Search - David First, None, Peter Zummo :: Privacy Issues (droneworks 1996-2009)

This was something unexpected and truly different: pulsing electronic textures that derived their rhythm from the beating patterns of closely-tune pitches as if Alvin Lucier and Philip Glass had gone on a blind date to CBGBs... David put the beat in beating patterns. - From the liner notes by composer Nic Collins (on his initial exposure to First s music in 1987) Long overdue overview of composer David First s drone works. This special and specially priced set (3 CDs for the price of 2) is comprised of nine works composed between 1996 and 2009. 1996 was the beginning of a new period for me , says First. I had spent the prior five or six years creating a lot of music for other players and larger ensembles culminating in 1995 with a couple of mountings of my opera, The Manhattan Book of the Dead. I was a little burned out on this and decided to return to a more personal, intimate format one that ended up including an even more extensive exploration of tunings, alternative compositional softwares and how my playing techniques interacted with these things. I think I just wanted to go deeper and have more control over the results. During the ensuing years I ve had a few pendulum swings forays into beat-oriented pop music with lyrics & vocals and, of course, the re-animation of my rock band from the late 70s the Notekillers. But I ve continued, through all of the changes, to maintain my grounding in my love of the drone & associated acoustical phenomena a love affair that began in my teenage psychedelic years and will, no doubt, be a most significant aspect of my music path for as long as I am at it. The tracks here represent almost every major work created from 1996 to the present and I m grateful that they will be heard by a wider swath of people than those who lived in NYC or happened to be at one of my touring performances during these years.