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The Marion Flow (Taranaki, 1999)

by fiffdimension

/
1.
I woke up sober it was useless deceiving that midnight walls of the room were not breathing, cancelled eyes & cancelled mind, bored with things that I've never tried Chairs to tie the revolution down as the tidal throbbing becomes the only sound forced in upon the silent seas listening to the pretty pleas Climbing up infinity's winding stair, blood drying in your hair - a million miles down the barrel of a gun words sneak through a slave to the pen The corpulence of leisure seeps through the house & cannot be measured & I'll be wandering through, filthy with rain, & the hole in my pocket lets out a mile of change Growing & crawling into massive mediocrity, the stars upon your side I'd rain destruction on the hit parade I'd choreograph death & make them afraid but everything fades, like it always must, leaving only hunger & lust in the dust Surrounded by prostitutes with neon makeup, stealing from a beggar's cup I cannot hold them off with a pocket full of rhymes it's just like a schoolboy writing lines & when the hall of opposites finish wearing each other down what else is left but the tidal throbbing sound? You're a dancer out of control but you will survive & be burning well past midnight, it's OK to be alive But there are those who will teach you to loathe & fear the sun & chairs to tie the revolution down --------- Dave Edwards - electric guitar & vocal Recorded by Paul Winstanley at the TFC Lounge, New Plymouth, New Zealand, June 1999
2.
A fleet-footed moment gives itself up to grief I fall into a puddle with you underneath & now I'm living underwater & living overfed Coffee & smoke coming out of my head I see you silhouetted in the door I see your reflection in the floor I see your shadow on the wall But I don't see you at all It's OK, this is the day Keep on moving in that sunny kind of way Could it be I'm getting high? No-one's in charge & no-one knows what to do They don't want your soul; money will do & it's a hook-staggered world filled full of regrets As the government's putting you deeper in debt I saw the frown on the clown as he was taken down Moving the show to the pictures all around & it's a hook-staggered world which just might Only be a bile phantom in the alcoholic night It's OK, this is the day Keep on moving in that sunny kind of way Could it be I'm getting high? ------ Dave Edwards - acoustic guitar & vocal Paul Winstanley - fretless bass & recording engineer Steve Duffels - drums Recorded June 1999 at the TFC Lounge, New Plymouth, New Zealand
3.
Shall I water myself down for mass consumption? Is the message now earnest & clear? Am I walking on the side of my creation? Am I just standing in the rain? Did the nobleman's bride cause me to go down unlocked so I mocked the sun? Were the bells not raining on the no-man's-band sitting proud to the beat of the song? Send a child's comedy from the overturned slumber to feign at the starry-eyed bull And to knock down the roads for the wheel of progress to trample on in its spin "I'm no secretary for the barrel-necked people" I was raging to myself, "Seek comfort from friends, inspiration from enemies, in the pantomime you chose Let abrasion now come overrun all the shelters, cry an end to your troubles beware In an effervescent splint for the dreadlocked outlaw, one hand on autumn and shame Beekeepers dance in digestive shelter, at midnight out comes the moon It all falls down into powers that crumble, stillborn air digesting them soon A wordless accusation in the eyes of one another, too jackal-cowed to flip the night No simple rules in the simpletons' showdown carving annals to win & destroy As the loner is prey to loneliness, so must the crowd feed off itself And to thin regard go the overworked horses who make theatre to smile And the beat of the song makes the hour twice as long til the sounds cuts and hurts my face To vomit on the floor's not what I'm here for, oh the good times get me down
4.
I sit in this tower of tongues & bells & move move move to the groove, or so that I'm reckoned & then I am beckoned back back to these shoes nigh marion blues & so to the seashore our body now go & tale shall flow & power ye know. So under the tower my face nigh on water & shoes that are dough to the marion flow, & need to correct a sudden deflect & fine to the seashore can bring thee self-knowledge, but laugh shall I laugh & make my ears go to the marion flow. Distance contracted, stars that explode. Our body now sober lie down at the seashore & seashore that score the time that we know. Our body now sore that to lie on the floor to be seen to that go to the marion flow. A passion of treasure to my body lies pleasure to be watched on the Earth of patterns we go, & the comfort southwest is to be seen to be blessed. Longer that than you think to be seen to be pink in hard self-regard into cotton of night, & cotton this gift that to is be kissed & to cotton this Earth that to be at the first, that to be at the first is to be at the cursed; distance contracted, stars that explode. A thing is regained that is nowly defamed & be seen to that go, to the marion flow, a thing that does cometh to pierce the sea summit. Nervousness knows that to be on ye toes & voices that might all mutter that high fall, or to leave & not serve or lie in the Earth & the stars are now plain, & voices that come onto him all that come. Yea take in that wake that to be self that take or abandon the wake into silence it take & him that is spying be him that is crying & hence shall it west into heaven that blessed for to lie without knowledge & be proud & flee north. See not that I deformed & hear that I be forth into copious power that shall grumble an hour. Hallowed it be to hear the self reckoned, to see will be beckoned, upon paragraph & tower & weave in a bower, & to see all that spite now to be in the light. See not that I deformed all that came before & that pry in that chance who to aid not that branch. Hunger & knowledge of all that came before to fill up my head with emptiness dread & the loneliness crowd, so insufferably loud are the loneliness crowd. Locked without march. The rhythm that yawns not to be of the dawn, I write for that reason, to buckle the season, my storehouse a treasure of pirates at leisure with shoes that lie drying on priest without buying, and to be but a yawn in the streets that are born(e) & that sprung from the sea to with all that I be, but to fight for no groan in the top without loan, asleep on the throne that is slow in denial of friendships to smile of all that we know, in the carrion flow. To go forth alone into million at home and design in presignment, cold windy assignment, sings all that we know to the marion flow & hope be denial of all that we smile, I give all that I know to the marion flow. Danger & leisure are to be what we treasure, & to see the comfort southwest be amazingly guessed, to hope without trial of all is denial, the pen it grows dry to the self underly, the hope that I treasure the ribbons of leisure that lie without worth in the dustiness Earth. I will finish this page to dirty my age & to lie without spite is to see out the night. The truth it is worth more than loneliness birth where to be in a fright is to be in the night. I will always ignore the one I adore & am always at war with myself to be poor. The end, round the bend, come today another friend. Nothing shall be there to tell what I said or die in a bed & the loneliness crowd grows very loud. Back to the sea, it waits for me, a negative on water like any other matter. All is said & all is done, the flow continues, the song is sung. Myself I ignore. ----------- Dave Edwards - electric guitars, vocal Paul Winstanley - pitch-shifted cymbal Recorded by Paul Winstanley at the TFC Lounge, New Plymouth, New Zealand, June 1999
5.
with a left right flash & the dog in the pan smacking my face with a cartoon hand i went into town, town fell down tall guy in the front starts bouncing around going to hell, in series & in parallel the passion slashing blind can see the emperor has an itchy nose grovelling here & then flip down their toes nose is nailed to the floor lockdown people are odd & funny & they bury all their clothes love tasting like earwax rib-toothed canine raving in storms powerline sculptures open the dogs like a fire with wings swinging down in the silhouette kind of light he's going my way, he's going down swinging down in the silhouette kind of light our silhouettes in dreams crystal palace soldiers in a plastic crusade like fish in a bottle, don't be afraid it's a conspiracy of noise rock & roll enema, shit on the dancefloor smacked on the forehead with a silver spoon hands that grasp the wind & bellow down walls we stand on the river, they take it away it's not my fault that i eat my own salt the town is changing & i'll be king expansive crudity revolves around stars the place is overgrown with millionaires vandalised trees go pillory grey swinging down in the silhouette kind of light he's going my way, he's going down swinging down in the silhouette kind of light our silhouettes in dreams solid & pallid ye cry through the seasons & then you start flaming red & then it's all over, you'll be just like them the dragon can be slain with gentle humour but the good guys have gone away & the fun goes out of the day no conclusion, just more confusion the hours were no good so time resigns & the tall guy in the front is jumping up & down swinging down in the silhouette kind of light he's going my way, he's going down swinging down in the silhouette kind of light our silhouettes in dreams --------- Recorded June 1999 at the TFC Lounge, New Plymouth, NZ Dave Edwards - acoustic guitar, harmonica, vocal Daryl Hannon - drum foliage Paul Winstanley - fretless bass guitar & sound engineer
6.
Wasted days & sleepless nights in a land of steel dreams The composer in his lair writes a wedding dirge Somebody's feeling restless and somebody wants to kill The joker has come apart; the knight in armour has no will Somebody should have told them that the moon got a new tattoo With a mouth full of broken teeth it's grinning down at you Cigarettes and bare walls, sweeping up after the disco Want to repeal the laws of physics and be the star of my own show It's always summer in fairyland The father confessor is a voyeur and god is a little boy I'm the prophet of uncertainty and it brings me no joy Mr Cheese strolls in with his smile and his dextrous tongue If I could kick him in the balls with a sledgehammer I'd know my work was done Psychological nuclear warfare left me bald and sterile They'll either pin you up or nail you up, and expect service with a smile My number is 667 and I live life to the empty I fell in love with the locust queen whose beauty was deformity It's always summer in fairyland My life is full of plot holes, I am your ill-fitting shoe The fat lady's singing and the cows are coming home, just watch me walk right through you I stagger blind drunk into heaven and try to grope the angels I laugh in the face of death, and then I headbutt the bastard as well Heroes frozen into the ice, people shot by shooting stars The angels can keep their harps, down here we got electric guitars Happiness is shallow and misery is selfish, that may or may not be true A dream can be real if you never wake up, is that all there is to you?
7.
Phoenix Road 03:10
roll down Phoenix Road with a firebox full of fears choking down hard whisky, counting out the years manic xenophobe sitting in the boot with a shotgun & a blanket looking so cute adulation, flagellation, all the same to me floating face down in a rabid sea blue factory walkers getting cut down by a sawdust vampire heading into town his brain is barbed wire & his hands are rusty steel crunching down headstones for a last meal no more laughter, no more pain flying into brick walls again & again gunners on the tower & guards on the ground smack back the black flag without a sound he didn't know what he was saying & he didn't know why running into walls to apologise brain at a dead end, ruined skeleton arse to the stormclouds, come on in consciousness folds & rolls on the floor & still he keeps on wanting more tripping on every stone in the river in the drought doesn't know what the song's about the voice is flat & dull like someone drunk who cuts off his head & puts it in the trunk mock hell by going there, death offers nothing a passionate disease amongst the falling trees ------ Recorded June 1999 at the TFC Lounge, New Plymouth, NZ Dave Edwards - electric guitar, harmonica, vocal Paul Winstanley - fretless bass guitar & sound engineer
8.
A frozen tableaux: guns fanned in a spray fired off into my face. A masochistic sodomy for the unknown music lover with a spade tied out into excursion. Drums & garden rakes & typewriters, with a flick of the nose & a free ball of tax. It numbs the heart, the beating & drones all melting like crazy. Up there, O up there, with diamond cloud sculptures of heroes & gods alone in repose. The canyon repentance repent for its break. Looking down on mouth in half share, the eyes gazing out from black upon grey, a grey flashing terror alone in the room, far flung from the womb. Dizziness chilled with collapsing pink tunnel down, exiting diagonally the party guests & the presenter. An eye in the corner, an ape looking out into the numb... & bent down in angles the jetfighter pilot thrown away for the day, civilians scurry down among the rubble for the city once formed in clay & in stone. I'm a secret that nobody knows. A glance on one up that struggles & gleams, a shyness retort it's all my fault, lips & half-lips that flow down to her hips. An ape humps a whisper, all fat & denied, shines from the skull a metal plate for a scalp. Greenhouse conservatory trees blown away in the wind, he whispers in spin. Naughty pony, crashed down among blooming heather like that, you ought to be ashamed. The horse lying there on its back with a smile, a high fall, high heels in high school, a '70s disco. Pop cultural references the buried detritus of literature. Scholarly habits in bookshelves, academic gowns gone wild in the classroom. Gasping & grieving the rest were all leaving. Eyes wide. Journalistic approach. He's Satan asleep, & he begs out a warning to you. Robot phallus extended, a burial map thrown out on the side. The spaceship fly down inside metal tunnel dodging laser fire. I am careful of my feet. Wind blowing me into the drumkit. Metal clang into clang with bounce-ringing sound, true silver to lack. A hero: Kurt Cobain on the stereo but I don't mean him. The humour of streotypes. A hero portrayed in swamp metal tabloids or oiled in bronze light with muscles - a cry, a silver shape rolling in tinfoil sucked through a straw. He is sad, he cries... he liked it. A mouth full of mandarin oranges spitting out juice into fiction. Brown book pages, worms, earth, a hole, journey to the centre of the Earth. A door. A corridor. Light at the end. A man's figure; a black silhouette. The fall of civilisation. A cut; that always hurts. A blankness in a chair. Let's go out for a walk. A sewerage pipe down to the sea. The house explodes. Junky wino just trained yesterday in demolition techniques, deny the antiques, all crash down in rubble, a car provided. Alone in grass grey. No respect, I say no respect, I say no respect these days. She's calm & crouched down over a pale lit table in moonlight, not sleeping in conference. Milk & honey flowed in the vale of the fountains, a clown he crashed down. Drowning in concrete he begged for a warning & none came. An injury bound in salt, grievance, zigzagging up & down palpitations to wait for us all - a fossil fused in walls not bearing this progress but lying alone too sweet for his home. Nestled down among the forest floor a poisonous twig, to bitterly bite at leg. Stabbed in the ankle - a classical reference, Trojan wars you understand. Bronze & marble statues of heroes & gods with spears in hand - a bitter frost of arrows hung down o'er our heads, with go-go dancers interrupting the legends for light entertainment. A commercial break; mythology sponsored. This leads us to mummies in pyramids. A plaster cast man alone in his bleeding... & over it all the ghouls. Not very nice; they live in toilets & have sharp teeth. A fishbowl full of eyes. People have their noses cut off & live. It was a common punishment in medieval Russia. Their heads begin to whirl & blur - a two-dimensional study in black & white bound to be misinterpreted. Red apple falling. Harvest & wine. Bells of machinery clang under a beautiful sunset. Trotsky got an icepick in his forehead; I get one through the scalp at the top of my skull, like a vicious bumblebee but worse.
9.
On a Bus 04:15
...& here we are once again friends, on the odium express busline, a curious coincidence out the window & fishy wet banana smells within. They are sent to punish me, their smiling smacking rings of inwardly consuming wetness & having breakfast & all wetly slopping into toilet stops & trains, the dead brain blown like sand onto glass with nothing there to contain a song. 'Arise, all ye who cry in light' yells the driver, & off they go, walking tall into a new sun, still crying here, & windows & towers & bells now for all to see. Inside non-walls & planks lay the spiders in scheming, not wait for their tunnels, & still gently slapping he cries to their eyes. Smiling in glass now growing tiresome, & useless deceiving that all follows night. Hello in sweet carpets led by lies & denial. Friends o my friends this becomes all the same: sourness, sweetness & to what for the bells go & for whom the seats flow... Readiness? No. A poem is a song contained in pictures; witchcraft & heathens now beg for my stomach... Looking on the crowd from a great height cracked into tables & black rhythms of glass into which lightning rolls. Passions are soiled, the rhythms are boiled, it grows & it grows, it grows & it grows. Shut down the crowd, take chains off the door, open trapdoor, & in they all slide, down & forgotten, a weight off my mind. A black frost; fine feathers flow; we all fall down. We all fall down. ------------ Dave Edwards - acoustic guitar & vocals Paul Winstanley - field recordings, turntable & sound engineer Recorded June 1999 at the TFC Lounge, New Plymouth, New Zealand

about

Turn-of-the-milennium fusion of warm acoustic pop, spoken word and postpunk discord. An almost-acknowledged New Zealand classic, first released in 2001 - of its time yet timeless.

This page has the tracks recorded in New Plymouth in 1999 - or the 2nd half of the album, recorded later in Wellington, see fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/album/the-marion-flow-wellington-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

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPHoSDzB8Lg

"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

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UFpX7catqw&list=PLE8D1132E428CB555



In 1999, aged 20, I left New Plymouth, where I grew up, and moved back to Wellington, New Zealand's capital city, my birthplace. 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 finished the album in 2001, fiffdimension.bandcamp.com/album/the-marion-flow-2001

credits

released August 8, 1999

Recorded at the TFC Lounge, New Plymouth, New Zealand,, 1999

Produced by Paul Winstanley

Dave Edwards - acoustic and electric guitars, harmonica (4,7), vocal
Paul Winstanley - fretless bass (2,5,7), percussion (3,4), turntable (8,9)
Steve Duffels - drums (2), bodhran (6)
The Digitator - snare drum & foliage (3), acoustic guitar (8)
Paul Winther - analogue synthesiser (8)

With special thanks to Brian Wafer and Peter Jefferies

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fiffdimension Featherston, New Zealand

Outsider music from Aotearoa NZ and beyond, by Dave Edwards and collaborators (from 1856 to 2024).

Spans acoustic & electric noise, rock, folk, spoken word, postpunk, free jazz, gamelan, lo fi, electronica, & ethnomusicology.

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