David Khan profile

David's entry into the performing arts, in the late 1990 - late 1994 period, was, initially, as an aspiring poet & writer. Although his literary endeavours were soon eclipsed by his growing passion for music, it's fair to say that narrative structures, reductivist tendencies (encouraged by pruning & editing poems & essays) & image-laden evocations of places & times have always permeated his work.

David's academic studies throughout the 90's (art history & the philosophy of art) also impacted on his music. The concentrated purity of 20th century abstract painting (Malevich, Rothko or NZers such as Mrkusich & Hotere) or the deep spirituality of great landscape art (from Friedrich to McCahon) were sources of inspiration. These influences shouldn't be exaggerated but, certainly, much of David's music displays a preoccupation with intangibles & essences - & a desire to transcend or break through barriers to feeling or perception.

Of course, & in common with most of kRkRkRk's other personnel, David's creative development was driven, primarily, by his exposure to music. In late 1991 he began working as a volunteer DJ at Christchurch's student radio station, 98RDU. Almost immediately he encountered Peter Wright & J-mz Robinson (then collaborating in TMA-1 & on the verge of launching kRkRkRk) who soon became close friends, as well as artistic sympathizers & confederates. David's tastes in music had rapidly evolved towards the dark & extreme end of the spectrum &, by the end of 1992, the work of early Swans, Lydia Lunch, Diamanda Galas & Einsturzende Neubauten had made enduring impacts upon his aesthetic sensibilities. Just as important, perhaps even more so, were certain New Zealand artists - many of whom could still be experienced first hand in the early 90s. By the time kRkRkRk came on the scene, bands such as the Gordons, Skeptics, & This Kind Of Punishment were no more - but it was still possible to witness the Renderers, Terminals, Chris Knox, Peter Jefferies & (rarely) The Dead C. This music has influenced the direction & the character of kRkRkRk ever since.

Early forays into music with TMA-1, (usually as a guest vocalist) & in Jack Saw Lightning, with Jason Tamihana-Bryce (a longtime kRkRkRk co-conspiritor), during 1993 prefigured David's first definitive musical endeavour: leonard Nimoy. This band, founded by David & Peter in March '94, reflected their desire to get serious about music & to produce work of an intensity & an expressiveness they felt was lacking in the local scene. Although leonard Nimoy (ultimately a 4-piece with Tracey Pagey joining in August '94 & Mikel Goodwin in April '95) would always be hampered by its sheer self-conscious earnestness, & by the rapidly evolving musical sensibilities of David & Peter, it did, eventually, produce some of the most intense & brutal industrial/noise-rock ever seen in NZ before finally disbanding in March 1997. leonard Nimoy left behind one definitive document on kRkRkRk: The Screaming Cage KRK078, originally released on CDR in latter 1997.

During the Nimoy years David pursued more individual musical interests with his Vaccine solo recording project. In many respects, Vaccine served as a testing ground & a sanctuary for ideas adopted &/or rejected by the band.

Vaccine, leonard Nimoy & Peter's contemporaneous In Vitro recording project all bear comparison & it's probably worthwhile devoting some space to a discussion of this topic.

All three projects grew out of the desire of Peter & David to produce music of greater seriousness & rigor than kRkRkRk had previously achieved. Although each project was to develop an individual character, they also displayed intriguing similarities. Common denominators included utilisation of David's Boss DR550mkII drum machine & Akai AX60 analogue synth, layers of droning open-chord-tuned guitars (a feature introduced to the kollectiv by Peter a la Sonic Youth), lo fi samples (created on tape or with Peter's Boss DS-3 sampler/delay pedal), acoustic skin & metal percussion & extensive use of reverb/delay effects (derived from David's Peavey Addverb II effects rack).

Stylistically, there was obvious cross-pollination between leonard Nimoy, In Vitro & Vaccine. All three projects veered towards the industrial/ambient area of avant-rock music - but such labels of convenience don't really do them justice. In Vitro always reflected Peter's interest in the possibilities of electric guitar & his affinity for pop music - however experimental & extreme. Often less listenable, Vaccine tended to veer from
no-wave inflected dirge-rock to soothing & ethereal ambient electronica. This stylistic schziophrenia usually indicated whether or not David was composing, respectively, with a guitar or a keyboard - but also reflected to what degree he was still a developing musician in the 1994-96 period. By contrast, Peter's work was often more obviously assured & mature.

The Vaccine project eventually spawned 4 album length cassette releases: Panacea KRK024 (January '95), Cured KRK044 (July '95), Denial KRK061 & Drowned KRK062 (both March '96). The latter two releases, especially, displayed David's attention to textural detail & his painstaking approach to home recording. They both contained much electro-acoustic experimentation with wood, metal, plastic, glass, stone & cardboard implements & objects - sampled or recorded live for various percussive & atmospheric effects. At the time of their release, only Peter's contemporaneous In Vitro & Coitus albums matched or exceeded Denial/Drowned in sonic richness & sound quality. The best moments from these early works (including the 45min entirety of the original Drowned cassette) were compiled onto the Drowned KRK062 CDR album in mid 1997. This release was again totally remastered, by David, in late 2000 & remains one of the label's definitive works in the industrial/ambient mode.

The musical inclinations of David & Peter collided in leonard Nimoy, sometimes productively, sometimes not. Compared with their solo projects, the band more obviously adhered to the tenets of rock - even as it challenged them. The contributions made by Tracey & Mikel (neither of whom were ever as anal about the project as David & Peter) were significant & pulled the Nimoy in many unforseeable directions - particularly in the combining of live & programmed percussion & the use of custom-built electronics. Essentially, leonard Nimoy differed from the solo projects by emphasizing those elements that worked best in a live context. With some important exceptions, the music recorded by the group tended to be more straightforwardly rock & roll - however drenched in feedback, angst & industrial chaos. Whereas minimalist space & atmosphere were significant elements of the In Vitro & Vaccine recordings, leonard Nimoy emphasized an almost claustrophobic & crushing density of sound. Eventually melody was completely sacrificed in favour of percussive dissonance - the combination of live & electronic rhythms, slammed bass & dirge guitar would become distinctive trademarks of the group.

In the first half of 1995 David was briefly involved in Caravan Pig, another industrial rock project originally created by Matt Alien (Matt Johnstone) & Chris Rigby - then best known for their work with the tongue-in-cheek industrial/death metal band Alien. David replaced Mathew Middleton (CRUDE) when Mathew relocated to Dunedin at that time. Caravan Pig only performed on a few occasions & recorded a handful of songs - a few of which eventually surfaced on David's 2nd Vaccine tape: Cured KRK044 in July '95.

With the winding up of leonard Nimoy in March '97, David continued ad hoc collaborations with Peter & Mikel in the more improv/gallery performance-inclined projects Noumenon & Death In A Nasty Accident. However, the most important development in David's musical activities that year was the launching, in August, of his 2nd generation solo project: The Drawing Room. Based around his recently purchased Ensoniq ASR-10 sampling keyboard, The Drawing Room abandoned guitars & drum machines in favour of piano-based song/lyric material & abstract soundscapes. Noise & angst, once primary elements in David's work, were substantially diminished. In their place was a new music of increasing grace & subtlety.

One particular innovation, ushered in by the Drawing Room project, was the use of heavily processed drones & sound effects derived from natural sources. This was a logical development of the stone, wood, glass & metal textures that David had introduced into his later Vaccine recordings & extended what might be described as his preoccupation with materiality in music. The Ensoniq, with its handy ability to resample sounds through an internal effects processor, encouraged the creation of all sorts of rich & exotic sonic embellishments. Because these textures were derived from nature they contained a certain inner complexity & realness usually lacking from purely synthesized sounds.

The first, definitive, Drawing Room release: In Purgatory KRK081 (released on CDR in September 1999) was notable for being kRkRkRk's first digital recording. It represented a leap in sound quality & production unparalleled since the appearance of Peter's first In Vitro album (KRK021) in early 1995.

With the benefit of hindsight, it's possible to see In Purgatory as very much a transitional work. The album sits uneasily between the industrial chaos & avant-rock elements of the preceding Vaccine & leonard Nimoy projects & the more delicate minimalism that David would pursue with collaborative projects, such as DiS, & on the later Drawing Room recordings. Arguably, it is In Purgatory's more subtle moments which are its most successful & which indicate, most clearly, where David was heading with his later music.

Following the demise of leonard Nimoy, David's next significant collaborative project was DiS. This was, initially, a two-piece founded in early 1998 with Justine Sharp. At the time Justine was already working with ex-Nimoys Peter Wright & Mikel Goodwin in the intense & dramatic trio Flinch - a project which had started operations around April 1997.

Even though both projects existed more or less simultaneously, Flinch has rightly been seen as the immediate predecessor of DiS - the latter project did not really get into its stride until early 1999, when Flinch disbanded. There were many similarities between the two groups - but also some important differences & it's probably worthwhile exploring, briefly, what these were.

Although noise, intensity & improvisation were common to both projects, in detail, Flinch & DiS were quite distinct. For example, central to the sound of Flinch was the wall-of-noise guitar chaos generated by Peter & Mikel. By contrast DiS wielded distorted keyboard sounds created on David's Akai AX60 synth or his Ensoniq ASR-10 sampler. Whereas Flinch incorporated rhythms & made use of Justine's talents as a percussionist, DiS was essentially rhythmless - not that this prevented the latter project from making extensive use of acoustic textures generated from a variety of steel drums, sheets & implements. Whereas Flinch combined raw expressionism with a formalist streak, with DiS, David often attempted to give the performances some vague narrative or thematic basis. Sometimes this improved the focus & the cohesion of the performances & sometimes it didn't. In either case, both projects served to demonstrate Justine's remarkable stage presence & her astounding talents as a vocalist.

DiS was, in many respects, something of a part-time project whilst Flinch was in existence. Certainly, the latter group became much better known around the country - especially after a few stunning performances at dark music festivals in Wellington. However, whereas Flinch would leave no recorded legacy of any note, DiS produced 3 full length albums! Most of this work took place after January 1999 when Peter joined the group (Mikel's departure to Wellington for 18 months in early 1999 had officially laid Flinch to rest).

Prior to Peter's involvement, DiS had been a fairly ad hoc affair - an excuse for David & Justine to work together & enjoy some light relief from the stresses of their primary projects - the Drawing Room & Flinch respectively. The smattering of live performances & recordings that took place during 1998 revealed an inclination towards improvisation & ritual. As with Flinch, DiS always brought out the theatrically-minded performer in Justine. David, initially taking more of a back seat role, used the project to explore the problems of playing acoustic textures (usually metal) live. This, he felt, was an issue that leonard Nimoy had never successfully resolved.

From early 1999, with Peter on board, David's slowly evolving vision for DiS achieved a sharper focus. His thematic preoccupations had already become more apparent, in the previous year, with performances such as 3 Spaces (held at Players & Hustlers on the corner of Lichfield St & Oxford Tce on July 24th 1998). This performance, incorporating dance (choreographed by longtime kRkRkRk associate Nathan Kerr) as well as music, had grappled with themes relating to creation & transcendence - although whether or not any of these ideas were successfully communicated is entirely another matter!

The two albums subsequently recorded by the trio (Earth/Clasm KRK096, recorded January 1999 & released on CDR in December 1999 & Inferno KRK095, recorded November 1999 -March 2000 & released on CDR in June 2000) flourished darkly beautiful music containing a dazzling array of electronic & acoustic textures. Both works explored themes relating to transformation, human ritual & the nature of elemental force. The 2nd album, in particular, displayed David's growing skills as an arranger, orchestrator & sound designer. DiS also served to demonstrate the power of improvisation as a compositional tool - something Peter, especially, had long advocated.

DiS ceased operations in May 2000 when Justine moved to Auckland. The Inferno album & their final performance - Still Life (at the Space Gallery, Bedford Row on December 17th 1999) - ensured that the group ended on a high note. A live recording of this final performance, as well as recordings Justine & David made for the 3 Spaces event in July 1998, are compiled on the posthumous DiS CDR release Still Life KRK124.

Although the collaborative contributions of Justine & Peter were crucial to DiS, increasingly the project grew to function as an outlet for David's thematic preoccupations & his experiments in arranging & orchestrating music. More genuinely collaborative, throughout its existence, was the group he formed in early 1999 with Megan Gallacher & Ed Wilson: BOCCTAHNE.

Emphasizing group dynamics & spontaneity, this ethereal, folk-noir trio became responsible for some of the most lovely & atmospheric music ever released by kRkRkRk. Their definitive work, Slighted KRK099 (released on CDR in September 1999), has since become one of the label's most sought after recordings.

Compared with DiS, BOCCTAHNE relied more on song/lyric structures, melody & a traditional instrumental palette of bass, guitar & piano/organ sounds. Lush vocal harmonies, largely performed by Megan & David, were a particular feature of the group & revealed the degree to which voice had become one of the preeminent aspects of both his own music & that produced in collaboration with other artists.

Whereas DiS never toured, BOCCTAHNE (with much assistence from Michel Rowland of Disjecta Membra) did manage one foray out of Christchurch - they performed at the Passover event held at Indigo, Cuba St, Wellington during Easter 2000. However, live performance was never the group's strength & finding venues sympathetic to their quiet, subtle music was next to impossible.

Far more productive were the recording sessions which, between January & August 1999, led to the creation of Slighted. These took place at great speed - partly due to David's belief that it was important to get something on tape in case enthusiasm for the project waned. In fact, the group's music was created at such a pace that only a few pieces coalesced into actual songs! The remainder exist as empheral & tantalizing songlike sketches - arguably unfinished - but brimming with life & spontaneity.

With no less than 4 finished CDR releases from The Drawing Room, DiS & BOCCTAHNE completed between January 1999 & March 2000, this was a most productive period for David. By any standards, let alone those normally expected to apply to home recordings, these releases sounded exceptionally good. This is all the more striking when one considers that the DiS & BOCCTAHNE albums were still, essentially, 4-track, cassette-based portastudio recordings!

During 2000, in addition to recording & producing the aforementioned albums, David also joined Peter in an ambitious remastering & archiving programme of earlier kRkRkRk material not yet transferred to the digital domain. David's contribution, in this area, was made possible by label co-curator Ed Wilson's generosity with computer gear. This programme has led to the reissuing of much classic music from kRkRkRk projects such as TMA-1, Psycho-Kat, NoTV & Wormwood & continues at the present time.

Live performance has always been an important part of David's activities &, since 1997, he has organized innumerable events for kRkRkRk artists & confederates. For many of these events, David also created thematic & narrative schemes (often printed on small A5 booklets & distributed, as programmes, to the audience) in an attempt to give the performances greater import & focus.

The prototype of this sort of performance was leonard Nimoy's final live appearance on March 5th 1997 at the Canterbury University Orientation festival. This performance, entitled: Memories Of Violence, consisted of a series of semi-orchestrated movements, each of which explored a particular facet of the nature of violence as part of the human condition. In much the same way that he would later work in projects such as Noumenon & DiS, David dreamed up a text & a choreography which was subsequently refined & put to music by the group.

This very successful & final Nimoy performance was partly inspired by the previous events organised by Leyton Davis & Jason Lane when they were performing as the multimedia, cyberpunk duos Silium 19 & CeLL. CeLL, in particular, gave a stunning performance (aided by many friends & associates) at the Orientation '94 festival. This performance, emphasising many sorts of performance art activities - all contained within a dark industrial/ambient matrix - had a profound impact on the many kRkRkRk personnel who witnessed it.

Therefore it was not surprising, in the wake of the leonard Nimoy Memories of Violence event, that David & Peter began looking at performing outside public bar venues in favour of more arts-styled performances in spaces sympathetic to such music - art galleries, for example.

The short-lived Noumenon project (featuring David, Peter & Mikel) subsequently held two such gallery performances. The first, 4 Bodies, took place at the Plant Gallery, Worcester St on August 1st 1997. The second, You Are Here, was held at the High St Gallery Project Gallery, Hereford St on September 25th 1997. Improvisation was stressed in both performances - although David also provided accompanying text & choreographic ideas. Local painters were also asked to collaborate in these events which attempted to present sound as painting as well as painting as performance. Emily Ireland painted four portraits during the first performance whilst James Robinson (no relation to kRkRkRk's J-mz Robinson) created a work on black plastic for the second event.

We have already mentioned the 3 Spaces & Still Life DiS performances - probably the most notable arts events associated with that project. Following the winding up of DiS, in early 2000, David & Peter subsequently collaborated in the staging of two events, later that year, which were both held in the atrium of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Montreal St.

These collaborations comprised The Confinement & Release performance (David's invention) on June 9th 2000 (which later spawned a CDR of the same name on Peter's Apoplexy label, apx12) & the Transfusion performance (primarily Peter's brainchild & featuring most of the regular membership of Nick Hodgson's CM Ensemble) on August 25th 2000.

Confinement & Release utilised treated electric guitar, analogue synth, effected voice, digitally processed drones & stone & metal implements - including an internally miked 44 gallon oil drum! David's blurb described this performance as an investigation of contrasts between abstract & concrete viewpoints, in both life & art. The constrast was provided by a suite of minimalist piano/voice Drawing Room pieces sandwiched in between a pair of improvised soundscapes.

Transfusion was later described, by David, as an attempt to create a rapport & a détente between electronic & acoustic musics. Peter's plan involved the reclamation of natural sounds from the electronic realm. The performance began with sequenced samples of string instrument sounds, previously arranged by David, Peter & Charles Horn. Gradually real instruments & textures were introduced. Eventually the performance culminated in a totally free form, string instrument improvisation.

Two further events, featuring David's experiments with arranging & orchestrating music took place in 2000. Enclosure, performed at the Space Gallery, Bedford Row on September 23rd 2000, combined a quartet of Drawing Room song/lyric pieces with more improvised soundscapes. For this event David was assisted by a host of other musicians - Peter Wright (bowed guitar & violin), Ed Wilson (guitar & bass), Stela Crookshank (guitar), Adrienne Ross (percussion), Charles Horn (violin & electronics), Jason Tamihana Bryce (violin), Tracey Pagey (voice), Annette Falkner (voice) & Nova Technova (voice). Enclosure was an interesting, if not entirely successful, experiment in combining improvised & structured music - something previously explored by the Confinement & Release performance. David also intended the event to function as an exercise in community &, in this regard, it was effective in bringing together a diverse group of people for the purpose of making music.

The second event, Triptych, comprised a trio of slowly evolving soundscape pieces created by David for a daytime performance at the Darkness Gathering. This was a darkwave music event organised by Michel Rowlands & held in Wellington on October 13-14 2000. David revisited ideas & themes used for the 3 Spaces DiS performance a few years earlier (creation, evolution, transcendence etc…) - but with completely new sounds & music.

Triptych led directly to the next Drawing Room release: Evolving Sequence No.1 KRK109 which David recorded during April 2001. This was the first kRkRkRk release created on his recently acquired Fostex VF16 digital 16-track.

Compared with the DiS Inferno album of the previous year, Evolving Sequence No.1 toned down the Dantean heaviness of that earlier work in favour of a more abstract & minimalist approach. Although the new Drawing Room album flourished many rich & intriguing sonic textures, David was usually quite happy to highlight only one or two of them at any particular time. Therefore, the three soundscapes making up the album unfolded in a series of slow fades - each texture gradually easing into the next. Prepared sounds, comprising all manner of unearthly drones & effects shared equal space with (&, in fact, were often derived from) a variety of stone, glass & metal textures recorded live.

Capping off this period of David's work was the Improv event he organised at the Space Gallery on April 14th 2001. This, essentially, was an evening of semi-orchestrated/semi-improvised music featuring many kRkRkRk artists & close associates. Participating groups & musicians included the CM Ensemble, Placenta Cookbook, Peter Wright, Richard Neave, Charles Horn, Lynton Denovan, Ed Wilson, Jason Tamihana Bryce, Scott McCaslan & the Strap Ons in their final Christchurch performance. David's contribution, as the Drawing Room, comprised Evolving Sequence No.2 - a 20min piece utilising digitally processed drones, analogue synth, piano & voice.

Only a few weeks earlier many of the same artists had created sonic mayhem at kRkRkRk's Worcester St HQ - the Insanitorium - to celebrate the release of Ed Wilson's solo album: Fragmentation KRK104. Ed recorded these performances on 2-track cassette & most of them, suitably tweaked & edited, appeared later that year on the kRkRkRk compilation CDR Ta/W KRK113.

It would appear that most of David's energies, in the latter 1999 - mid 2001 period went into the recording & performance of abstract soundscape music. In fact the song/lyric aspect of the Drawing Room was still active - although the frequency of performances, in this vein, had fallen from a peak of 17 in 1998 to only 4 in 2001!

By this stage David had enough new songs to begin recording a successor to In Purgatory. This process, due to a variety of factors (lack of the necessary equipment, lapses in confidence & energy & the daunting magnitude of the task) did not get underway until March 2001. Even then, David distracted himself by recording a soundscape album (Evolving Sequence No.1) & then a song/lyric album with his new group MiG-21.

Founded in June 2001, with Ed, J-mz & Mikel, this new 4-piece was essentially an exercise in industrial pop music, with a strong emphasis on spontaneity. MiG-21 also functioned as a counterweight to David's more serious & intimate explorations with the Drawing Room. The music combined melodic bass playing (Mikel) & electronic rhythms (programmed by David & created from a range of custom-made percussion sounds & samples) with glorious swathes of grating, dissonant, free-form guitar work (Ed & J-mz). Over this, surprisingly potent, musical mix rode David's vocals - alternatively smooth & seductive or harsh & abrasive - enveloped in a swag of chorus, delay & distortion effects. Compared with the deadly serious tone of most of his previous collaborative projects (leonard Nimoy, DiS), MiG-21 was a refreshing change. Fun & flamboyance, once to be avoided like the plague, were now actively encouraged. An early gig at the Wunderbar Lyttelton featuring the band members in full drag was a case in point!

MiG-21's loud & energetic performances quickly gained an appreciative local following. At considerable speed the group recorded a full length album: MF KRK118, released September 2001. This was the first kRkRkRk group project to be recorded, from scratch, using digital media (David's Fostex VF16).

With the MF project out of the way David had no more excuses for delaying the next Drawing Room song/lyric album. Work on what would eventually emerge as The Garden KRK111 subsequently unfolded over 6 months between November 2001 & April 2002.

Compared with In Purgatory, it was immediately apparent that The Garden was a more subtle & intimate work. Adopting a simple-is-beautiful approach, David took pains, throughout the album, to emphasize space, silence & atmosphere. Piano & voice dominated; other musical textures were generally kept to a minimum. The tone of the album was moody, melancholic, nostalgic - lightyears away from the angst & violence of leonard Nimoy. The songs hinted of a struggle to endure, to transcend - what? A weight of memory? Or perhaps the sucking corruption & inertia of the everyday, material world.

The Garden collected the best of David's song/lyric material in the late 1997 - late 2001 period. With these songs thoroughly flushed from his system he was now free to explore other directions in his music - particularly those involving sound design & improvisation. David's next performances & recordings would be based upon his contributions to the Outer Limits series of live events held at the Wunderbar. These performances were organized by kRkRkRk in order to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Improvisation & experimentation were bywords for the events which, otherwise, embraced a diverse range of music - from electronica to rock.

David's latest collaborative venture, The Beautiful Losers, began operations in June 2002. Conceived by Peter Wright, & roping in longtime kRkRkRk confederate Rustle Covini (Aesthetics) on drums, this trio set out to combine electro-acoustic minimalism with melodic, semi-structured avant-rock. Late period Swans & Canadian group Godspeed You Black Emperor provide points of reference.

Drawing Room
MiG-21
BOCCTAHNE
leonard Nimoy
Vaccine

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Text by David Khan. Web-building by Ed Wilson. No apologies for disinformation.
August 2004