"The Never Quartet 1.001.004 - 1.001.005" is a crackling, richly layered realization of Michael Morley's ongoing installation work "Music for The Never Quartet".

With the piece, Morley seeks to employ the resonating qualities of four steel string wooden acoustic guitars placed upon items of wooden furniture to reveal connections between time and space by sonically activating the instruments and the other wooden objects within architectural structures. Tonal drones are produced by acoustic guitars placed on the top of solid wooden furniture. The tones are generated in the guitars using electronic bows that are placed upon the steel guitar strings.

During the installation, audiences are encouraged to record and playback loops of the quartet on their personal devices and contribute to the composition and performance in real-time.

The wooden guitars used in the quartet are historically / culturally significant. They are second-hand and worn each have been possessed and played by many people before being used in the quartet. The current studio set of guitars consists of guitars produced between 1945 and 2013 by American, Japanese and Chinese manufacturers. Touring sets of guitars are sourced from the same period. The guitars are not high-end expensive instruments available, they are represent the consumer driven desire for cheaper musical instruments in the post-war period. Their beauty is derived from this desire and their potential for sound.

Michael Morley is a New Zealand based sound artist and visual artist. His work across a range of genre confirms his abilities as an artist, composer, improvisor, performer, and producer. Responsible for over 100 audio releases from 1985 to 2019 as: Gate, The Dead C, The Righteous Yeah, The Fuck Chairs, Sun Valley, and many other collaborations and solo recordings. The development of Music for The Never Quartet has come from a thirty year exploration of the guitar and of sound as art.