Loose Autumn Moans

 Recorded and mixed entirely on analogue equipment, and originally released on cassette in 2003, Loose Autumn Moans is the fourth solo album by New Zealander Dave Edwards (aka fiffdimension).

Loose Autumn Moans consists of solo tracks recorded in 2002, plus 2003 tracks with the Winter - Mike Kingston on cello, Simon Sweetman on percussion and Sam Prebble on violin.  It was released soon after the Winter's all-instrumental Parataxes album and features a fusion of acoustic and electric songs, spoken word and avant-garde improvisation.  Most group tracks are first takes (track one is a third take), and were recorded without overdubs.

The album is structured as a progression from summer (with a NZ pohutukawa tree in flower on the cover) through autumn - a time of harvest, preparation, shortening daylight, and the shedding of old dead layers - and finishes with an extended live version of 'O Henry Ending', recorded at the Winter's first gig.

 "Here Wellington, NZ composer Dave Edwards mostly goes it solo with some able assistance from duo or trio the Winter. Often Dave is singing, or very nearly so, as on the jazzy opening track "Summer Skin", or the almost folky "Working Like a Fountain in the Slender Morning Chill"; elsewhere the sounds are more scattered, accumulated and fragmentary, as he sing/talks in a latter day fractured Barrett unreeling narrative. There are some free noise experiments and clattering nonverbal splatter, but most often this feels like slightly depressive verbose spoken word expositions over acoustic improvisations. Guitars, violin, cello, and percussion all stack up into these unwieldy assemblages framing Dave's flattened intonations. Edwards recalls a less tuneful Kevin Coyne; but he's got a persona that's all his own."

 - George Parsons

Dream Magazine #5

www.fiffdimension.co.nz