Avant Music Festival 2016 opens with Day Trip, a ten-hour performance/installation by Swedish composer Adrian Knight and the percussion trio TIGUE. Day Trip is a series of extended-duration musical pieces – five (plus an installation) by Knight and three by TIGUE – stitched together into a continuous production. The works include live performances, pre-recorded compositions and sine-tone installations.
Day Trip is highlighted by the world premiere of Knight's Occultations, co-commissioned by Avant Media and TIGUE for the occasion. Occultations combines micro-robotic toys (HexBugs) with traditional percussion instruments (floor toms and cymbals), and an ever-changing counterpoint sine-tone drone accompanied by a fog and light show. According to Knight and TIGUE, Day Trip is the concert equivalent of an out-of-town jaunt, "taking ten hours to survey abstract, unvisitable spaces through a collection of drone-inspired compositions and installations."