‘Loosening’ is a double-album of five works by award-winning composer Graham Fitkin. Each one has the string quartet at its core but every work includes its own additional soloist.

The string quartet is a really homogenous group, steeped in history and tradition, in which timbrally similar instruments create a well-honed sound through trusted communication and shared purpose.

Each work has clearly defined roles for the two protagonists – quartet and soloist. Each piece allows for two perspectives, two distinct approaches to the material and yet each protagonist is affected by the other.

Approaches often evolve through the works, perhaps the quartet splits their honed homogeneity to focus more on individual constituents or conversely maybe they subsume the incomer into their group creating a larger group.

An album of world premiere recordings – four of the five works have never been recorded before, and the fifth is a new arrangement (also never recorded).

Distil won the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Prize for Chamber Works in 2015.