THE region's most innovative sound art and music festival, Full of Noises, returns to Furness tomorrow.

The three-day event will see internationally-acclaimed artists and musicians head to Barrow for a series of residencies, performances, installations and workshops in venues across the town.

Locally-based Octopus Collective curate the fourth instalment, at a variety of venues around the town. There will be return visits to St James Church, with its superb acoustics, Barrow Park, the screening room and installation space at the Cooke's Studios building, and a first encounter with Barrow’s international arts research and production centre Art Gene, who will host a "Festival Hub" in the Nan Tate Centre, where artists and audiences will be invited to eat, drink, mingle and meet between performances, talks and other events.

The programme gets under way tomorrow evening with a concert at St James, in Blake Street, that pulls together many of the guests for an eclectic night. The public gets a glimpse of John Eacott's ambitious Floodtide project, with a scaled-back handbells and vocals performance from 6pm.

The rest of the concert lines up with: English violinist Alison Blunt and Italian saxophonist Gianni Mimmo teaming up in an exciting duo ensemble; Stuart Estell, a traditional singer, concertina-player and experimental musician, bringing his Lachenalia side project to a live setting; an improvised performance from Ingrid Plum; new work from organist Áine O’Dwyer; piano and field recordings from Stephan Barrett; and experimental multi-instrumentalist trio Oscilanz.

The Nan Tait Centre is the place to be on Saturday morning, with workshops from "sound poet" Simon Pomery and Floodtide's John Eacott - where acoustic musicians and vocalists are invited to rehearse for the following night's performance - both running from 11am to 2pm. Art Gene are also staging an array of other events in the building throughout the day, including a listening room curated by SoundFjord from noon, a fictional research lab overseen by Lisa Skuret from 2pm, and concerts by Mark Vernon and Jenn Mattinson, Patrick Farmer, FON Air, and Hear Th↓s Space between 3pm and 5.30pm. 

The Cooke's Studio, further up Abbey Road, is equally busy from noon until 5.30pm, with installations by Kanta Horio and Minoru Sato, and film screenings by avante-garde directors; Anplagd by Mladen Kovacevic and two from John Grzinich - a documentary about Lithuanian region Curonia and a short called Listening In Context . 

 Saturday's main concert is back at the Nan Tait, from 5.30pm, where Charles Hayward gives a solo performance, and Mary Stark's experimental film performance Summoning Ghosts of industries Past , precedes performances by Japanese artists Kanta Horio and Minoru Sato, a multi-channel concert called Workington and Beyond , by Brona Martin, and turntable, sax and tuba trio DunningWebsterUnderwood. Andie Brown uses live processing of glass and audio recordings, Leslie Deere creates an audiovisual snapshot of a Nashville botanical garden, and electro-acoustic giant Hear Th↓s Space rounds out the night.

The Cooke's Studio is once again in operation from noon until 5.30pm on Sunday, with Horio and Sato returning again and more opportunities to see Kovacevic and Grzinich's films. 

But the day belongs to the Floodtide project in Barrow Park, where John Eacott will be leading a 12-hour concert at the bandstand from 9.30pm. Using a sensor placed in Walney Channel, the tidal flow and technology combine to create live musical notation, which local musicians and performers will be playing along to from dusk until dawn.

Tickets and weekend passes, as well as a detailed programme including times and prices, are available from fonfestival.org