"Dry Stone" began with an improvised exploration on a of a dry stone wall on a freezing cold day in January 2014 at Allenheads, Northumberland, when Landscape Quartet had a residency at Allenheads Contemporary Arts, the excellent independent arts centre in the former lead mining village of Allenheads in the north Pennines. After some time listening to wind in the trees and the tiny streams that trickle everywhere through the trees in that part of the world, they found an old dry-stone wall (a traditional way to build a wall in Northumerbland and Cumbria by placing stones on top of one another without cement or mortar) and set up two violins to act as resonators for their “Dwarf” vibration speakers (small transducers that turn any surface into a sounding object). This approach, based on carefully controlled feedback combined with using pine cones, pieces of rock, etc. to play violins developed over several experiments and performances into the piece presented here. The violins are taped to the table in a sort of reimagining of so-called "art school guitar" beloved of free improvisers. This is a single-take recording of a live performance, one of several we made as part of Landscape Quartet's residency at The Inter Arts Centre, Malmo, in April 2014. The film was produced by Matthew Sansom (the one on the right hand side in the video).

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