Wills McKenna is a Chicago saxophonist and composer. His own Wills Mckenna Quintet is a Chicago-based group that plays music drawing from a variety of styles including jazz, rock, shoegaze, grunge, improvised and noise music, using its double guitar formation to create a full and complex yet melodic sonic landscape. The music is mostly written by saxophonist Wills Mckenna, and the band plays regularly in the Chicago area. He is also a member of the genre-merging band Je'raf.

"Norman W. Long is a Chicago-based sound artist. His practice involves walking, listening, improvising, performing, recording and composing to create environments and situations in which he and the audience are engaged in dialogues about memory space, value, silence and the invisible. Long has performed and toured as a member of Angel Bat Dawid and Tha Brothahood, and has collaborated with Dan Bitney and John Herndon (Tortoise), Standing On The Corner, Damon Locks (Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble, The Eternals (4)), Lia Kohl, and Sara Zalek, among many other artists. Long has released music on Chicago-based labels Hausu Mountain and Reserve Matinee.

Norman W. Long has performed and exhibited at the Hyde Park Art Center, Experimental Sound Studio, Kavi Gupta Gallery, Links Hall, Elastic Arts, Chicago Humanities Festival, Chicago Cultural Center and 2017 PRIZM Art Fair (Miami). Long has received 3Arts Award for Visual Art in 2011, 3Arts Djerassi (Woodside, CA) Artists Residency Fellowship in 2014, BOLT Artist in Residence at the Chicago Artists Coalition in 2014-2015, 3Arts Fellowship for AS220 (Providence, RI) 2017 Artist in Residence program, Three Walls RaD Lab and Outside the walls Fellow for 2017-2019 and Guest Composer at EMS Elektronmusikstudion, Stockholm, Sweden made possible in part by the City of Chicago's DCASE grant. Norman was named one of Chicago's Top 50 artists by New City Chicago in 2020."

"Ishmael Ali is a first generation Filipino-Arab-American cellist, guitarist, improviser, composer, and electronic artist currently residing in Chicago. His work centers on exploring sound through improvisation, experimentation, collaboration, as well as a wide array of idiomatic approaches in an ever-changing, always-growing list of projects with diverse focuses and influences.Though varying drastically from group to group, a common thread in his work is the juxtaposition of seemingly disparate elements to create something new: both foreign and familiar.

In addition to performing, Mr. Ali is a co-founder and audio engineer at the recording space Marmalade in Chicago and was the founder and director of the now inoperative music and art space, Orotund Music. He continues to work as an organizer and promoter through the music series OBTC."

"Bill Harris is a percussionist, composer, improviser, and audio engineer from Pittsburgh currently based in Chicago. He also operates and produces for Amalgam, a Chicago-based collective.

(B. 1987, Pittsburgh, PA)

Bill has been active in Chicago's music communities since 2011, working at the intersection of free improvisation, jazz, noise, rock, and country. His music has been presented at Constellation, Elastic Arts, The Bop Stop, The Hungry Brain, The Hideout, Experimental Sound Studios, Spot Tavern, Beat Kitchen, Empty Bottle, and Comfort Station.

Bill is humbled to have played or recorded with Jim Baker, Dave Rempis, Kent Kessler, Brian Sandstrom, Ed Wilkerson, Carol Genetti, Angel Bat Dawid, Jeb Bishop, Peter Maunu, Josh Berman, Brandon Lopez, Keefe Jackson, and Jason Roebke, among many other experimental and improvisatory musicians and artists.

Bill is constantly inspired by and thankful to work with his frequent collaborators: Ishmael Ali, Jake Wark, Timothee Quost, PT Bell, Gerrit Hatcher, Eli Namay, Matt Piet, Brianna Tong, Wills McKenna, David Fletcher, Jess McIntosh, Aaron Smith, Jeff Kimmel, Adam Shead, Molly Jones, Jakob Heinemann, and many others...

In 2015 he started Amalgam, a 100% artist-run collective and label dedicated to showcasing works of improvised and experimental music in Chicago. Bill is also an audio engineer working in both studio and live situations, and operates an independent studio in Chicago with engineering, mixing, mastering, and production credits on labels such as Amalgam, Astral Spirits, No Index, 577 Records and Ears&Eyes."