Dean Roberts, Experimental Composer in Thela and White Winged Moth, Dies at 49

Dean Roberts, the experimental composer and multi-instrumentalist who performed in the New Zealand noise trio Thela before embarking on a series of solo projects and records with Autistic Daughters, died this week, his labels Erstwhile and Kranky announced yesterday (August 14). Roberts died in his sleep, Erstwhile’s Jon Abbey wrote, citing the musician’s sister. Roberts was 49 years old.

Roberts, then a teenager, formed Thela with Dion Workman and Paul Douglas in New Zealand in the early 1990s, rising to prominence through Auckland’s free‐music scene with a pair of albums for the U.S. label Ecstatic Peace! The first, 1995’s Thela, was a landmark of rock minimalism, blending post-hardcore guitar thrums with noise sonics and sparse percussion. The following year’s Argentina added ambient elements and glints of melody, attracting admirers of the coalescing post-rock network as well as laptop composers like Fennesz, who later collaborated with Douglas’ Rosy Parlane project.

When Thela parted ways, Roberts divided his output between releases under his own name and his White Winged Moth project, often releasing on his own label, Formacentric Disk, as well as on Mille Plateaux and Erstwhile. Though these projects tended to foreground alien frequencies and complex noise elements—particularly his improv collaboration with Thurston Moore and Dr. Chad—he also began to sing, turning barren soundscapes into uncanny folk laments. He continued in the same direction on Autistic Daughters’ two albums for Kranky, Jealousy and Diamond and Uneasy Flowers, before taking a pause from the studio and returning, from Berlin, in 2020 with Not Fire, the last studio album of his lifetime.

Among those to pay tribute was Lawrence English, who wrote on social media, “I am going to deeply miss you. Your way of transposing the world into song. Your way of finding the hidden voices in the instrument you played. Your smile & that laugh…always that laugh. To future ballads in future places.”