Craig Shepard - On Foot: Aubervilliers (2024) [Hi-Res]

On Foot: Aubervilliers is the latest edition in Craig Shepard's ongoing series (which also includes On Foot: Brooklyn and On Foot: Switzerland). From September 10th through October 3rd, 2019, Craig Shepard lead groups of two to twelve people on walks between three and twelve hours beginning and ending at the Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers. Shorter walks covered the immediate neighborhood. Longer walks explored the connections between Aubervilliers and adjoining neighborhoods.

At the middle of each walk, the group stopped, stood in a circle and listened to ambient sounds of the site while Shepard made a field recording. All slight motions, including rustling clothes and little coughs were picked up by the microphones; each participant’s stillness became their performance.

The 3CD release includes a field recording from each walk interspersed with melodic pieces for music box and for sruti box.

Growing up in Connecticut, Shepard would go for long walks in the middle of snowy nights, stopping to listen to the sheen of millions of snowflakes hitting the ground. Recent projects include On Foot: Brooklyn, a 91-day, 780-mile walking project in New York, and Trumpet City, a mass outdoor installation that has been realized in Seattle, New York City, and in Zurich and Bern, Switzerland.

Early experiences with the music of King Crimson, Bach, Lou Lazzerini's band, and trombone lessons with George Sanders led him to Northwestern University, where he studied trombone with Frank Crisafulli and composition with Bill Karlins, Amnon Wolman, Alan Stout, and Michael Pisaro.

In 1998, Antoine Beuger invited him to join the Wandelweiser Group. In 2001, he bought a one-way ticket to Zurich, Switzerland, where he worked with Manfred Werder and Jürg Frey, and realized a 31-day, 250-mile walk on which he composed a new piece every day and performed it every evening. He also performed with New York School composer Christian Wolff in Switzerland and the US. He has performed at the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, Experimental Intermedia, The Stone, Kunstraum Düsseldorf, and many others.