DiS profile
During the Nimoy years (1994-97) David & Justine had often discussed working together. In fact, with Jason Tamihana Bryce & Peter Wright on board, some ad hoc jam sessions actually took place during the first half of 1996 at the flat Jason & Justine shared on Edgeware road. These were noisy, improvised affairs in the style of Peter's 1995 Noise/Horror Collision project. Bits of metal, lo-fi samples & delays, guitar torture & drums were employed to puncture the tedium & ennui of late summer in Christchurch.
Jason recorded these sessions to 2-track cassette. Perhaps they even still exist somewhere in his tape collection. Whether anything is worth doing with them is another matter! At any rate, the reactivation of leonard Nimoy in early June 1996 (after some months in limbo) put this fascinating side project to rest. No live gigs proper materialised - but the foursome did present a couple of noisy performances at the fleetingly extant Peanut Gallery on Madras St.
In mid 1997, following the demise of leonard Nimoy, ex-Nimoys Peter Wright & Mikel Goodwin got together with Justine to form Flinch - the project rightly seen to be DiS' immediate predecessor.
As we've mentioned elsewhere, although Flinch & DiS shared superficial similarities, in detail both projects were quite distinct. Flinch created much excitement from the wall-of-noise, free-form guitar chaos generated by Mikel & Peter. DiS (at least until January 1996 when Peter was inducted) relied upon distorted keyboard drones created by David upon his Akai AX60 analogue synth & his Ensoniq ASR-10 sampler. Whereas Flinch incorporated rhythm & made use of Justine's talents as a percussionist, DiS progressively de-emphasized rhythm as their sound sound evolved. This did not, however, prevent them from making extensive use of acoustic, percussive textures derived from a variety of stone, wood, skin & metal drums, sheets, blocks & implements.
On the whole, Flinch were more purely improvisational than DiS. The former project's performances involved minimal preparation - usually one or two jam sessions where a rough sequence of events could be thrashed out. DiS followed a similar methodology - but with one crucial difference. In an attempt to improve the focus & cohesion of their performances David often attempted to give them a rough narrative or thematic basis. This usually took the form of a series of song maps which, as a loose structural guide, described a series of events in a performance. Therefore, compared with Flinch, DiS relied more upon arrangements & orchestration.
David's academic background (he studied both the history & the philosphy of Western art between 1993 & 1998) encouraged him to infuse the music created by DiS with narrative & literary content largely absent from the raw, expressive formalism of Flinch. Arguably, these thematic elements were of much lesser importance to Justine & Peter - but, occasionally, they did help to drive & galvanize the group's efforts.
In this regard it's worth pointing out that, although Flinch astounded audiences in Christchurch & Wellington during their 2 year lifespan, they left no recorded legacy of any note. By contrast, DiS never performed outside of Christchurch yet produced 3 full length albums. Two of these (Earth/Clasm KRK096 & Inferno KRK095) are currently available on kRkRkRk. A third (Still Life KRK124) is in preparation.
Although DiS increasingly functioned as an outlet for David's thematic preoccupations (creation, transcendence, elemental force etc...) & his experiments in sound design & orchestration, the group was, originally, more genuinely collaborative in nature.
The first proto-DiS performance occurred at The Jam nightclub on Lichfield St. in December 1997 & included Mikel Goodwin & J-mz Robinson operating with David & Justine under the name Paradigm Shift. This was fractured, improv rock combined with a simple percussion set up, assorted metal sheets, drums & implements & plenty of agonised vocalizing.
The first official DiS performance occurred at the Venus Cafe on April 7th 1998 with the respective solo projects of David & Peter - The Drawing Room & Atonal Death. This was quite a successful debut. Both rhythmic & textural applications of various skin & metal drums, sheets & implements were combined with electronic drones & on-the-spot screaming, chanting & vocalising.
Rather more ambitious in scope was the following 3 Spaces performance held at Players & Hustlers (Oxford Tce.) on July 24th 1998. This comprised three main pieces (Void, The Separation Of Light From Darkness & Beyond The Body - a thematic matrix revisited by David for his 2001 Drawing Room release: Evolving Sequence No.1 KRK109) - each intended to smoothly progress through a distinct series of movements. The performance was augmented by dance choreographed by kRkRkRk confederate Nathan Kerr.
At the root of the music were David's perennial preoccupations with creation, transcendence, metamorphosis & release. The public-bar style venue left a lot to be desired &, frankly, it's highly unlikely that these highly abstract thematic ideas really got across to the audience.
The 3 Spaces performance was preceded by an Insanitorium ( the Worcester St. house where David lived from late 1996 to mid 2002 with various kRkRkRk personnel such as Mikel Goodwin, Peter Wright, Nathan Kerr & Ed Wilson) recording session on July 11th 1998. It is this session, as well as a 4-track live recording of the final DiS performance at the Space Gallery, Bedford Row on December 17th 1999 which will eventually appear on the previously mentioned Still Life CDR.
One final performance (Darkness Into Light - another piece exploring process & metamorphosis) occurred at the Provincial Lounge Bar, Cashel St. on November 6th 1998 before Peter joined the group. This was made possible by the fact that Mikel was moving to Wellington in early 1999 to pursue studies in IT & multi-media.
Mikel's departure signalled the end of Flinch. During their second year together the trio had lost some of their initial momentum - but the final gig, on February 13th 1999 at the Wunderbar, Lyttelton, was a memorable one.
Peter's first work with DiS took place on January 17th 1999 when they recorded most of the four 15min tracks comprising their debut album: Earth/Clasm KRK096. This was initially available only on cassette, but appeared on CDR in December 1999.
Although David had prepared some rough song maps for the Earth/Clasm session, the album emerged as a highly spontaneous & improvised work. That each of the 4 pieces appears to evolve through a distinct series of phases is, primarily, an illusion of the mixdown process. David broke each composition into a carefully considered series of fades. This not only created an illusion of orchestration, but also allowed individual elements of the group's music to enjoy periods in the spotlight.
We've described Earth/Clasm, in our label propaganda, as an intuitive & expressive exploration of forces & processes. This something of an attribution after the fact. The music came first, the interpretations later - but they do not seem inappropriate. In a document scribbled out by David, prior to recording the album, he states an intention to explore the tension between forces of creation & destruction in... human life. Later, & even more dramatically, he writes about exploring the conflict between the dragging inertia & annihilating pull of entropy & the creative potential & transcendent power of human will & consciousness. If anyone out there can perceive ideas like these in Earth/Clasm's dense, but abstract soundscapes - well, congratulations! At any rate, David's words at least indicate sources of inspiration & enquiry in the creation of his music. Peter & Justine would probably not have used David's language to describe what they were doing - but, nevertheless, as far as DiS was concerned, all three shared an interest in exploring fundamentals & essences.
Earth/Clasm reflected the repertoire of sounds & treatments accrued by DiS in the first year of their existence. These comprised guitar drones & controlled feedback, analogue synth drones, dictaphone effects, expressive & shamanistic vocals (courtesy of Justine with credit due to the legacy of Diamanda Galas) & a range of percussive & textural sounds generated from a variety of steel drums, sheets, pipes & edged implements.
Significantly, all of these sounds were either created live or were automatic in character (i.e. a synth drone created by taping down keys on a keyboard, or a guitar drone generated from controlled feedback between pick-ups & amplifier speakers). This facilitated simultaneous 4-track recording on David's portastudio. Earth/Clasm, therefore, can be regarded as a summary of DiS' live electro-acoustic experiments to early 1999.
Earth/Clasm was followed by a Provincial Lounge performance of the same name on March 6th 1999. This was a so-so affair in a cramped & unsympathetic venue. Rather more successful was the DiS performance at the anti-GE Mutant's Ball on August 6th 1999. This occurred in a larger space at the Provincial Hotel & featured only David & Justine. Emphasizing performance over themes or narratives this was one of the group's most intense & impressive ventures live. Much abuse was dealt out to drums, microphones, vocal chords & dangerous looking bits of metal. Members of the more conventional punk bands also slated to play at the event were left gaping!
DiS managed one final performance, at the Space Gallery, on December 17th 1999, before Justine relocated to Auckland. Entitled Still Life, in terms of the suitability of the venue, sound quality & the execution of the music, this was the trio's most successful performance. A variety of stone & metal implements, effected vocals & drones created on analogue synth, electric guitar & bowed bass guitar were combined into a smoothly flowing 30min soundscape.
Still Life flourished sounds & strategies being developed by the group for their final, & definitive work, Inferno KRK095.
Unlike 3 Spaces or Earth/Clasm, both largely recorded in single sessions, Inferno was a far more premeditated work which unfolded over 8 sessions between November 20th 1999 & March 8th 2000. Conceived even earlier than the Earth/Clasm project (hence the lower catalogue number), Inferno had lingered in David's mind for nearly 2 years before recording began.
The inspiration for the project lay with Gustav Dore's mid 19th century illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy. One print in particular - that depicting Cocytus (a region in hell where those damned for acts of betrayal were buried up to their necks in ice) had haunted David from his childhood. He had encountered it, of all places, in a Reader's Digest book called Bizarre Stories & Amazing Facts.
In some respects Inferno was the least collaborative of DiS' works. David, preoccupied with the translation of four specific Dore illustrations into soundscapes, had created more detailed song maps & recording strategies than ever before. Fortunately, Justine & Peter embraced the project with great generosity & enthusiasm. Their contributions were crucial to the realisation of Inferno & propelled the album into a number of unforseen areas which only improved the end product!
Compared with Earth/Clasm, Inferno used a much greater range of instruments & sound-generating devices. This richer mix of elements was implemented in a more sophisticated manner &, due to the painstaking care taken by David in the areas of recording & production, sounded considerably more polished than one would ordinarily expect of a home recording.
The guitar-based, droning string treatments, which had flavoured Peter's contributions to Earth/Clasm, were expanded, on Inferno, by his use of bowed electric bass guitar & violin. Peter also made use of a portable, Sony turntable/radio/cassette device - toning some of Inferno's soundscapes with shortwave radio treatments, suitably filtered through digital delay pedals & guitar pick-ups.
David made greater use of his Akai AX60 analogue synth. Compared with the relatively simple automatic & atonal synth treatments on Earth/Clasm, those on Inferno were more elaborate - incorporating realtime resonant filter manipulation & even elements of melody.
All three members of the group contributed in what might be described as the live acoustic textures department. This consisted of a variety of edged metal implements (knives, files, saws etc...) applied to cymbals, stainless steel sheets, steel pipes & drums, glass jars, electric heater grills & even concrete blocks! Compared with the rather hasty preparation of Earth/Clasm, the more deliberate pace of the Inferno project resulted in much better recordings of these sounds.
However, the most fundamental difference between Inferno & Earth/Clasm lay in the later work's introduction of sampled sounds & sequences created on David's Ensoniq ASR-10 workstation. Derived from the very voices, implements & instruments recorded live for the album, these sampled, looped & otherwise digitally processed elements served to enhance, rather than detract from, the organic nature of the music. The aim of the group was to make use of technology - but, also, to avoid roboticizing the sound at all costs.
For example, there are sequences of sampled sounds on Inferno - but these are long, drifting loops with no obvious rhythm or periodicity. Invariably these sample-loops were juxtaposed with the live-recorded textures from which they were derived in the first place. Quite often, David would process a sampled sound by resampling it through various effects. The resulting drone would, after several such iterations, take on its own unique identity whilst, at the same time, retaining the inner complexity & the textural richness of its natural origins. Combining such digitally processed textures with live recordings of their source sounds tended, nearly always, to augment, rather than diminish, the real in the music.
This preoccupation with the real was, in hindsight, something Peter, David & Justine all shared - albeit for somewhat different reasons. For Justine it was a natural consequence of her passion for performance art - with all its life & immediacy. Peter (& David to some degree) was influenced by the recent prominence (in the New Zealand underground scene) of post-rock musics stressing live performance & improvisation. David was driven by his desire to explore fundamentals & essences. On Inferno this influenced both the thematic structure he chose for the album & his continuing experiments in creating drones, loops & sound effects from natural sources.
Earth/Clasm
KRK096
Inferno
KRK095
DiS
intro
Listen to DiS
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Text by David
Khan. Web-building by Ed Wilson. No apologies for disinformation.
August 2004