Though it was the shortest day of 2023, Phill Niblock’s drones felt like they could make it last longer than 24 hours. During the intermedia artist’s Winter Solstice extravaganza, held on December 21 and 22 last year in celebration of the artist’s 90th birthday, those notes lingered long past their expiration, so long that I’m still thinking about them as I write today.
I attended for just the first of the two days, during which ceaseless drones filled the hall, both from Niblock’s laptop and live performances by violin duo String Noise and guitarist David First, while mixed media film depicting manual labor projected on a loop across three screens that surrounded the stage. It was the quintessential example of what Niblock did in his career, capturing his blaring, dense drones that never gave up on much of anything. When I walked onto the balcony around 1:30PM, the room was nearly empty, but by the end of the day, it was full of listeners who silently became enveloped in the room, lost between three screens and endless sound.
At the time, we were there to experience Niblock’s work—the Winter Solstice concert itself was something of a New York institution. But as I look back, it takes on another meaning: Niblock passed away in early January 2024, just a few weeks after we honored the darkness of winter together at Roulette. I find myself looking back on that day with disbelief; it was an honor to go on the journey then, ushering in the coldest, darkest, quietest time of year with the most unflinching, uncompromising, engulfing art I can imagine. I will never forget the feeling of bursting sound set fire to the room around me while I watched two men shoe a horse; as they welded metal into a U and branded the horse’s hoof with it, Niblock’s swarming drones reached into every corner of the room, and I could feel them inside me, too.
Musically speaking, the most striking moment came when String Noise took the stage. Up until that point, the resonant sound we heard emanated from Niblock’s laptop. With String Noise’s violins, each note started to take on a new timbre—the sweetness of their instruments’ wooden bodies, the graininess of a rosined bow against metal strings. Each note they played unleashed a rainstorm of glistening overtones, lighting up each of the dense drones with effervescent twinkles. They played with painstaking attention, drawing their bows at a glacial, heavy pace and leaving each note unadorned and raw. The sound was still leaden, but hearing the duo’s performance showcased all of the individual notes and textures that live inside of it.
When we walked out in a stupor just a couple of hours later, silent save for the noise still ringing inside of us, the sky was pitch black and time felt warped, transformed by the hours of music that still left its mark. Watching warehouses pass by us as we drove through North Brooklyn, we talked about what we’d seen, trying to unpack the knotty drones that had become our home. I’m not sure we’ll ever fully untangle them. After all, it was Niblock’s world, and we were lucky enough to be invited into it for a little while.