''The First Day'' is the first of three collaborations between British musicians

David Sylvian David Sylvian (born David Alan Batt, 23 February 1958) is an English musician, singer and songwriter who came to prominence in the late 1970s as frontman and principal songwriter of the band Japan. The band's androgynous look and increasingly ...

and

Robert Fripp Robert Fripp (born 16 May 1946) is a British musician, songwriter, record producer, and author, best known as the guitarist, founder and longest-lasting member of the progressive rock band King Crimson. He has worked extensively as a session ...

. It was released in August 1993, featuring a driving rock style with elements of funk. After scattered collaborations from the late 1980s, Fripp asked Sylvian to join a new version of his band

King Crimson King Crimson are a progressive rock band formed in 1968 in London, England. The band draws inspiration from a wide variety of music, incorporating elements of classical, jazz, folk, heavy metal, gamelan, industrial, electronic, experime ...

, but Sylvian proposed a collaborative album. All vocals and guitar parts were recorded at Kingsway in New Orleans, and the mixing was carried out at Electric Ladyland in New York with the help of Peter Gabriel's engineer David Bottrill. They also recorded in Woodstock. Chapman stick player

Trey Gunn Trey Gunn (born December 13, 1960) is an American musician, known for his membership in the progressive rock band King Crimson from 1994 to 2003, playing Warr Guitar and Chapman Stick. Biography A native Texan who now resides in Seattle, Washi ...

provided a foundation for Fripp to experiment on electric guitar. Percussion duties were filled by

Marc Anderson Marc Dennis Anderson (born December 10, 1955) is an American born percussionist, composer, poet and Zen Buddhist priest. Best known for records and live performances with guitarist and composer Steve Tibbetts, he has recorded and performed wi ...

(longtime collaborator with

Steve Tibbetts Steve Tibbetts (born 1954) is an American guitarist and composer. He views the recording studio as a tool for creating sounds. Most of his albums include percussionist Marc Anderson. Style Tibbetts plays acoustic and electric guitar and exoti ...

) and

Jerry Marotta Jerome David Marotta (born February 6, 1956, in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American drummer who resides in Woodstock, New York. He is the younger brother of Rick Marotta, who is also a drummer and composer. Career Marotta was a member of the bands ...

(drummer for

Peter Gabriel Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and activist. He rose to fame as the original lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis in 1975, he launched ...

and

Tony Levin Anthony Frederick Levin (born June 6, 1946) is an American musician and composer, specializing in electric bass, Chapman Stick and upright bass. He also sings and plays synthesizer. Levin is best known for his work with King Crimson (since 198 ...

), while co-producer

David Bottrill David Bottrill is a Canadian record producer. He has won three Grammys. Formerly, he owned Rattlebox Studios in Toronto, Ontario with producer Brian Moncarz. Moneen, Basia Lyjak, and The Getaway Plan are among the artists to have recorded at th ...

provided percussion treatments and samples. ''The First Day'' was released in three versions: a double LP (V2712), a regular CD (CDV 2712) and a box set with eight photo prints (CDVX 2712).

Jean the Birdman "Jean the Birdman" is a collaboration between Robert Fripp and David Sylvian, co-written by Trey Gunn. The dreamlike music video was directed by Howard Greenhalgh a year before he became famous for his work on Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun". The ...

was released as a single, featuring exclusive B-sides not available on an album.

Impact

"Bringing Down the Light" appeared in the Chris Morris TV series ''

Jam Jam is a type of fruit preserve. Jam or Jammed may also refer to: Other common meanings * A firearm malfunction * Block signals ** Radio jamming ** Radar jamming and deception ** Mobile phone jammer ** Echolocation jamming Arts and ente ...

''.

Background

Sylvian said in an interview 1994 about the album:

Track listing

All songs by David Sylvian (music & lyrics), Robert Fripp (music), and Trey Gunn (music), except where noted. #"God's Monkey" (

, Fripp, Gunn, Sylvian) – 4:58 #"

" – 4:09 #"Firepower" – 10:25 #"Brightness Falls" – 6:05 #"20th Century Dreaming (A Shaman's Song)" – 11:50 #"Darshan (The Road to Graceland)" (Bottrill, Fripp, Gunn, Sylvian) – 17:17 #"Bringing Down the Light" (Fripp) – 8:31

Personnel and production

–

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

keyboard instrument A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard, a row of levers which are pressed by the fingers. The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various electronic keyboards, including synthesizers and digital piano ...

s, tapes *

– guitar,

Frippertronics Robert Fripp (born 16 May 1946) is a British musician, songwriter, record producer, and author, best known as the guitarist, founder and longest-lasting member of the progressive rock band King Crimson. He has worked extensively as a session ...

–

chapman stick The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and is used to play bass lines, melody lines ...

, vocals *

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

percussion instrument A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

s *

– percussion *

– treatments, sampled percussion,

computer programming Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as ana ...

, engineer *

Ingrid Chavez Ingrid Julia Chavez (born 1965) is an American singer-songwriter, poet, actress, and visual artist. Early life Chavez was born on January 21, 1965, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and raised in Marietta, Georgia. She is of Mexican-American descent. ...

– vocals

Additional personnel

*Richard Chadwick – recording co-ordination *Natasha White – recording co-ordination assistant *Dan McLoughlin, John Yates, Mark Glass, Trina Shoemaker – assistant engineers *Catherine McRae – design co-ordination *Kevin Westenberg – photography *Dave Coppenhall,

Vaughan Oliver Vaughan Oliver (12 September 1957 – 29 December 2019) was a British graphic designer based in Epsom, Surrey. Oliver was best known for his work with graphic design studios 23 Envelope and v23. Both studios maintained a close relationship with ...

– design *John Sinks – technical and strategic Liaison

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:First Day, The David Sylvian albums Robert Fripp albums 1993 albums Albums produced by David Bottrill Virgin Records albums Collaborative albums