All drone records are not made equal. New Primes, Greg Davis’s latest electronic release for Greyfade, amply demonstrates this. The title of the album suggests using prime numbers as part of just intonation tuning. Just intervals and overtone tuning give the drones and the verticals above the bass a distinctive character.
When dealing with overtones, timing is everything. Davis seems to know exactly when to emphasize an overtone. Partway through the opening piece, “Sophie Germain,” an upper partial hovers expectantly, only to be supplanted by thrumming bass frequencies. The two continue to alternate until a persistent midrange tone emerges from the texture to add heft to an upper sine tone.
The longest piece on New Primes, “Irregular,” deals with dissonant overtones shaping a richly evolving tapestry of verticals. It demonstrates that drone doesn’t necessarily equate to stasis, and in “Irregular” a fluid shift of overtones rife with dissonance provides a counterweight to conventional thinking. “Proth” is excited with pulsations, an exercise in coruscating rhythms.
Low bass thrums as “Pierpont” begins. The richness of the bass is diverting enough, but a lot is going on above, once again led by a pulsating tone and dissonant intervals. “Cullen” begins with a welter of mid-register dissonance that gradually straightens out into octaves only to have another wave of dissonance overwhelm it. A polyrhythm is articulated by pulsation - 3:2. The practice of throwing a dissonat smear into the midst of things and then resolving it to a perfect interval is the concept at play.
New Primes closes with “Euclid,” its second longest piece at 7’36.” A single, pulsing Eb makes a sly entrance: it will appear throughout in various guises. Polyrhythms abound in the piece and all three waveforms are present, providing a variety of timbres. Just intervals are played out in duets. Here and there there is a splash of white noise against the prevailing pitch content. The work closes with a slow fade on the single, pulsing Eb, as before in the fourth octave. One could easily imagine Davis doing long form drone pieces, but so much is packed into these one-movement works that further duration isn’t necessary. Listen closely: there’s much to hear.
