Go Steve! Go Steve! Go Steve!
Quite right too Mr. Roby – a proper thread to park the The Quiet Bus in.
About 20 years ago, the 60s electronic music pioneer Pauline Oliveros devised a philosophy called Deep Listening, through her Deep Listening Band;
“Deep Listening specializes in performing and recording in resonant or reverberant spaces such as cathedrals (sound familiar?) and huge underground cisterns including the two million gallon Fort Worden Cistern which has a 45 second reverberation time.After wading through much philosophastery, you’ll find that, cruicially, Deep Listening is a sort of ‘anti-ambient Ambient’ if you like. Unlike Eno – it asks that you treat these quiet forms, not as background, but as you would say - works by Beethoven or Wagner. It demands that you
listen.
I think
The Quiet Man is somewhere between both philosophies, uniquely developing it’s own ideal. As I said before, for me, The piano work on here is much more fragile, much more subtle than on previous Quiet Man recordings – which are practically Motörhead in comparison – so light is the touch here, like the Quiet Man sat alone with his crumbling book, I feel that to listen too hard may cause the sound to turn to mist. The piano work, in its own quiet way, screams ‘ambient’. But the text isn’t. The text is (and still is) a life’s work and
demands to be heard, and should be heard.
So, (and maybe I’m thinking about it too much, but here’s the point) how do you listen to The Quiet Man?
I’ve tried the Deep Listening approach – late at night, headphones on and all is dark. But my mind wanders, occasionally
The Quiet Man comes out of mist and then he’s off again – Hyde Park probably. I lose the thread but catch the flow. And then I fall asleep.
Another night,
The Quiet Man as radio play – I’m reading a book, treating it as ambience now, but there’s too much interference -
The Quiet Man may be anonymous but the prose isn’t and the striking imagery cuts through the room, the book and demands to be heard.
Foxx once said a long time ago when he stepped back into the light again that;
“It’s music for cities and people who live in cities. And that’s always been confirmed because if we play in the West Country nobody comes! But if we play in Manchester, and everywhere we go – the industrial places are the places that recognise the music straight away. You take it into the countryside – it doesn’t work….it’s a new form of urban blues…”Yes he was talking about
Shifting City but I thought about this recently and decided to take
The Quiet Man out and about on my journeys to work; on the District Line, through St. James’ Park, Victoria Station etc. And although those places are particular to London I got the sense that any city would work, but essentially, it has to be a city. As I wandered through rush-hour traffic and people, through all the noise of a city
The Quiet Man filtered in and out with the cars, the trains, the noise – and for me it worked.
God help you if you live in the Peak District!
