pfe

  no.18

 listening (to) music.



If this music is for listening
    	...ie not dancing,    not background
     -although one still likes the idea of
having a dance to it and
it  makes great background music-

Then just how is one to listen to it?


--------

Early Friday  night sitting on a floor
 in an innercity studio in
Oxford Street, the night before Mardi Gras,
for a sigma editions release/Dion's of to
    Europe thing.

minit (Jasmine, Torben is missing) is  playing...
   most listen, this is the first act.
Down the stairs someone practices drums
          and sax...outside people,
 buses and  ambulances
can clearly be heard.
        I can't help but think of illbient.

-then a cd is played
     ...questions of the difference
 between the "live" and the "recorded"
                as always are bought up-

Then Davi d Haines  plays.
    The first 15 minute track is well
 received many listen attentively,
     although there is a sense
that the gig has become a gathering.
      People talk throughout,
 some stand out the back
(although I was told it sounded better back there),
   many seem clearly uninterested in listening.
The track ends and   concentration is lost.

-another cd from the sigma stable.-

Last is   Parmentier who
   grab attention partly through an
       increase in volume.
Harder to talk over their stuff unless,
    as many have, one gathers far away from
    the speakers.


Problems with just  wanting to listen
but  distractions are many.


The music doesn't demand
in the same way as rock
   the attention of the audience.
The volume isn't at ear damaging levels.
  Perhaps we are gently pulled rather than shoved.
But because it doesn't do this  the
            audience talks
      throughout,
         ignores,
            and misses the point;
 this is listening music,
     and there's a time to talk and a time to listen.



P < F < E

    kaleb.  k

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