(((O))) : Hidden Currents – Virtual Ambience

‘This is Shenandoah by Disturbed Earth’, said the DJ. ‘Before that you heard Coir’. As the deep drone ramped up a member of the audience turned to the artist to compliment him on the track. He thanked her for the comment and they began a conversation about his upcoming musical projects.  ‘By the way’ she then asked, ‘what time is it where you are?’

It’s fair to say that, for The Beatles, Shea Stadium was a significant step up from the Cavern Club. Their sudden stratospheric popularity meant that the show was an easy sell-out and, on the 15^th August 1965 fifty-five thousand Beatlemaniacs duly filed into the ground. Unfortunately, while the fans were there for the Fab Four, the technology wasn’t. Vox had created special 100-watt amplifiers for the tour but they were hopelessly inadequate for an open-air concert in a ground that had actually been designed for sporting events. John and co ended up playing their instruments through the PA system.

Technology caught up in short order and by the time The Beatles finished with live performances, stadium gigs had become de rigeur for any band of decent size and the additional wattage available meant that for some genres, notably hard and progressive rock, arenas were the definitive musical space. Just over ten years after the Shea Stadium whisper-gig, The Who made the record for the loudest gig ever, a thundering assault of a concert that measured120db from fifty feet away. Like The Beatles, The Who were playing at a sport arena (Charlton Athletic’s Valley Stadium). Unlike The Beatles, the Who had the kit to handle it. Like acoustic amplification and electrification before it, technology helped music get louder. 

Which is all well and good for loud sounds, but what of quieter music? For some styles, even a small venue just isn’t intimate enough. I attended an ambient gig once, in the back room of a pub. There were far fewer than fifty thousand people there but it was still too much. Every clink of a glass, every cough threatened to interrupt the performance. As each track ended, the applause, while deserved, felt almost apologetic. And conversation? Forget it. Ambient is music for headphones. It’s a personal experience, almost the antithesis of stadium rock.

But if technology can rescue music at the higher end of the decibel chart, it can do so in the single figure region too. The availability of online gigs (in reality, live improvisation) on places such as Livestream and on internet radio means that the pleasures of live music; its flexibility, imperfection and improvisation, can be enjoyed in private spaces, even in your own living room. I’ve enjoyed many live performances in this way and I’ve found that the privacy has enabled me to pay closer attention to the music and to hear every sweet detail. It’s ambient music at the interesting end of Brian Eno’s originating maxim. 

There is, of course, more to gigs than that. They should be communal experiences, shared moments of musical enjoyment. If they are small enough you should be able to interact with the performer. If you like what he or she is playing, you want to tell them. If you’re happy to have the mystery broken, you can even ask them how they achieved the sound. 

That too can be done online. The use of chat rooms means that online performances can be shared. They have become a private communal experience.

Take the conversation quoted at the top of this piece. It was taken from a session of Nightscaping, a regular dark ambient show hosted by ambient artist Har. He presents the show on audio via Stillstream and in video on Livestream. It, like many such shows, is a quiet, comfortable affair (your correspondent often listens from the natural comfort of his bed). Strictly speaking, it’s a radio show featuring live in-studio performances, but there is something else. The chatrooms meant that, wherever the ‘attendees’ were listening from, Melbourne, Los Angeles, Leicester, they could join in and enjoy the experience together. They could talk about the music without talking over it.

That global aspect is yet another advantage. For those of us who can no longer get out to gigs, or who live way off the trail of touring bands, the online experience offers an opportunity to participate in the improvisational musical experience without engaging babysitters or booking hotel rooms. They are, if you like, gigs of convenience, inclusive and inviting to anyone with an internet connection. 

Private and communal. Intimate and global. Singular and inclusive. The experience is a patchwork of contradictions that nevertheless make sense. They aren’t likely to replace real eyeball-to-eyeball concerts and the technology required to transmit moshpit sweat online remains beyond the power of even the smartest boffins but if you’re looking for a quiet and personal gig-going experience, you’re only a click away and, unlike The Beatles, we already have the technology to achieve it.