THE NEW YORK TIMES, TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2020 Y C3
IN LATE 2017,when David First announced a
drone-music performance in Brooklyn, I
circled the date on my calendar.
The quality of Mr. First’s music in that
style was already well known, thanks to his
2010 album “Privacy Issues (droneworks
1996-2009).” So I thought I’d be hearing
something like the sneakily morphing
pieces on that recording — albeit with more
live instrumentation on top of his usual elec-
tronics, since this performance included his
latest ensemble, the Western Enisphere.
But I should have known better: Mr. First
rarely works by simple addition or subtrac-
tion. Throughout the more than four dec-
ades of his career, he has jumped adroitly
between styles and scenes, while reinvigo-
rating those scenes from the inside. If his
punk trio the Notekillers was little heard in
late-1970s New York, its merging of guitar
grind and melodic intricacy helped lay the
groundwork for underground rock of the
’80s. Thurston Moore credits a Notekillers
single with influencing the sound of Sonic
Youth.
The nearly two-hour work he performed
in Brooklyn in 2017, “The Consummation of
Right and Wrong,” was more consistently
active and surprising than a lot of contem-
porary drone music. Yet it still carried that
genre’s powerful, cumulative effect, with
the easy instrumental interplay that is only
possible from a well-drilled working band,
recalling Mr. First’s past engagements with
jazz.
The final version of “Consummation,” re-
leased this month by Important Records, is
even more impressive. One major reason is
that it’s no longer a continuous extravagan-
za. The album’s first 98 minutes are now di-
vided into discrete “scenes,” which fade in
and out.
“Here’s drone music that stops,” Mr. First
said with a chuckle during a recent phone
interview. “It doesn’t have to be 30 minutes
to be a drone piece. It can be three minutes,
and it’s still a drone piece. And you can have
a series of drone pieces that stand on their
own.”
This format ensures that each bite-size
section has its own identity. “People could, if
they wanted to, as with any pop album,
choose the ones they like and put them inany order they want,” he said. “Or put them
in a mix.”
But the album is also conceived as a sin-
gle entity of two hours and 24 minutes. The
electronic drones that undergird the
scenes, and the relationships between the
drones selected for each one, follow the
rules of 12-tone music, which avoids giving
any given tone — and therefore any given
key — precedence.
Yet Mr. First has also, in some cases, writ-
ten hummable melodies — often considered
anathema to 12-tone music — atop the
drones in individual scenes. And an added
wrinkle: Both the electronic drones and the
“live” instrumentalists use just intonation
tuning, keeping with Mr. First’s ongoing ex-
periments with microtonal music, or music
that explores the intervals between adja-
cent keys on a piano.
“I was trying to resolve all these irrecon-
cilable opposing concepts,” he said.
During the interview, and in subsequent
emails, he described elements at play in
some of the work’s highlights.‘Scene 1 (trombone solo)’
Sam Kulik, the Western Enisphere’s trom-
bonist, is the featured player on this track,
in which he freely interprets an unmetered
melody by Mr. First, who asked Mr. Kulik to
incorporate “difference tones” and “beating
tones” alongside the drones.
“In this case, one can hear that the trom-
bone interaction with the drones creates a
bass difference tone lower than anything
actually being played,” Mr. First said.
“Beating tones are simply when the two in-
teracting tones are so close together andthe subtraction results in a fluttering trem-
olo, sound because the difference is so small
that it’s below the range of perceivable
pitch.”‘Scene 6 (harmonica feat.)’
On this track, Mr. First said, he was making
use of the same composer-performer pre-
rogative claimed by artists like Captain
Beefheart.
“Beefheart would make his players learn
these ridiculously difficult, hyper-con-
trolled musical parts and then he would
freely blow on top of it all,” he said. “Here, I
am doing that with my harmonica playing. I
confess I often take liberties in my music
that I would not allow other players to do.”‘Scene 7 (bass clar. and bass duet)’
This mournful piece is one of the work’s
highlights. “There are obvious instruments
in this ensemble that I like to use because of
their flexibility when it comes to pitch: vio-
la, trombone, upright bass, laptop — even
guitar, where one can string bend fairly eas-
ily,” Mr. First said. “But bass clarinet is not
one of them.”
“Jeff Tobias is in this band because he’s
Jeff,” he added. “Not because I wanted a
bass clarinetist. I do love the sound of the
instrument though. It’s just much more of a
control challenge — a much more serious
subversion of the instrument’s natural pro-
clivities must take place in order to play
what I’m asking for.”‘Scene 11 (ensemble)’
Mr. First has been developing ideas for theWestern Enisphere since the violist
Jeanann Dara approached him about work-
ing together in the early 2010s. The cohe-
sion of the group is crucial to its success.
For the recording of “Scene 11,” Mr. First
conceived of this ensemble piece as a studio
creation. “I wanted it to reflect what one can
do through manipulating materials in the
mixing process, as opposed to simply docu-
menting a performance,” he said. “I had the
players record their parts in three different,
very precise polyrhythmic tempos and then
improvised a mix that highlighted various
combinations of players and tempos.”‘Section 2 (ensemble)’
After 15 separate “scenes,” the final section
of “Consummation” is a composed 45-
minute jam. “I always called myself a rock
’n’ roll musician,” he said. “It was kind of my
way of establishing where I was coming
from. That that was my sensibility — how I
weighed and measured creativity, even if
the music didn’t sound like it at all. It was a
little bit a of a wiseguy thing. But it was also
my way of legitimizing my own roots.”
“I don’t know what to call myself at this
point,” he added. “I’m not crazy about being
thought of as strictly a drone composer, to
be honest. I think ‘Consummation’ was a bit
of a pushback against that. Or at least an at-
tempt to expand the parameters. You want
to call me a drone composer? OK: Here’s a
two-part canon structure that can only be
called melodic, even if there is a drone going
on behind it. I guess, in my own way, I was
looking to separate myself from that conceit
— that drone music has to mean everything
is long, loud and without melody.”SETH COLTER WALLS CRITIC’S NOTEBOOKDrone Music Served in Bite-Size Bits
In his new album,
David First tries to
reconcile ideas about
melody and
sustained tones, but
he also makes room
for a return to his
roots with a
45-minute jam.
SEPTEMBER DAWN BOTTOMS/THE NEW YORK TIMESVIA DAVID FIRSTTop right, David First’s latest
album can be listened to as a
single piece lasting over two
hours, or as discrete “scenes”
that can be mixed up and
played like a pop album.
Below, in 1978, Mr. First,
center, performed with Barry
Halkin, left, and Stephen
Bilenky, right, as the
Notekillers, a punk trio.
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CMNKBPM FKKMFVFGRMN, F KZWBNJ-MGXWBNJCBRPBZGFVH RFG’P JMWK HZL NZWSM PJBN RVHKPZXVFT.PUZZLE BY BEN BASS YESTERDAY’S ANSWER Going great guns, going going gone
Crossword Edited by Will Shortz
ACROSS
1 Triumph of
diplomacy
5 Not do much of
anything
9 Norse trickster
13 Lunge toward
15 1992 Brendan
Fraser film about
a thawed Cro-
Magnon
17 “The Tortoise and
the Hare,” e.g.
18 Shorelines
19 Framework for
vines
21 Twosome on TMZ
22 Muscleman of
“The A-Team”
23 “___ and
improved!”
25 It’s the place to
be
29 “___ of the
tongue leads to
that of the heart”:
Jefferson
32 ___ Grande
33 Auto pound, for
one
35 Totally dominate,
in slang
36 “Let me see ...”
37 The girl in the
Disney song
“Kiss the Girl”38 So-called “twin
killings” in
baseball, for
short
39 Celebrate wildly
40 Some whiskeys
41 One who brushes
off a plate,
informally
42 Clears one’s
mind, with “up”
43 Wok, for one
44 Bubble gum in
1906, e.g.
46 Behind
financially
48 ___ Speed
Wagon (old
truck)
49 Military
installations:
Abbr.
51 Fish with long
jaws
53 Certain female
baby on a farm
56 Response to
“Objection!,”
maybe
60 Writing that can
get you in trouble
61 Woolworth’s,
once
62 Gal’s guy
63 Object of dirty
looks?
64 Circle in the
game hangman
65 Actor RogenDOWN
1 [Fizzle]
2 Raise the ___
3 Chat room pal
4 Accounts of Paul
Bunyan, say
5 Tenant
6 Ariana Grande’s
“___ Last Time”
7 Berry in a purple
smoothie
8 Section of a
bookstore
9 Rich soils
10 Meditation
syllables
11 Kit ___ bar
12 Outs’ opposites
14 No. on a
business card
16 On and on and on
20 Part of M.I.T.:
Abbr.24 Burger King
offering
26 Like something
that really
shouldn’t have
happened
27 Edmonton
N.H.L.’er
28 Things most
interstates don’t
have
30 “OMG, I’m
dying!”
31 Reactions to
slugs
33 Wrist bones
34 Early Indo-
European
36 It’s spun by
mendacious
people ... or
a hint to the
shaded answers
38 Org. staffed
by sloths in
“Zootopia”39 Key piece in
French chess
41 Fabrication
42 Put away for
safekeeping
44 Some building
beams
45 “Thanks, I ___
that”
47 Source of
beautiful plumes
50 Refine, as metal
52 Liqueur flavor
54 One with pointy
shoes and ears
55 Meh-feeling
56 Some drug
cases, for short
57 Liveliness
58 Fast runner
Down Under
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Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.1234 5678 910111213 14 15 1617 1819 20 2122 23 24 25 26 27 2829 30 31 3233 34 35 3637 38 3940 41 4243 44 4546 47 48 49 5051 52 53 54 5556 57 58 59 6061 6263 64 65SARA SL I PS JOCK
ARAL HENR I AV I A
YODA HIKINGGEAR
AM I S S J A K E RO T
HA I KUPOEM MSN
ADOPT WI ND
CPA DRESS T I GER
H I GHEND HE I GHHO
APRON STAGE T I P
PEER ERASE
EAT HE I D I KLUM
SPA MI EN NEATO
HYBR I DCARS ONTO
ELLE OHGEE UKES
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