other backward glances
Last summer, the first A Quiet End show happened, it was a minimal and stripped down affair, hastily organized while in the midst of recording, but despite the little time to prepare, it turned out rather well.
It was the saturday of the G20 weekend here in Toronto, and I remember strolling around kensington market about an hour before playing and watching the smoke rise in the distance from burning police cars.
Here’s the description/statement prepared by the show’s curator:
A Quiet End emerges from the wilderness with a lo-fi set specifically for The Living Gallery’s xG2010x. Playing a mixture of stripped-down versions of songs from soon-to-be released EP and unheard tunes, the performance acts as an introduction to artistic resistance via sublime force. This intimate showcase enforces the artistic sense of muted resistance over raucous pot-banging. A Quiet End will play a stripped bare version of fully orchestrated, multi-dimensional songs as a one-of-a-kind portrait which encourages all in attendance to leave the static and fuzzy warbles behind, in favor of real life, quiet reverie, balanced time, and above all music-making.
The show served to force the issue of the music a little bit more for me, but in hindsight I wish I’d seized onto the momentum coming out of it. In the months that followed recording pushed ahead, but personal difficulties of various kinds created a lot of hills and valleys as far as the actual becoming of the project was concerned, or at the very least I may have allowed them to. Much has since changed, even if they still have their moments; but with what’s coming, new horizons and work about to jump off the page at long last, there’s something to be said for looking back at where you’ve been.
