Four Stories by Horsley & Aveyard

New to Set Foot Press, a limited edition CD showcasing a distinctive one-off performance recorded at Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston. Composed by Josh Horsley and Jon Aveyard, who have both featured prominently on Preston Field Audio releases and Preston's cult experimental tape label Concrète Tapes

‘Four Stories’ is a site-specific piece written for string quartet and tuned percussion, taking its name from the Harris' four storey architecture. Performed to a free moving audience, the piece featured an ensemble of six performers, distributed throughout the four elevations of the Harris' grand, circular centred atrium. With views and sonorities perceivable from the third to ground floor, Four Stories represents a unique meeting between music and architecture, that places the audience within the verticality of space.

Throughout ‘Four Stories’, Horsley and Aveyard ebb through the composition's movements, employing extended compositional techniques and making continuous practical use of the buildings exposed, cylindrical verticality, creating an immersive and interactive performance, captured here in this lofty, ambient location recording.

Notated in semi-mobile form, each performer is granted choice, and agency that rewards Four Stories with a balance of calm and unrestraint. Moments of consonance and dissonance furnish the resonant space, with cascading tones and variegated chords articulating its 19th century geometry. This release documents an innovative composition and performance that challenges the conventions of the concert experience and of the relationship between music and architecture. Quite a treasure.

watch a short video edit of the performance here : https://www.instagram.com/p/CGrY9ReJBj6/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Site specific listening based in Lancashire