"You could compare the work of New Zealand's Dean Roberts to a band like Talk Talk, but not for the arrangements-- Roberts works with guitar and staticky laptop textures, a vaguer and more evasive medium than the chamber instruments of late Talk Talk-- or for his singing, although the rough vulnerability in his vocals may evoke Mark Hollis. The quality they share is that search for a spark in the darkness, where even repetetitive or abstract passages reveal a drive toward answers. It distinguishes Roberts' work and it illuminates the familiar materials that he employs.

After starting his career in the noise-punk Thela, Roberts has evolved into a laptop and guitar improviser, a fixture in the New Zealand noise scene who travels the world to play art music festivals or to record for labels like Erstwhile and Staubgold; if you're a fan of Loren Connors, Oren Ambarchi, or Christian Fennesz, Roberts' work is up your alley. Reissued from its 2000 release, Roberts' And the Black Moths Play the Grand Cinema may be his strongest work.

Recorded in New York, it combines loops and staticky textures with live instruments, including contributions by Tim Barnes, Matt Valentine, and Charles Curtis. Roberts starts the record with a lo-fi buzzing that yields to Barnes' opening percussion and fragmentary vocals. From there, he intersperses brief songs-- including a stoically morbid cover of Brian Eno's "Cindy Tells Me"-- with hypnotic clouds of loops that hover like lullabies for baby cyborgs. And while the first half of the record drifts in that vein, the second is fast and anxious, propelled by Barnes' percussion. The combination of live and electronic elements, the range of tones from distant to piercing and the significant shifts in tempo give a full expressiveness to a limited and potentially obtuse palette.
Chris Dahlen, PITCHFORK Rating 8.1

Dear friends,
Today I am putting my music up into the digital realm via Bandcamp deanrobertsmusic.bandcamp.com

My intention being to make available by popular demand 2 of my older albums, to mark 20 years, and 21 years since the creation of those albums, 'And the Black Moths Play the Grand Cinema' (Originally released on Ritornell, 1999, and later re-issued on Staubgold in 2015) All Cracked Medias - Originally released on Mille Plateaux 1998 on CD, and re-released in an ultra limited edition LP in 2007 on Fringes Recording in Italy.

I've also added an EP of 2 new-ish tracks that have been live staples in recent years, but were never released, and due to many requests I've decided to put them up as an EP.

While my records have been supported by great labels, collaborators, audiences, promoters, writers, festivals, though in the past 21 years since making these recordings, myself and other artists involved in the creation have scarcely monetized from the sale of records or downloads.

While having a limited audience, these records were never big sellers and also somewhat cursed with coming out at a time where the digital realm took over as a major distribution avenue, leaving many of my generation of artists who chose not to engage in online distribution kind of f***ed . I had a disastrous publishing and royalty collection deal with Rough Trade, and like many artists, the material ended up going through the digital mill and ended up in the digital dump up on Spotify, Apple iTunes, and numerous file sharing platforms, none of which I was aware or had any control over, nor did I ever see a cent. Hence, I gave up a long time ago on hoping anything other than live concerts as a way to monetize my music.

I had ceased recording for a number of years, until recently when Jon Abbey, head of Erstwhile Record in New York contacted me with a commission to re-visit this strain of musical investigation explored on these records, with the plan to create a new work as a continuum in the vein of these records. I jumped at the opportunity and work is already well under way for a 2020 release, some of the material has been developed for almost 20 years, and so I am looking forward to finally realizing it.

I was at the same time tapped by a little agency which suggested that bandcamp could be a good avenue to sell high quality downloads, and probably my best bet for ever making anything from music in the current climate.

We are not doing free downloads at this stage, but may offer something along those lines at a later date, and I intend to upload a few rarities and live recordings, when time permits. Later this year I intend to use this platform to also publish podcasts, a lecture series and an e-book, and some other rarities, out of print records etc. so watch this space. I also still have some very limited copies of the LP and CDs available, which can be ordered through here within a couple of weeks.

So on May 1st we've launch these 3 releases and so if you are feeling generous, the cost of a paid download goes 100% to the artists, and any revenue received will go towards the studio production costs of my new record which I am developing now.

If we can get just a couple of hundred paid downloads we'll be on the path to financing a new record, details of personnel I won't divulge yet but it is going to be pretty exiting project with an awesome supporting cast, and the album will be produced by myself and Tim Barnes, my original collaborator on these recordings and extraordinary musician and producer and friend - I can't wait to get together with him again- and it will be engineered by some of the best technical and creative engineers known to our planet.

For those who purchase downloads and join the mailing list I will send a PDF essay and notes on each recording, and/or an original photo essay.

For further testimony on the state of monetization in the music industry, this is a great read from Damon Krukowski of Galaxie 500 and Damon & Naomi pitchfork.com/features/article/8993-the-cloud/

Many thanks for your time and ongoing support, happy to make these recordings available again.

sincerely,

Dean Roberts