Quiet Music Ensemble's John Godfrey celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Cork-based experimental group's group's debut LP The Mysteries Beyond Matter, now re-released in a new remastered version.
Back in 2015, my group Quiet Music Ensemble released its first CD, The Mysteries Beyond Matter, with the amazing Irish label Farpoint Recordings. Since then, we have collaborated to produce a further 4 albums and a new re-mastered version of Mysteries.
I was really impressed with Farpoint since way before that first project. The guys who run it - Anthony Kelly and David Stalling - are artists themselves and have a very healthy interest in what’s going on in the sonic arts in Ireland. Most important for me is that they are one of the strongest supporters of one of Ireland’s most extraordinary artistic movements, which is our unusual improv scene that involves artists from many different disciplines and manifests in groups like Quiet Club, Softday and Strange Attractor and in events like Sonic Vigil. Farpoint has been tireless in releasing and promoting this kind of music for decades! And while it’s now recognised as one of our most interesting scenes, with exponents travelling all over the world to perform, it’s been a long, slow road to get here; Farpoint was in on the very beginning of it.
The artists who make pieces for us do not have to be trained in music; some of our most interesting pieces come from artists of other disciplines.
QME grew, in part, out of this extraordinary scene, and in part out of a desire to turn away from notated contemporary music, which had been my specialism for decades in groups like Icebreaker and Crash Ensemble. This music is based on a model in which composer is separated from performer and both are separated from listener; although it’s a model that has produced some fantastic music, it’s also one that increasingly troubled me because of the way it leaves so little room for the creative contributions of performers and audiences. It’s a tradition about demarcation and separation, not about communal creation, and in our increasingly authoritarian world it seemed very necessary to explore the latter.
QME performs music that is essentially improvised within a 'space’ created by third parties; to put it another way, our composers (and I use that word only for want of a more suitable one) make pieces for us, but they don’t tell us what to play - they provide what might be described as an environment to explore. This means that the artists who make pieces for us do not have to be trained in music; some of our most interesting pieces come from artists of other disciplines.
Watch: QME live at New Music 2023
That both QME and Farpoint explore the possibilities of a truly interdisciplinary sonic art makes the synergies between us fairly obvious. QME has been lucky that there’s a label as inspired and inspiring as Farpoint here in Ireland. It’s also interesting to note that the process of producing a recording with Farpoint is very collaborative - their model is also about communal creation, not about differentiation.
For me, this 10-year anniversary is not only about celebrating a wonderful relationship between QME and Farpoint, but also about recognising a way of doing art that is uncommon, satisfying and distinctly Irish.
The remastered version of The Mysteries Beyond Matter is out now, via Fairpoint Recordings - find out more here
