David First - A Tone Pool Meditation
July 15, 2025
7p-11p
July 15, 2025
7p-11p
'vienna', a new release on Small Forms Records w FIM Basel Concert March 2023 Hypersurface is a NYC-based trio consisting of Drew Wesely (guitar/objects), Lester St. Louis (cello), and Carlo Costa (percussion). Hypersurface explores timbral, durational, and formal aspects of improvisation with lenses focused on their instruments' acoustic particularities alongside employing tiles, railroad spikes, ceramic plates and other objects to expand them further. In coming together Carlo, Drew and Lester wanted to create a music that puts emphasis on the erasure of sonic boundaries, embracing the liminal spaces between their instruments, their sounds and the greater sonic environment. Timbre, gesture, duration, particles, layers… a real time tapestry of its own. The trio has given performances throughout the United States and Europe in a diversity of concert settings from clubs to large halls and galleries; with each utilizing the acoustics to follow potent musical pathways. Kamau Amu Patton is an interdisciplinary artist and educator whose work examines history and culture through engagement with archives, documents, stories, and sites. Patton’s projects are dialogic and take form as expanded field conversations. http://kamaupatton.com
David First will continue where he left off during his 3-month L&SD spring residency. In his preparation for those performances, First spent time alone in the room and uncovered the most potent frequency vibrations that the mighty L&SD sound system will allow. The resulting sounds made on these nights—a set of 24 precisely twisted and tuned sine waves—were created specifically for and in this room and can only be heard here.
Expect a non-stop three-hour journey through deep space where tears in the cosmic garment will ripple through the room and time is reverently warped in the process.
In addition, First will begin the evening with a brief talk where he will explain and demonstrate some of the mystical mathematics that lie behind his procedures.
David First has had music released on Important Records, Dais, Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace, Phill Niblock’s XI, Mode (Spring ‘25), and numerous others. He is perhaps best known for his longstanding “Dave’s Waves Sonic Restaurant” audio/video installation which has been presented in Berlin, Belgium, Moscow, The Netherlands, and since 2018 has been open to the public over a dozen times at the Sunview Luncheonette (Greenpoint).
First was recently named a New Music USA Creator Fund Awardee for 2025. He has also been the recipient of the Herb Alpert/Ragdale Award for Music Composition for 2019 and a 2019 NYFA/NYSCA Fellowship. Other awards include a Grant to Artists from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts, as well as grants and commissions from the NEA, the Copeland Foundation (in 2010 & 2024), the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and the Meet the Composer Commissioning USA program.
Expect a non-stop three-hour journey through deep space where tears in the cosmic garment will ripple through the room and time is reverently warped in the process.
In addition, First will begin the evening with a brief talk where he will explain and demonstrate some of the mystical mathematics that lie behind his procedures.
David First has had music released on Important Records, Dais, Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace, Phill Niblock’s XI, Mode (Spring ‘25), and numerous others. He is perhaps best known for his longstanding “Dave’s Waves Sonic Restaurant” audio/video installation which has been presented in Berlin, Belgium, Moscow, The Netherlands, and since 2018 has been open to the public over a dozen times at the Sunview Luncheonette (Greenpoint).
First was recently named a New Music USA Creator Fund Awardee for 2025. He has also been the recipient of the Herb Alpert/Ragdale Award for Music Composition for 2019 and a 2019 NYFA/NYSCA Fellowship. Other awards include a Grant to Artists from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts, as well as grants and commissions from the NEA, the Copeland Foundation (in 2010 & 2024), the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and the Meet the Composer Commissioning USA program.