"My story is quite simple, I was living in São Paulo (Brazil) a big city with 21.000.000 people and a incredible concrete jungle and it happen to be playing music too, after many years playing Brazilian music, free improvisation started to take place in my music.

Waking up and sleeping with this constant noise that this huge city makes it was inevitable to not have it on my music. As any 3rd world citizen I had to improvise every day and that is what happen to my "forró" (Brasilian music from the north east), became more and more full of noises and freer in the form and content.

So in 2005 after recording "Abaetetuba" and "Contra Mão" I thought that it was time to leave São Paulo and meet some other improvisers around the world. Now I am based in Amsterdam but have been for two years in London where I spent most of my time making music with some amazing musicians as Marcio Mattos, Veryan Weston, John Edwards, Steve Noble, Mark Sanders and also was part of the London Improvisers Orchestra together with Lol Coxhill and Evan Parker between other great musicians from the London free improv scene, that was to me a great school.

This orchestra has inspired me to start the Royal Improvisers Orchestra (RIO) in Holland and it has been playing since 2006, with 20 musicians from all over the world and from completely individual angels of music with musicians from Baroque to Punk Noise but with the same passion for the improvisation.

Here in Holland, beside my fix groups RIO, Caetitu, Abaetetuba and EkE, I have also been playing with some great musicians that I have learned a lot from as Han Bennink, Michael Vatcher, Luc Ex, Marcos Baggiani, Ab Baars, Cor Fuhler and other ZAAL100 (our free improv place in Amsterdam) friends."

"After establishing his name during the Eighties as an electric bass guitarist in alternative rock bands, like the now legendary K4 Quadrado Azul, Hernani Faustino turned to avant-jazz and free improvised music and chose the double bass as his self-taught instrument. Two decades later of multiple interactions with Portuguese and international musicians, he's now considered one of the most intense and solid bassists in the Portuguese scene. The association he maintains with drummer Gabriel Ferrandini (RED trio, Nobuyasu Furuya Trio & Quintet, Rodrigo Amado Wire Quartet) has been pointed as a dynamic and powerful rhythm section. His visceral playing is well showed by the contortions of his face during a performance: he goes to the limits of pleasure and pain.

Music is his life: besides being a musician, he was one of the members of the label Clean Feed, considered one of the five more important on the planet in what regards jazz, and the Trem Azul Jazz Store, located in Lisbon. He also composed for theatre, produced radio programs, and wrote about music in a couple of magazines. A good part of his activity in photography is also music oriented: Faustino is one of the most accomplished stage photographers around. This says all about his passion and commitment.

Hernani Faustino's numerous meetings and collaborations with other improvisors is astonishing: John Butcher, Lotte Anker, Nate Wooley, Carlos "Zíngaro", Agustí Fernández, Sei Miguel, Rafael Toral, Jason Stein, Nuno Rebelo, Rodrigo Pinheiro, Gabriel Ferrandini, Pedro Sousa, Rodrigo Amado, Albert Cirera, Manuel Mota, Luís Lopes, Jon Irabagon, Taylor Ho Bynum, Gerard Lebik, Piotr Damasiewicz, Harris Eisenstadt, Neil Davidson, Heddy Boubaker, Gerard Lebik, Elliott Levin, Katsura Yamauchi, Mats Gustafsson, Chris Corsano, Nikolaus Gerszewski, Rob Mazurek, Reinhold Friedl, Ernesto Rodrigues, José Oliveira, Helena Espvall, Nuno Torres, Ricardo Jacinto, Blaise Siwula, Virginia Genta, Elliott Levin, Daniel Carter, Federico Ughi, Floros Floridis, Matt Bauder, Dennis González, Vítor Rua, and many more, covering a wide range from free bop to extreme experimentation, going through electroacoustic improv, reductionism and noise."

"Born in Barcelona, Vasco Trilla started playing drums at the age of nineteen. His first influences were progressive rock and metal, but gradually he developed an interest in a variety of different genres such as jazz, Indian music, African music, klezmer, free improvisation, etc.

Since then he has collaborated, toured and recorded with many different bands and projects such as Boi Akih (an ethno-jazz band from the Netherlands), Planeta Imaginario (progressive jazz-rock) October Equus (avant-rock), The Oddvisers (pop-avant), Fine! (indie pop-rock), Mundo Flotante (ethno-jazz-rock), Kaulakau/Cobla Sant Jordi (an ethno-jazz Catalan orchestra), Filthy Habits Ensemble (a jazz octet playing Zappa's and Stravinsky's repertoire), Cows On Trees (a jazz-improv quartet with Susana Santos Silva and Kaja Draksler), Balimonster (an impro-ethno duo with Angel Ontalva), Yedo Gibson-Vasco Trilla duo (an improv sax & drums duo), Outerzone (jazz-core), Reptilian Mambo (mambo free rock), Liba's Traum, etc.

In the last years he has been playing and experimenting on the free-improv scene, applying extended techniques to the kit and treating it as a textural-melodic instrument. Blowing, bowing, scratching, playing with hands and all kinds of objects, all is valid to expand the vocabulary of this innovative percussionist. He played with improvisers, such as: Lotte Anker, Marshall Allen, Yedo Gibson, Susana Santos Silva, Kaja Draksler, Jasper Stadhouders, Mikloaj Trzaska, Martin Kuchen, Richard Barrett, Jorma Tapio, Christher Bothen, Marc Stucki, Luc Ex. etc...

He has released around 30 CDs in labels such as Cuneiform Records (USA), Altrock Records (Italy), Leo Records (UK) Discordian Records (Barcelona, Spain), Audition Records (Mexico), El Negocito Records (Belgium), Jacc Records (Portugal), Fmr Records (UK)."