Cover photo: Primitive Art Group, c. 1983, clockwise from bottom: Stuart Porter, David Donaldson, David Watson, Neill Duncan, Anthony Donaldson. Stuart Porter collection
Cover design: Carla Schollum
Daniel Beban has given us more than his share of blood, sweat, and psychedelic tears across the years, from his considerable output with Orchestra of Spheres, founding the Pyramid Club to give Pōneke's weirdos a home, and being an all round encourager and champion of sound exploration in Aotearoa. Now, Beban is shining a light on some of the intrepid aural adventurers that paved the way for the rest of us, with his brilliant book all about the free jazz agitators Primitive Art Group. Referred to on occasion as "the punks of jazz", the group played against the grain, soundtracking the protest movement of the late 80s, and giving a name to the noise nobody quite knew they needed. Hailed by Thurston Moore as an "astounding and illuminating" read, you best get your order in! - Flying Out
‘astounding and illuminating’ —Thurston Moore
‘wonderful’ —Nick Bollinger
‘A must-read' —Mike Nock
‘Everyone who wants to start a band in Aotearoa should read this book’ —Don McGlashan
Future Jaw-Clap tells the story of a highly influential movement in New Zealand music: the self-made musicians of pioneering free jazz ensemble Primitive Art Group, who carved out their own radical musical language in the cold, hard reality of 1980s Wellington, and have gone on to richly diverse careers in music.
From their beginnings as ‘the punks of jazz’ in small clubs and the anti-nuclear and anti-apartheid protests of the early 1980s, through the heyday of the Braille Collective's many colourful groups, self-released records and intersections with dance, theatre and visual arts, to the Six Volts providing music for the iconic album Songs From the Front Lawn, and beyond, these musicians and the many others they have drawn into their orbit have done much to shape the music of Aotearoa.
Based on a deep oral history project and extensive archival research, and vividly illustrated with photographs and other items, Future Jaw-Clap is a portal into an extraordinary musical world, and a celebration of a vibrant living tradition.
