"Over the course of some three decades, visionary bassist-producer Bill Laswell has been one of the most prolific and restlessly creative forces in contemporary music. A sound conceptualist who has always been a step ahead of the curve, he has put his inimitable stamp on nearly 3,000 recording projects by such artists as Mick Jagger, Yoko Ono, Iggy Pop, Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno, Bootsy Collins, Nine Inch Nails, Motorhead, Peter Gabriel, Blur, The Ramones, George Clinton, Pharaoh Sanders, The Dalai Lama, Matisyahu, Angelique Kidjo, DJ Krush, RAMM:ΣLL:ZΣΣ, Sting, The Last Poets, Afrika Bambaataa, Julian Schnabel, Whitney Houston, Manu Dibango, Fela Kuti and most notably Herbie Hancock, who collaborated with Laswell for the pivotal 1983 smash-hit single "Rock-It" which introduced scratching to the mainstream, inspired a generation of turntablists and gave the great jazz pianist instant street credibility among the burgeoning hip-hop cognoscenti.

Laswell's sense of creative daring as a producer was further demonstrated on several recordings that have kept him on the cutting edge, including Afrika Bambaataa's collaboration with John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten of Sex Pistols fame) on World Destruction and PiL's Album (which brought together an unlikely pairing of drumming greats Ginger Baker and Tony Williams, synth-pop pioneer Ryuichi Sakamoto of Yellow Magic Orchestra fame and rising guitar star Steve Vai). His spoken word collaborations with William S. Burroughs and expatriate writer-composer Paul Bowles have gone against the grain of music industry trends while his radical remixes (or re-constructions) of landmark recordings by Miles Davis (Panthalassa), Carlos Santana (Divine Light), Bob Marley (Dreams of Freedom) and a vast scan of dub-related and atmospheric ambient projects have gone on to further defined Laswell's presence as a revolutionary ikonoklast.

Bill Laswell has helped in generating several innovative recording labels such as Celluloid, Subharmonic, Black Arc, and Innerhythmic. Along with Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records (Bob Marley and U2), he established the AXIOM label in 1989. M.O.D. Technologies, his most recent imprint is releasing projects by Method Of Defiance, Lee "Scratch" Perry, PRAXIS, Garrison Hawk with Sly & Robbie, Bernie Worrell, The Process (with Red Hot Chili Peppers' drummer Chad Smith and pianist Jon Baptiste) and progressive/futuristic music from Ethiopia (CDs/DVDs).

As a player, Laswell's bass lines resound with rare authority on groundbreaking projects by Tabla Beat Science (with Zakir Hussain and Ustad Sultan Khan), his avant-funk band Material, the apocalyptic assault of Last Exit (with Sonny Sharrock), his progressive dub effected Method of Defiance and the throbbingly intense power trios, Massacre (with Fred Frith and Charles Hayward), Painkiller (with John Zorn and Mick Harris), Praxis (with Buckethead and Brain), Blixt (with Raoul Bjorkenheim and Morgan Agren) and the latest (2014) Bladerunner (with John Zorna and Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo).

Laswell's artistic reach has consistently extended to the continent of Africa, creating ground-breaking, evolutionary snd controversial recording projects in Morocco, Senegal, Mali, Gambia and most recently, Ethiopia where he has established a base for developing new as well as legendary artists, just as he did in the South Bronx some 30 years ago.

A veteran of 300 plus journeys to Japan, where he has worked with everyone from The Gagaku Orchestra (Japan's ancient music, only played for emperors for 1500 years), to avant-jazz, rock, hip-hop and DJ culture. An eternal musical renegade, Bill Laswell has always played by his own rules."

"Henry Kaiser (born September 19, 1952) is an American guitarist and composer, known as an idiosyncratic soloist, a sideman, an ethnomusicologist, and a film score composer. Recording and performing prolifically in many styles of music, Kaiser is a fixture on the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. He is considered a member of the "second generation" of American free improvisers. He is married to Canadian artist Brandy Gale.

In 1977, Kaiser founded Metalanguage Records with Larry Ochs (Rova Saxophone Quartet) and Greg Goodman. In 1979 he recorded With Friends Like These with Fred Frith, a collaboration that lasted for over 20 years. In 1983 they recorded Who Needs Enemies, and in 1987 the compilation album With Enemies Like These, Who Needs Friends? They joined with fellow experimental musicians John French, and English folk-rocker Richard Thompson to form French Frith Kaiser Thompson for two eclectic albums, Live, Love, Larf & Loaf (1987) and Invisible Means (1990). In 1999 Frith and Kaiser released Friends and Enemies, a compilation of their two Metalanguage albums along with additional material from 1984 and 1999.

In 1991, Kaiser went to Madagascar with guitarist David Lindley. They recorded roots music with Malagasy musicians and discovered music that, he says, "changed us radically and permanently". Three volumes of this music were released by Shanachie under the title A World Out of Time. In 1994 he made a similar trip to Norway, again with Lindley, recording music that was released as Sweet Sunny North (2 volumes, 1994 and 1996).

Since 1998, Kaiser has been collaborating with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith in the "Yo Miles!" project, releasing a series of tributes to Miles Davis's 1970s electric music. This shifting aggregation has included musicians from the worlds of rock (guitarists Nels Cline, Mike Keneally and Chris Muir, drummer Steve Smith), jazz (saxophonists Greg Osby and John Tchicai), avant-garde (keyboardist John Medeski, guitarist Elliott Sharp), and Indian classical music (tabla player Zakir Hussain).

Kaiser has appeared on more than 250 albums and scored dozens of TV shows and films, including Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World (2007). He was given a Grammy Award for his work on the Beautiful Dreamer tribute to Stephen Foster.

In 2001, Kaiser spent two and a half months in Antarctica on a National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program grant. He has subsequently returned for nine more visits to work as a research diver. His underwater camera work was featured in two Herzog films, The Wild Blue Yonder (2005) and Encounters at the End of the World (2007), which he also produced, and for which he and Lindley composed the score. Kaiser served as music producer for Herzog's Grizzly Man (2005). He was nominated for an Academy Award for his work as a producer on Encounters at the End of the World."

"Italian-Swedish singer Anna Clementi grew up in Rome, where she first studied the flute. There she also completed acting training before moving to Berlin and meeting the composer Dieter Schnebel, with whom she studied experimental vocal music and experimental music theater at Hochschule der Künste (now UdK Berlin). This resulted in several years of collaboration; for example, Clementi participated for a long time in the group Die Maulwerker, founded by Schnebel. She received her first singing lessons in Rome with Michael Aspinall. In Berlin she studied belcanto with Mieko Kanesugi and jazz singing with Kara Johnstad. A special focus of hers is the work of John Cage, whose pieces she has performed worldwide.

Anna Clementi sees herself as an "actress of the voice" rather than exclusively as a singer. In this way she also articulates the diversity of her artistic expression, with which she is always searching for new connections between voice, gesture, language, dance and theater. In Berlin, for example, she performed in the group Theater Ikaro and attended various dance schools, where she dedicated herself to contemporary dance and contact improvisation. Clementi loves the combination of play, lightness and irony and is constantly looking for new ways of expression, which she can unfold with her versatile voice.

Anna Clementi has performed at the most important festivals and has premiered numerous works. Many world premieres have been composed especially for her and some of them have been developed together with her. She has worked with composers such as Laura Bianchini, Emanuele Casale, Martin Daske, Fast Forward, Jürgen Grözinger, Michael Hirsch, Rupert Huber, Christian Kesten, Alexander Kolkowski, Olga Neuwirth, Phill Niblock, Daniel Ott, Josef Anton Riedl, Rainer Rubbert, Nicola Sani, Iris ter Schiphorst, Dieter Schnebel, Laurie Schwartz, Stepha Schweiger, Charlotte Seither, Elliott Sharp, Roberta Vacca and many others.

In Bochum and Düsseldorf she performed a staged version of Arnold Schönberg's Pierrot Lunaire, directed by Urs Troller. At the Theater Bielefeld she participated in Eurydike by Iris ter Schiphorst and in Ojota IV by Daniel Ott. She has also premiered Anna's Wake by Iris ter Schiphorst in Berlin, Silence moves in Berlin and Dresden and Aung in Malmö and Copenhagen. With Die Maulwerker she staged Glossolalie 2000 by Dieter Schnebel in the millennium year 2000. Besides this and more, Clementi has performed and supervised many different versions of John Cage's Song Books, as well as staged his Variations and Theatre Piece.

Anna Clementi

With Steffen Schleiermacher, Clementi has released the CD John Cage: Voice and Piano. Her other releases include Suzuki, Dehli 9 and Osam with Tosca and tre with The Dining Rooms. In 2005, she released her first solo recording, Love is a Reason. This was followed in 2011 by the album Fräulein Annie. 2023 saw the release of the album Fluxus & NeoFluxus/Stolen Symphony No.1, with Anna Clementi and other performers.

Together with Laurie Schwartz, Anna Clementi forms the duo Divas Desviantes, which performs regularly with different programs in Salvador (Brazil), New York City and in Berlin. She is also a member of the vocal group Voxnova Italia and the ensemble European Music Project (EMP). She regularly collaborates with the pianist and composer Rupert Huber and with the percussionist and composer Jürgen Grözinger and with Thomas Stern.

Other productions since 2018 (selection):

In 2018, Anna Clementi performed in the musical theater piece Back into Nothingness by Nuria Gimenes-Comas and Laure Gauthier in Lyon and Geneva. Stepha Schweiger dedicated the opera The Mark on the Wall to her, which was performed in London, Berlin and Ulm in 2017/18. In the fall of 2018, she staged John Cage's Variations 2, 3, and 4 at Acker Stadt Palast Berlin. In December 2019, she took on the role of the narrator in the opera Orlando by Olga Neuwirth. The world premiere took place at the Vienna State Opera. In October 2020, she staged Theatre Piece by John Cage at Acker Stadt Palast Berlin. In August 2022, she narrated in Alexander Moosbrugger's opera Wind, premiering at the Bregenz Festival. In September 2022, she took on the role of Bartleby in Olga Neuwirth's musical theater production The Outcast at the Philharmonie in Paris. In December 2022 she sang Die blassen Herren mit den Mokkatassen with texts by Herta Müller and music by Berthold Tuercke at the UdK Berlin. In March 2023 she took on the role of Cassandra in the play Birds by Abigail Akavia and Hilà Lahav at the Schaubühne Lindenfels in Leipzig. In June 2023 she participated in the project Rathaus-Spiele Oderberg by Limited Blindness."

"Percy Howard, a NorCal based singer-songwriter and product of the New York no-wave avant- garde, has performed and or toured with members of Living Colour, King Crimson, Swans, Guns N' Roses (Buckethead), Oxbow, Henry Cow, This Heat, and Brand X. Percy has also shared European festival stages with Brazilian music legend Caetano Veloso and ambient pioneer Stephan Micus."

"Hideo Yamaki (山木 秀夫, Yamaki Hideo, born December 22, 1952) is a Japanese jazz drummer and percussionist. He is known for being the long time drummer for the band Toshinori Kondo & IMA. He has also collaborated with Arto Lindsay, John Zorn, Sakamoto Ryuichi, Hosono Haruomi, Robert Palmer, and Bill Laswell."

"Graham Haynes (born September 16, 1960 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American cornetist, trumpeter and composer. The son of jazz drummer Roy Haynes, Graham is known for his work in nu jazz, fusing jazz with elements of hip hop and electronic music.

With aspirations to push jazz beyond its traditional boundaries, Graham Haynes' first foray into electronic music came in 1979 upon meeting alto saxophonist Steve Coleman. Together, they formed a band called Five Elements, which launched an influential group of improvisers called M-Base Collective. After the formation of his own ensemble � Graham Haynes and No Image � and the subsequent release of an album (What Time It Be?), Haynes would spend the balance of the 1980s studying a wide range of African, Arabic and South Asian Music. After a move to France in 1990, Haynes incorporated these far-off influences into his next two releases � Nocturne Parisian and Griot's Footsteps.

Haynes returned to New York City in 1993 to take advantage of the flourishing Hip-Hop scene; and the resulting album was the sample heavy Transition. After the release of yet another hybridized album � 1996's Tones For The 21st Century � Haynes discovered drum 'n' bass and began working with some of the genres finest DJs and producers in London and the U.S. This manifested in the release of 2000s BPM, a fusion of drum n' bass beats with the classical music of Richard Wagner.

Over the years, Haynes has kept busy with several critically acclaimed multimedia projects, composed the score for films Flag Wars and The Promise, and lectured at New York University, while receiving two nominations for the prestigious Alpert Award For The Arts. He has collaborated with artists such as Roy Haynes, Cassandra Wilson, Vernon Reid, Meshell Ndegeocello, The Roots, David Murray, George Adams, Ed Blackwell, Bill Laswell, Steve Williamson, and Bill Dixon.

He is featured on Vijay Iyer's 2017 ECM album, Far From Over."

"Dorian Cheah studied violin and classical music as a child, eventually attending The Juilliard School in New York. Along the way, he fell in love with Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix, plugged an electric violin into a fuzz box and a wah pedal, and hit the streets of New York in search of a deeper groove and grit. Dorian writes music for film and tv and lives in LA."

"Born in Sula in 1960, Molvær came to prominence as part of Masqualero, the group co-led by Arild Andersen that hinted at the spaciousness and rhythmic complexity he would later pursue more radically. But it was 1997's Khmer - released on ECM - that shifted the axis. A landmark release, Khmer fused brooding electronic textures with live trumpet and fractured beats, gaining critical acclaim beyond jazz circles and prefiguring the genre-fluidism that dominates much of today's instrumental music. It remains one of ECM's most commercially successful and influential releases, frequently cited as a watershed for jazz's evolution in the digital age.

Over the following decades, Molvær has built a body of work that resists categorisation. Albums like Solid Ether, np3, Baboon Moon, and Buoyancy maintain a through-line of melodic restraint and sonic curiosity, with trumpet lines that often feel more like whispers or warnings than declarations. He has collaborated widely - with Bill Laswell, Moritz von Oswald, Sly & Robbie, and Eivind Aarset - yet his sound is unmistakably his own. In live performance, he's become known for immersive, often cinematic shows where sound design plays as crucial a role as improvisation.

In the current European jazz landscape, Molvær stands as a quiet but foundational figure. His influence is audible in the ambient-inflected soundscapes of younger Nordic artists and in the crossover ambitions of groups blending jazz with club music and minimalism. While never courting the spotlight, Molvær's work continues to resonate, offering an alternative map of where jazz can travel - not backwards through homage, but outward into new forms, still unfolding.

In signing with Dave Stapleton's Edition Records in 2025, Molvær begins a new chapter that feels both natural and charged with fresh intent. The upcoming release of Khmer Live in Bergen revisits his most iconic work not as nostalgia, but as renewal-alive with raw energy and sharper edges. It's a fitting move for an artist whose music has always looked forward, and for a label committed to artists who shape the future rather than repeat the past."-Sub Rosa

"Born in Berkeley, California in 1960, Peter Apfelbaum started playing drums at the age of three, taking up piano and saxophone in elementary school and forming his first band at age 11.

A product of the Berkeley Schools' pioneering Jazz Project, Apfelbaum began performing professionally while in his early teens and was a member of the award-winning Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble under the direction of Phil Hardymon. In 1977 - his senior year at Berkeley High - he formed the 17-piece Hieroglyphics Ensemble as a vehicle for composing and exploring non-traditional musical forms. The Ensemble was initially largely comprised of fellow BHS classmates, some of whom would later move to New York and achieve recognition in their own right. The band originally included pianist Benny Green, saxophonist Craig Handy and trumpeter Steven Bernstein and would later feature saxophonist Joshua Redman prior to his move to NY. The band released their self-produced debut album, Pillars, in 1979 and began to attract international attention for their unique mix of elements of world music with the aesthetic of the jazz avant-garde. Around this time Apfelbaum made his first sojourn to New York, where he worked with Carla Bley, David Amram and the late Eddie Jefferson. He toured Europe for the first time in the Fall of 1979 with Karl Berger's Woodstock Workshop Orchestra, an all-star band which included Lee Konitz, Oliver Lake, Don Cherry, Leroy Jenkins and Trilok Gurtu."