Future Jaw Clap: The Primitive Art Group and Braille Colcetive Story

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.

Daniel Beban is a musician, sound artist and producer who lives in Wellington, New Zealand. He performs on a number of different instruments in groups including Orchestra of Spheres, Devils Gate Outfit, Imbogodom, the Stinging Nettles, Farewell Spit and UMU. With these groups he has released recordings and toured extensively. He builds sound sculptures and invented instruments out of found objects and recycled materials. Through his work as a radio sound engineer, Daniel has experimented at length with reel-to-reel tape machines, which forms the basis of much of his electronic work.