"John Russell got his first guitar in 1965 while living in Kent and began to play in and around London from 1971 onwards. An early involvement with the emerging free improvisation scene (from 1972) followed, seeing him play in such places as The Little Theatre Club, Ronnie Scott's, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Musicians' Co-Op and the London Musicians' Collective. From 1974 his work extended into teaching, broadcasts (radio and television) and touring in the United Kingdom and, ever extensively, in other countries around the world . He has played with many of the world's leading improvisers and his work can be heard on over 50 CDs and albums. In 1981, he founded QUAQUA, a large bank of improvisers put together in different combinations for specific projects and, in 1991, he started MOPOMOSO which has become the UK's longest running concert series featuring mainly improvised music."

"Hans Schneider started playing in 1964 in a variety of beat, rock and jazz groups, joining the Georg Graewe Quintet in 1974. This has been a long standing working relationship which has included work with the GrubenKlangOrchester, though with a break from around 1983 and resurrected in 1990 to produce, among other things, the excellent recorded work of Spellings by Frisque Concordance.

Another long working relationship was formed with Wolfgang Fuchs in 1978 via a trio with Klaus Huber on drums, through Xpact with Erhard Hirt on guitar and Paul Lytton on percussion and the foundation, with Fuchs, Hirt and others, of the King Ubu Orchestru.

Hans Schneider was organiser of the first 'Internationale tage fur improvisierte musik' in Leverkusen in 1982 and was organiser and art director for the 1990 'Tage der improvisierten musik' [Days of improvised music] in Leverkusen. His list of collaborators includes Floros Floridis, Maggie Nichols, Peter Kowald, John Tchicai, Alex von Schlippenbach, Phil Minton, Sven-Ake Johansson, Kenny Wheeler, Peter Broetzmann, John Russell, David Moss, Gerry Hemingway, Alan Tomlinson, Klaus Koch, Phil Wachsmann, Gunter Christmann, Robert Dick, Evan Parker, Sebi Tramontana, Carlos Zingaro, and Fred van Hove.

Current working ensembles include the Hans Schneider-Dorothea Schurch Duett - music for double bass and voice; Xpact [new version] with Dorothea Schurch and Paul Lytton, a trio/quartet with Paul Rutherford, Paul Lovens /and John Russell, and the 'Gratkowski Chamber Trio' with English tuba player Melvyn Poore and Frank Gratkowski."

"Born in Aachen, Germany, 6 June 1949; Drums, percussion, musical saw, etc.

Paul Lovens played the drums as a child. Self-taught, from the age of 14 he played in groups of various jazz styles and popular musics and from 1969 has worked almost exclusively as an improvisor on individually selected instruments. He has worked internationally with most of the leading musicians in free jazz and free improvisation, among whom have included the Globe Unity Orchestra, the Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, the Schlippenbach trio, Quintet Moderne, Company, and a duo with Paul Lytton. He has undertaken concert tours in more than 40 countries, is a founder member of a musician's cooperative and has produced recordings for his own label, Po Torch Records since 1976. He has worked with painter Herbert Bardenheuer. Despite very rare solo performances, and although giving occasional concerts with ad-hoc groups and an involvement in projects with film, dance and actors, Paul Lovens' main interest and work is musical improvisation in fixed small groups. In the mid-1990s these small groups numbered around 16, of which a few were part of a special selection, called 'vermögen'.

Paul Lovens somehow epitomises the free drummer/percussionist who is not there to lay down the beat and kick everyone else into action but to listen, colour, contribute, guide, and occasionally direct, the overall cooperative sound. In concert one cannot fail to be moved by his intensity and concentration and there is an overiding feeling that even the most random events are somehow planned in time. In this respect, there is a nice irony that on the Nothing to read CD with Mats Gustafsson, Lovens describes his kit as consisting of 'selected and unselected drums and cymbals'. Miking seems to be a problem at times with some recordings giving him undue prominence and others insufficient. Good recordings are Elf bagatellen, Nothing to read, Pakistani pomade, and ,stranger than love."

"Stefan Keune: Born in Oberhausen, Germany, 1965

From 1982, Stefan Keune studied privately with various teachers starting on the tenor saxophone. He was attracted to free improvised music from the beginning while using classical techniques from contemporary music as the basis of his playing. Keune began playing in local groups from 1985 (with Martin Blume amongst others) and since then he has intensively dedicated himself to the different kinds of improvised music. In 1990 he established contacts, first of all with Paul Lytton, then also with Dietmar Diesner, Matthias Bauer and others. In 1991, together with Lytton and bass player Hans Schneider he founded the "Stefan Keune Trio", and in 1992, the CD Loft was released. This was followed by an intense chamber-music-like phase of work, for example in a quartet with Paul Lovens, John Russell and Hans Schneider. He has played in close association with British free improvisors such as Roger Turner, Phil Durrant, John Butcher and others as well as with the other European improvisors such as Mats Gustafsson, Raymond Strid, Radu Malfatti and Peter Kowald. Recent groupings include a duo with John Russell, a duo with Paul Lovens, a trio with Dominic Lash and Steve Noble, a trio with Georg Wolf and Jörg Fischer, a quartet with Hans-Peter Hiby, Raoul van der Weide and Martin Blume and also one of the seminal groups within German free improvisation, XPACT (with Erhard Hirt, Hans Schneider and Paul Lytton)."