English words (if not grammar), and fed that into Google search and read out cutups (Burroughs) of the search results to supplement it… I’ve had hangups for years about writing, so was looking for ways to short circuit my conscious doubt.
the title ‘assembling disconsonant’ describes the method?

meaning is optional

chance methods are supplementary

but starting with the bass part ensures the whole thing is built on a (human) groove

& stylistically a middle aged update of (early 2000s) solo pieces like https://fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/track/in-a-who-gets-to-who-who-does-him

“I liked the lyrics… the the way meaning gets assembled through shattered snap shots of a picture we may never see”
Dr Emit Snake-Beings

w/ James Robinson – Negentropic Diatribes

James Robinson – words, voice, paintings & drawings, bell drum

Dave Black – electric guitar, bass, loop pedal


James Robinson is a mid career contemporary New Zealand mixed media artist, exhibiting widely since 1989 – www.jamesrobinson.nz

fiffdimension is music and multimedia by Dave Edwards (aka Dave Black) and collaborators, since 1998 – www.fiffdimension.com
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James won 2007 paramount prize in the wallace award for
” Taniwaha dragon mother ( spirit bones)”

Read more: w/ James Robinson – Negentropic Diatribes

‘… a great big flatulent belch of fresh air amongst all the tight-sphinctered, deodorised boys and girls of the accepted national art world….. off-kilter and threatening but always sumptuously, gloriously beautiful.’

– Chris Knox.
Continue reading “w/ James Robinson – Negentropic Diatribes”

Scotland, postponed

Around September 2020 I’d planned to travel to Scotland, on my first visit. There was to be a family gathering for my sister’s wedding in Edinburgh.

The trip’s now postponed indefinitely, for obvious reasons

I’d planned to visit Boyndie, Banffshire, where my great-great-grandfather John Collie grew up.

In 1856, in his early 20s he published a book : Poems and Lyrics (in the English and Scotch Dialects).

I‘ve started setting some of it to music.

Continue reading “Scotland, postponed”

Articulation Incommunicate (2004)

Previously unreleased! 

Dictaphone cassette recordings, Wellington NZ, 2004

Spoken word and improvised guitar; a journey down the road not taken for New Zealand music.

Dave Edwards – acoustic guitar, harmonica, dictaphone, electronics, electric guitar (11), violin (12), vocal

w/
Youjae Lee – bass (12)
Simon O’Rorke – percussion (12)
Simon Sweetman – ukulele, toys, percussion (15)

The tracks were primitively recorded, based on words scribbled in notebooks, unheard by anyone else (until 2020), and seemed like unfinished demos at the time; but in hindsight represent the culmination of my early period (a lo-fi postpunk fusion of songs, spoken word and free improv – www.fiffdimension.com/1997-2005).

By 2004 my style was wordy; the influences here were literary modernists as much as music – eg Burroughs, Joyce, Beckett, Pynchon, Dylan (Thomas), and NZ poets James K Baxter, Alan Brunton and Hone Tuwhare. My guitar heroes included free improviser Derek Bailey, my Mississippi bluesman namesake David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards, and the kiwi musicians found in my bandcamp collection – www.bandcamp.com/fiffdime

‘Articulation Incommunicate’ includes an abrasive electric guitar, dictaphone and electric razor performance at the Bomb the Space Festival (youtu.be/8UFpX7catqw – one of my very few music videos to have over a thousand views… go figure…

After the filmshoot (2002)

Dave Edwards solo cassette tracks, in Wellington NZ, 2002.

Wellington, New Zealand

 

Hey so the new (2020) album Ruasagavulu is out!

(go there, like, share etc)…

 

& in the meantime, until the next new project, here’s one from the vault:

 
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In 2002, a year whose digits are an anagram of this one’s,  I was living in Wellington (New Zealand’s capital, and my birthplace), looking for a way to follow up the almost-success of The Marion Flow (part 2).

But I was moving further away from conventional 3min song formats into the avant-garde.

This is the second largely solo album I made in 2002.

Continue reading “After the filmshoot (2002)”

Solitude

‘SOLITUDE’

by John Collie, 1856

OH give me near some swelling stream to stray, 0r tread the windings of some pathless wood, For I am wearied of the bustling day, And long to meet thee, gloomy Solitude: That I with thee may climb those shelfy steeps, Which frown majestic o’er the boiling deeps. Continue reading “Solitude”

2002: self-isolation before it was cool?

The difficult third album – recorded during a time of intense introspection in 2002. I locked myself in my room in Wellington for all of November with an analogue 4-track cassette recorder.The results rapidly put an end to my promising New Zealand music career!

Wellington, New Zealand

In 2002, a year whose digits are an anagram of this one’s, I locked myself in my room for a month of self-isolation.

It had nothing to do with a pandemic!

Kia kaha Aotearoa…

It was just me living in Wellington and looking for a way to follow up The Marion Flow (part 2).

I was moving further away from conventional 3min song formats into the avant-garde. Continue reading “2002: self-isolation before it was cool?”

The Marion Flow (part 2, Wellington 2001)

: produced by Paul Winstanley, & featuring Chris O’Connor (drums), Chris Palmer (electric guitars), Simon O’Rorke (percussion). Recorded at Thistle Hall, Wellington, 2001, and mixed by Joe Callwood.

For the earlier 1999 New Plymouth sessions see The Marion Flow (part 1, Taranaki);

The Marion Flow was originally a longer album which spanned recordings from New Plymouth in 1999 and Wellington in 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

By the time the opportunity arose to finish recording the Marion Flow I’d been thoroughly immersed in the Wellington free jazz and avant-garde music scene, and was very fortunate to have help from some of the top players there. I’d never studied music at school or been in a conventional band, and was out of my depth technically… so working around my limitations became a spark to creativity.

In 1999, aged 20, I’d left New Plymouth, a large rural town, where I grew up, and moved to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city, where I’d been born and where my early pakeha settler ancestors had lived in the 19th century. The Marion Flow reflects this journey, geographically, sonically and spiritually.

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I’ve now reissued the two halves of the album separately – to emphasise the sense of time and place, and stylistic evolution, and to re-present them more concisely for the short-attention-span 21st century.

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

Further listening

Continue reading “The Marion Flow (part 2, Wellington 2001)”

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

Produced by Paul Winstanley, & featuring Steve Duffels, the Digitator, the Dadapapa Magickclone Orchestra and more. Recorded at the TFC Lounge, New Plymouth, 1999 – with special thanks to Brian Wafer.

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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.

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;

Further listening

Continue reading “The Marion Flow (part 1, Taranaki 1999)”

interview by Nikki King

Live 2019 includes a post-gig interview with Dave Edwards by Nikki King.

We discussed the origins of fiffdimension (including where the name comes from), 19th century ancestors, life in the Wairarapa, and various projects, collaborators, and influences from New Zealand and abroad.

Nikki is the vocalist and trumpeter for Wairarapa postpunk band Spank, who also performed a set in the Wairarapa TV May Music Marathon that day.