Alastair Galbraith


Alastair Galbraith is a New Zealand musician and sound artist from Dunedin.

Career

Galbraith's first band was The Rip, which he formed with Robbie Muir, and Mathew Ransome and later Jeff Harford. They released two EPs on the Flying Nun label. Later he formed Plagal Grind, with Robbie Muir, Jono Lonie, David Mitchell and Peter Jefferies.
Galbraith's solo career has included numerous early cassettes and 7"s on Bruce Russell's Xpressway label, as well as albums on labels such as Siltbreeze, Emperor Jones, Time Lag, Feel Good All Over and Table of the Elements. He has also recorded ten albums with Bruce Russell under the name A Handful of Dust.. During the 1990s, Galbraith frequently collaborated with the Mountain Goats, including co-releasing the 1995 joint EP Orange Raja, Blood Royal and contributing violin and string arrangements to the Mountain Goats 1997 album Full Force Galesburg. In 1999, he began a collaboration with Matt De Gennaro when the two toured New Zealand Public Art Galleries converting them into giant soundboxes by stroking tensioned wires fixed to the buildings' structural supports.
In 2002, he designed and built a glass-tube fire organ, during an arts residency at the Sarjeant Gallery's Tylee Cottage Residency in Whanganui. His subsequent album Orb includes the track 'Tylee Cottage' and a photograph of the fire organ in Whanganui's Durie Hill Elevator tunnel.
In 2006, he released Waves and Particles a collaboration with Maxine Funke and Mike Dooley as The Hundred Dollar Band. There was also the release of Long Wires in Dark Museums, Vol. 2 and the reissue of his early albums Morse/Gaudylight and Talisman by U.S. label Table of the Elements.
Later that year he was awarded an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award and released Belsayer Time, a collaboration with Richard Youngs and Alex Neilson.
In 2007, Galbraith built a treadle-powered glass harmonium and released orb a solo album on his own Nextbestway label.

Discography

The Rip:
Plagal Grind:
Solo:
Long Playing & Cassette
Singles & EPs
  • 1989 – Timebomb – 7" with Graeme Jefferies – Xpressway – X/WAY 10
  • 1991 – Gaudylight – EP 7" – Siltbreeze – SB07
  • 1994 – Cluster – EP 7" – Ger. Raffmond – RAFF 006-7
  • 1994 – Intro Version – EP 7" – Roof Bolt – RB001
  • 1995 – Orange Raja, Blood Royal – 7" – Walt Records – Walt 005
  • 1995 – Tae Keening – EP 77" with Demarnia Lloyd – Roof Bolt – RB003
  • 1996 – Split EP with Minimum Chips – 7" – Varispeed – VS02
  • 1997 – Rivulets – EP 7" – Camera Obscura – CAM 004S
  • 1998 – Wire Music – EP with Matt de Gennaro – Corpus Hermeticum – Hermes031
  • 1998 – Black Forest – EP – with Robert Scott
  • 1998 – Me & Gus – 7" – with Pip Proud – Emperor Jones – ej18
  • 1999 – Orbital – 7" – Crawlspace Records – SPACE 007
  • 1999 – Two Wires Violin Loop – EP – with Matt De Gennaro
  • 2000 – Long Wires in Dark Museums, Vol. 1 – EP with Matt De Gennaro – Emperor Jones – ej39cd
  • 2003 – Radiant
  • 2006 – Long Wires in Dark Museums, Vol. 2 – EP with Matt De Gennaro – Xeric – XER-CD-103
  • 2006 – Belsayer Time EP with Richard Youngs and Alex Neilson – Time-Lag – Time-Lag 034
  • 2010 – Endless Black – EP – self-released
  • 2010 – Dances for the Blind Owl – EP – La Station Radar – fake tape serie #15
  • 2011 – Untitled 1–3 – 7" – Split EP with William Tyler
Compilations
  • 1993 – Seely Girn – Feel Good All Over – fgao #14
A Handful of Dust
:
  • 1993 – Concord LP
  • 1994 – The Philosophick Mercury CD 1994
  • 1994 – The Eightness of Adam Qadmon TC
  • 1994 – Musica Humana CD
  • 1995 – From a Soundtrack to the Anabase of St.John Perse TC 1995
  • 1996 – Now Gods, Stand Up For Bastards CD 1996
  • 1997 – Topology of a Phantom City TC
  • 1997 – Spiritual Libertines CD
  • 1998 – Jerusalem, Street of Graves CD
  • 2002 – For Patti Smith CD
  • 2009 – Panegyric
The Hundred Dollar Band
:
  • 2006 – Waves and Particles
Pure speculation
:
  • 2013 – ''Pure speculation''