The Quiet Music Festival – Disjecta Interdisciplinary Art Center (Portland, OR; Aug. 12-13, 2011

Quiet is a relative term.  Achieving a sense of low volume in a world full of constant sound depends on an equation whose variables include the objective noise output of a given environment and your subjective experience of those particular circumstances. The latter part is especially complicated to unpack. For instance, say you’ve always lived in the rural countryside where the noise from a speeding car passing through the night shatters what had become your blanket idea of quiet. Or rather, you’re someone who grew up on a busy street in a large city. The sound of passing cars is nothing, not to mention their honking horns, the shouting people outside your window, and the perpetual din of a bustling metropolis. And these are huge spectral generalizations. In either case, there’s also a world of social and cultural dynamics that influence the way someone hears the world. 

Quiet can mean so many different things. And when it comes to musical experiences, people from different camps will likely find their “quiet music” from varying sources. 

Portland’s inaugural Quiet Music Festival took place this past weekend at the Disjecta Interdisciplinary Art Center. The two-night event was curated by artist Chris Johanson and highlighted a very personal take on the idea of “quiet music”. The promotional materials vaguely stated that the festival’s bill featured artists who play “this unique genre of emotional, vibrant, and low volume music”. In an interview previewing the festival, Johanson responded to a question about his curatorial aims with, “…music doesn’t have to be so loud to create an emotional experience.”

Based on the fact that Johanson has split his time between San Francisco and Portland, planning a quiet music festival felt initially as though it must be a reaction to the region’s prolific output of indie, noise, and garage bands. I wondered in the days leading to the festival what music experience had rubbed Johanson the wrong way. What shows had he been to? How loud were they? I was particularly curious because the festival’s bill included two of “loud music’s” preeminent champions – Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus and TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone.

Walking into Disjecta on both nights you found yourself in a lamp lit room full of people lying on carpets in front of a small stage. A red neon “D” (for “Disjecta”) hung just behind the stage. This was by far the starkest object in the dark white-walled performance space.  Despite the “all-ages” listing on the festival poster, the crowd was noticeably older and it was initially hard to judge how many people were just there to catch the big names (Malone and Malkmus) versus how many were there to see the quiet music concept played out. In any case, the audiences were large and more or less attentive depending on how comfortable they were finding Disjecta’s hard concrete floor. 

Sun Foot kicked off the festival featuring Johanson on bass with Brian Mumford on electric guitar and Ron Burns on drums. They presented vaguely rhythmic, most atonal musings that were glued together by intermittent chants (e.g. “it’s water under the bridge, so why don’t we let it go” and “everyone owns a knife, that’s life”). It was an odd start to the festival for its lighthearted humor and mid-range volume level. Their set certainly wasn’t quiet with electric bass and guitar in the mix and their loose stage energy was hard to read. It was hard to say whether Johanson was trying to set a tone for the festival with this performance or if this was an isolated experience.

You could read how the rest of the festival played out either way. The acts over the two days were wide-ranging in style and volume level. The bulk of the performances were singer-songwriters playing slightly offbeat, sometimes heartfelt, often diverting sets that were interesting to watch but mostly forgettable. Many of the acts I remember for their onstage visuals more than their songs. The bass player in Larry Yes was playing what looked like a double bass sized banjo. The Golden Bears’ Julianna Bright was one of the few singers to stand-up on stage with the microphone. This somehow felt sort of intimidating in a dark room filled with people lying down on the floor. It was an odd vibe. 

There were a few standout performances. Brian Mumford’s Dragging an Ox Through Water played as a five-piece band that included guitar, drums, harmonium, violin, and saxophone. The final song of their set ended with a gorgeous harmonium-led drone that grew from sparse guitar strumming into a full-band hushed roar. Stephen Malkmus unassumingly kicked off his set with a cover of Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets” and proceeded to play about a dozen more songs mostly pulled from the Jicks catalog. It was refreshing to hear that familiar voice and jangly signature guitar style in this solo setting. Same goes for the weekend’s highlight: Kyp Malone. He performed late on Friday night crooning through his large thick beard with a voice that almost seems like it’s going to break but instead moves fluidly to the next note. That same voice you hear half the time in TV on the Radio.  He played many songs from his Rain Machine solo-project accompanying himself with a hollow-body resonator guitar. His performance was mesmerizing and achieved a quality that was above and beyond anything else at the Quiet Music Festival. 

Only a loose aesthetic thread tied the festival acts together. Johanson curated a festival that primarily included eccentric pop acts that could easily strip down to suit the dark Disjecta space. Whether the results were “quiet” or not is up for debate. You didn’t need earplugs, but quiet music isn’t just defined by PA volume. In pop music especially, considerations must be made to songwriting, presence, and performance. I think of Grouper as the quintessential quiet music act with every element of her project measured and composed with a soothing intensity. Many of the acts at the Quiet Music Festival were simply rock bands playing through small amplifiers sans a member or two. 

But quiet is subjective. And this was Chris Johanson’s vision of quiet music. So if that means getting all his friends together in one space, darkening the room, laying out some carpets, and turning down the PA level – well, I guess that’s valid. 

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