"Mark Wastell Born 1968; cello.

Much of Mark Wastell's relationship with his chosen instrument is concentrated on the tactile, textural and sonic possibilities of both violoncello and bow. He is increasingly interested in working with extreme elements drawn from frequency, timbre and pitch.

His early activity was consciously and subconsciously influenced by a variety of improvising musicians including John Stevens, Barry Guy, Phil Durrant and John Russell. Subsequent exposure to contemporary composers lead to a greater understanding and appreciation of the works written for strings by Feldman, Cage, Nono, Lachenmann and Sciarrino. The use of live electronics and music concrete by Tudor, Parmegiani, Xenakis and others was another important early influence.

Wastell's current instrumental material primarily focuses on using abstract principles of space and texture - encompassing elements of new London silence, pro-instrument minimalism, new complexity and electro-acoustics. Because of the very nature of his chosen instrument, he tends to favour 'chamber' style ensembles and is a member of a number of regular groups:

• Chris Burn's Ensemble, with John Butcher, Rhodri Davies, John Russell, Matt Hutchinson

• Derek Bailey's Company - with, for example, Will Gaines, Simon H. Fell and Rhodri Davies

• Evan Parker's String Project, with Peter Cusack, Hugh Davies, Rhodri Davies, Phil Durrant, John Edwards, Kaffe Matthews, Marcio Mattos, John Russell

• Assumed possibilities, with Chris Burn, Rhodri Davies and Phil Durrant

• The Sealed Knot, with Burkhard Beins and Rhodri Davies

• Necessaire with Alessandro Bosetti, Ignaz Schick and Burkhard Beins

• IST with Simon Fell and Rhodri Davies

• Quatuor Accorde with Tony Wren, Phil Durrant and Charlotte Hug

• Broken Concort, a duo with Rhodri Davies

Mark Wastell has also performed with many other leading musicians including John Zorn, Keith Rowe, Peter Kowald, Hugh Davies, Roger Turner, Veryan Weston, Lol Coxhill, Mark Sanders, Axel Dorner, Hans Koch, Phil Minton, Max Eastley and Steve Beresford.

As a soloist he has played at the Micro-classical Festival (London 1996), LMC Festival (London 2000) and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (2000). He has travelled extensively with various groups, performing on tour and at festivals in the USA, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Greece. Other work includes the launch in 1996 of his own record label, Confront Recordings. Wastell is also joint co-ordinator of the concert venue All Angels, together with Rhodri Davies."

-European Free Improv (EFI) (http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/musician/mwastell.html)
1/25/2023

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"John Butcher's work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multitracked pieces and explorations with feedback and extreme acoustics.Originally a physicist, he left academia in '82, and has since collaborated with hundreds of musicians - Derek Bailey, John Tilbury, John Stevens, The EX, Akio Suzuki, Gerry Hemingway, Polwechsel, Gino Robair, Rhodri Davies, Okkyung Lee, John Edwards, Toshi Nakamura, Paul Lovens, Eddie Prevost, Mark Sanders, Christian Marclay, Otomo Yoshihide, Phil Minton, and Andy Moor - to name a few.

He is well known as a solo performer who attempts to engage with the uniqueness of place. Resonant Spaces is a collection of site-specific performances collected during a tour of unusual locations in Scotland and the Orkney Islands.His first solo album, Thirteen Friendly Numbers, includes compositions for multitracked saxophones, whilst later solo CDs focus on live performance, composition, amplification and saxophone-controlled feedback.

HCMF has twice commissioned him to compose for his own large ensembles. Other commissions include for Elision (Australia), the Rova (USA) & Quasar (Canada) Saxophone Quartets, reconstructed Futurist Intonarumori (USA), "Tarab Cuts" (based on pre-WWII Arabic recordings, and shortlisted for the 2014 British Composer's Award) and "Good Liquor .." for the London Sinfonietta. In 2011 he received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists.

Recent groupings include The Apophonics with Robair and Edwards, Anemone with Peter Evans, Plume with Tony Buck & Magda Mayas and a trio with Okkyung Lee & Mark Sanders.Butcher values playing in occasional encounters - ranging from large groups such as Butch Morris' London Skyscraper and the EX Orkestra, to duo concerts with David Toop, Kevin Drumm, Claudia Binder, Paal Nilssen-Love, Thomas Lehn, Fred Frith, Keiji Haino, Ute Kangeisser, Matthew Shipp and Yuji Takahashi."

-John Butcher Website (http://www.johnbutcher.org.uk/Biog.html)
1/25/2023

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"Phil Julian is a UK based composer and improviser active since the late 1990's principally working with modular electronic devices and computers.

Audio works by Julian (and under the Cheapmachines alias) have been published on labels including Entr'acte, Banned Production, The Tapeworm, Harbinger Sound, Confront Recordings, Conditional, Staalplaat (Open Circuit imprint), con-v, Beartown Records as well as numerous compilation appearances.

He also runs the Authorised Version label.

Julian has collaborated on remixes, recordings and performances with Tomas Korber, Michael Renkel, Jason Kahn, Daniel Jones, Kostis Kilymis, Tom Mudd, Angharad Davies, John Macedo, Dominic Lash, Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Andie Brown, Dale Cornish, Ryan Jordan, Maurizio Bianchi, Nihilist Assault Group, The New Blockaders and GX Jupitter-Larsen of The Haters as well as being a member of the improvised drone ensemble Signals with Mark Beazley and Chris Gowers and perfroming as part of Mark Wastell's improvising group The Seen."

-Phil Julian Website (http://cmx.org.uk/biography/)
1/25/2023

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"David Toop (born 5 May 1949) is an English musician, author, and professor and chair of audio culture and improvisation at the London College of Communication. He was a member of the Flying Lizards and a contributor to the British magazine The Face. He is a regular contributor to The Wire, a British music magazine.

Soon after his birth, his parents moved to Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, where he grew up. He was educated at Broxbourne Grammar School, which he left in 1967 to study at Hornsey College of Art.

Toop published his pioneering book on hip hop, Rap Attack, in 1984. Eleven years later, Ocean of Sound appeared, described as Toop's "poetic survey of contemporary musical life from Debussy through Ambient, Techno, and drum 'n' bass." Since the 1970s, Toop has also been a significant presence on the British experimental and improvised music scene, collaborating with Max Eastley, Brian Eno, Scanner, and others. He is a member of the improvising, genre-hopping quartet Alterations, active from 1977 to 1986 and reforming in 2015. In 2001, Toop curated the sound art exhibition Sonic Boom, and the following year, he curated a 2-CD collection entitled Not Necessarily Enough English Music: A Collection of Experimental Music from Great Britain, 1960Ð1977. More experimentally, Toop has also actively engaged with 'sounding objects' from a range of museums."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Toop)
1/25/2023

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"I'm a jazz and improv double bassist, based in Hastings, SE England.

I lead and compose for The Olie Brice Quintet, which released our debut album 'Immune to Clockwork' in 2014. The quintet was named as one of the 'new bands 2014' in the El Intruso Critics Poll, and was described by Richard Williams as "one of the most interesting and satisfying bands on the current UK scene". The current line-up of the quintet features George Crowley on tenor, Alex Bonney on cornet, Mike Fletcher on C-melody sax and Jeff Williams on drums. Our 2nd album, 'Day After Day' will be released in Jue 2017 on the Babel label.

I'm also involved in several collaborative projects, including;

a Trio with Tobias Delius - tenor sax, clarinet and Mark Sanders - drums

duos with Achim Kaufmann - piano, Rachel Musson - tenor sax and Tom Challenger - tenor sax

BABs (James Allsopp - bass clarinet, Alex Bonney - laptop)

and am in a few people's bands, including:

Mike Fletcher Trio (Mike Fletcher - C melody sax, Jeff Williams - drums)

Dee Byrne's Entopri (Dee Byrne - alto sax, Andre Canniere - trumpet, Rebecca Nash - piano & Matt Fisher - drums)

Alex Ward Quintet (Alex Ward - clarinet, guitar, Rachel Musson - tenor sax, Tom Jackson - bass clarinet, Hannah Marshall - cello)

Loz Speyer's Inner Space Music (Loz Speyer - trumpet, Chris Biscoe - alto sax, alto clarinet, Rachel Musson - tenor & soprano, Gary Willcox - drums)

Alex Bonney Quartet (Alex Bonney - trumpet, James Allsopp - reeds, Jeff Williams - drums)

Other musicians I've appeared with include Tony Malaby, Evan Parker, Paul Dunmall, Ingrid Laubrock, Ken Vandermark, Steve Swell and many others..."

-Olie Brice Website (https://oliebrice.com/about/)
1/25/2023

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"Born Cambridge, England, in January 1980; played bass guitar since 1994; studied with Hugh Boyd and Pascha Milner and at Basstech (London) with Rob Burns, Terry Gregory and others. Played double bass since 2001; basically self taught, with grateful thanks to Simon H. Fell. First class BA in English Literature from Oxford University (2002). Received MA Composition from Oxford Brookes University in 2003, having studied with Paul Whitty, Ray Lee and others. Received PhD from Brunel University in 2010, having studied the work of Derek Bailey, Helmut Lachenmann and JH Prynne and been supervised by Richard Barrett and John Croft."

-Dominic Lash Website (http://dominiclash.blogspot.com/p/dominic-lash_5.html)
1/25/2023

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Richard Sanderson (born 7th October 1960, Saltburn): "I'm originally from Middlesbrough in the North East of England, but I've lived in London since 1985. I started off playing guitar and singing in punk and post-punk bands in Teesside. The most successful of which, Drop (1978-1979) was championed by Julian Cope who praised the band's "sheer confidence and succinctness". Drop have been dragged out of retirement a couple of times in the 21st Century, and may be again. In 1980 I released a 12" EP with the band Tick Tick that has remained resolutely underground ever since.

Since arriving in London, I gravitated towards the improvised music scene, initially playing toys, samplers and electronics alongside musicians such as Adam Bohman, Mark Browne, Mike Walter, Mark Wastell, Chris Burn, and others before joining the band Ticklish with Kev Hopper, Phil Durrant and video artist Rob Flint. Other groups I was in included Kelsey Michael's widescreen pop octet "Minnow" and a trio with Steve Beresford and Anna Homler. From the late '90s onwards I played many gigs throughout the UK experimental scene as well as at festivals in Germany, Austria, Holland, Denmark and France. I was also active as a promoter, organising clubs such as The Club Room (with Mike Walter and John Russell), Reaction Time, The Departure Lounge and Baggage Reclaim. For nearly 10 years I was a director of the London Musicians Collective.

In the last 7 years my interests have widened to include traditional English music and dance, taking up morris dancing (with Blackheath Morris Men) and the melodeon (a diatonic button accordion). As well as playing solo gigs with amplified melodeon, I play in the Horse Trio with Sue Lynch (saxophone and flute) and Hutch Demouilpied (trumpet), and in a trio with Mark Browne (saxophone and small instruments) and Daniel Thompson (acoustic guitar) . I'm also continuing to make music with Mark Spybey and my cousin Mark Sanderson - a collaboration that has lasted over 40 years.

In 2012 I started the label Linear Obsessional Recordings to release music by experimental musicians from around the globe under a Creative Commons licence.

​In 2015 I started organising concerts at The ArtsCafe in Lewisham, South London."

-Richard Sanderson Website (https://richardsanderson.weebly.com/biog.html)
1/25/2023

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"Phil Durrant. Born 1957; software synth/sampler, live electronics and acoustic violin.

Phil Durrant studied classical violin and piano at the London College Of Music. Since 1977 he has been a freelance musician, improviser and composer. He has performed at festivals all over Europe, U.S.A and Canada and has had his music broadcast on radio and television in many countries.

Current electronic projects include Ticklish, Secret Measures (with John Butcher), Lunge (with Gail Brand, Pat Thomas and Mark Sanders) and the international electronic orchestra, Mimeo. He also plays violin in Assumed Possibilities (with Chris Burn, Rhodri Davies and Mark Wastell), "Beinhaltung", a trio with Radu Malfatti and Thomas Lehn another trio with Berlin musicians, Burkhard Beins and Ignaz Schick, and the string quartet Quatuor Accorde, with Tony Wren, Charlotte Hug and Mark Wastell. Durrant has also played in the very influential trio with John Butcher and John Russell, as well as the Chris Burn Ensemble.

During his career he has played with many creative and important musicians, including: Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Grooverider, Shut up and Dance, John Zorn, Phil Minton, and Tom Cora. He has also been awarded various Arts Council grants to research and develop his use of electronics. Two current duo projects - at early 2001 - were: Durrant, violin and software synth/sampler with Wade Matthews, bass clarinet, alto flute; and Durrant software synth/sampler with Mark Sanders drums and sequenced samples.

Phil Durrant has also been collaborating and composing music for a wide variety of choreographers. These include PLastic chill, In the face of a stranger and Deja deux with Maxine Doyle; Salome, Concrete and On stage with Susanne Thomas; Partial site, near view and Delay for five with Gill Clarke; Future perfekt with Ana Sanchez-Colberg; and Borderlander and Home zone with Sophia Lycouris. Salome, Concrete and Partial site, near view were site-specific and involved speaker systems in a number of different rooms. He recently wrote the music for a new play by Nick Sutton called Home movies."

-European Free Improv (EFI) (http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/musician/mdurrant.html)
1/25/2023

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Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga is a zither player and free improviser, born in 1981 in Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Greece and curently living in London. Dimitra is a member of Ap'strophe, and has recorded with Angharad Davies, Tisha Mukarji, Johnny Chang, Jamie Drouin, Dominic Lash, David Ryan, Chris Heenan, and is heard on the "Wandelweiser und so weiter" album.

-Squidco 1/25/2023

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"Angharad Davies is a violinist, one at ease in both improvising and composition, with a wide discography as part of varied range of ensembles and groups. She's a specialist in the art of 'preparing' her violin, adding objects or materials to it to extend its sound making properties. Her sensitivity to the sonic possibilities of musical situations and attentiveness to their shape and direction make her one of contemporary music's most fascinating figures. 2015 has seen her being commissioned for a new work at the Counterflows Festival, Glasgow and premiering Eliane Radigue's new solo for violin, Occam XXI at the El Nicho Festival, Mexico.

She's performed at, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, BBC Proms, Music We'd Like to Hear's concert series, is an associate artist at Cafe Oto, is a member of Apartment House, Cranc and Common Objects, been artist in residence at Q-02, and played live with Tony Conrad in the Turbine Room at the Tate Modern. Other collaborations have featured the likes of John Butcher, Daniela Cascella, Rhodri Davies, Julia Eckhardt , Kazuko Hohki, Roberta Jean, Lina Lapelyte, Dominic Lash, Tisha Mukarji, Andrea Neumann, Rie Nakajima, Tim Parkinson, J.G.Thirlwell, Stefan Thut, Paul Whitty, Manfred Werder, Birgit Ulher, Taku Unami and she's released records on Absinth Records, Another Timbre, Potlatch and Confrontrecords."

-Angharad Davies Website (http://www.angharaddavies.com/biog.html)
1/25/2023

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" is a musician, artist and writer. He was born 1960 in New York and grew up in Los Angeles. He re-located to Europe in 1990 and is currently based in Zürich.

As an electronic musician, vocalist and drummer Kahn collaborates regularly with many musicians, both in improvised settings and in the context of graphical scores which he composes for specific groups.

Kahn has exhibited his installations in museums, galleries, art spaces and public sites internationally. These works focus on the idea of space: the conceptual and physical juncture points, its production and dissolution, and our relation to it as a political, social and environmental medium.

Kahn's other activities include sound pieces for radio, film, dance and theater. He has also designed numerous CD, LP and cassette covers. As a writer, his work has appeared in books, magazines and as liner notes to many audio publications.

Performing regularly around the world, Kahn has given concerts throughout Europe, North and South America, Australia, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey and South Africa.

In 2011 Kahn started the Editions imprint to publish his own recordings and writings."

-Jason Kahn Website (http://www.jasonkahn.net/biography/index.html)
1/25/2023

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"Bertrand Denzler is a tenor saxophone player. He has played in Europe and Latin America both as a solo act and with musicians such as Xavier Charles, Peter Frils Nielsen, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Barry Guy, Ninh Lê Quan, Urs Leimgruber, Günter Müller, Bob Ostertag, Norbert Pfammatter, Hasse Poulsen, Mark Sanders, Mathieu Werchowski, and Otomo Yoshihide. He is a member of the groups Hubbub, Nanocluster, Laps, Denzler-Mariage, A3/1, and Chamaeleo Vulgaris. He has put out a number of compact discs on various labels."-ActuelleCD.com (http://www.actuellecd.com/en/bio/denzler_be/)
1/25/2023

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"David Toop (born 5 May 1949) is an English musician, author, and professor and chair of audio culture and improvisation at the London College of Communication. He was a member of the Flying Lizards and a contributor to the British magazine The Face. He is a regular contributor to The Wire, a British music magazine.

Soon after his birth, his parents moved to Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, where he grew up. He was educated at Broxbourne Grammar School, which he left in 1967 to study at Hornsey College of Art.

Toop published his pioneering book on hip hop, Rap Attack, in 1984. Eleven years later, Ocean of Sound appeared, described as Toop's "poetic survey of contemporary musical life from Debussy through Ambient, Techno, and drum 'n' bass." Since the 1970s, Toop has also been a significant presence on the British experimental and improvised music scene, collaborating with Max Eastley, Brian Eno, Scanner, and others. He is a member of the improvising, genre-hopping quartet Alterations, active from 1977 to 1986 and reforming in 2015. In 2001, Toop curated the sound art exhibition Sonic Boom, and the following year, he curated a 2-CD collection entitled Not Necessarily Enough English Music: A Collection of Experimental Music from Great Britain, 1960Ð1977. More experimentally, Toop has also actively engaged with 'sounding objects' from a range of museums."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Toop)
1/25/2023

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"Info

Yoni Silvers plays the bass clarinet (extended/constricted/strangulated), as well as alto sax, violin, piano, voice, some computer fiddlings and some general fiddlings. Improvisation, composition, performance, and much in-between.

These are some of the combos I am a part of these days:

- Hyperion Ensemble, led by Rumanian Hyper-Spectralist composers Iancu Dumitrescu and Ana-Maria Avram.

- Denis D'or, with Grundik Kasyansky on electronics and Tom Wheatley on double bass

- Trio with Mark Sanders on drums and Tom Wheatley on double bass

- Duo with Steve Noble

I also play or have played with people such as Jean Claude Jones, Harold Rubin, Steve Noble, Eddie Prevost, Angharad Davies, Oren Ambarchi, Stephen O'Malley, Eran Sachs, Alex Drool, Maya Dunietz, Wolfgang Fuchs, John Edwards, Toshimaru Nakamura, Ghédalia Tazartès, Ehran Elisha, Alex Ward, Sharon Gal, Mark Sanders, Günter Baby Sommer, Eyal Maoz, Daniel Davidovsky, Ofer Bymel, Damon Smith, Birgit Ulher, Fritz Welch, Daysuke Takaoka, Neil Davidson, Tim Hodgkinson, Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides, Seymour Wright, Catherine Lamb, Hannes Lingens, Tom Wheatley, Dylan Nyoukis, Yonatan Avishai, Steve Beresford, Carl Ludwig Hübsch, London Improvisers Orchestra, Thanos Chrysakis, Mazen Kerbaj, Heiner Metzger, Ute Kanngiesser, Dominic Lash, Ariel Shibolet, Eivind Lønning, Sophie Angel, Grundik Kasyansky, Konzert Minimal, Crank Sturgeon...

I've composed and arranged music for film directors Avi Mograbi ('Z-32'), and Josef Pitchhadze ('Year Zero'); theatre director Ariel Efraim Ashbel (The Empire Strikes Back); artists Alona Rodeh ('Over and Above') and Gilad Ratman ('The Workshop' for Venice Biennale 2013); and poets/spoken-word-artists Roman Baembaev and Pyotr Shmugliakov. Also did arrangements for singer-Israeli songwriters Rona Kenan, Shlomi Shaban, and others have been played by ensembles such as the Israeli Philharmonic and Tel Aviv Soloists Ensemble, and been a member of the Israeli rock band Habiluim and metal/circus-core band Midnight Peacocks.

I've also composed pieces for ensembles such as the Israeli Contemporary Players, and numerous ad-hoc ensembles."

-Yoni Silver Website (https://yonisilver.wordpress.com/info-2/)
1/25/2023

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Chris Burn, piano: "Following on from a relatively formal music education and a few years of involvement in Jazz, the beginning of the 1980s saw Burn thoroughly embracing freely improvised music. His pianism was almost exclusively devoted to inside playing. In 1985 the large group 'Ensemble' was formed and have subsequently made five CDs and given concerts in the UK, mainland Europe and Canada; along with a number of radio broadcasts. Burn often performed as soloist; both improvising but also playing Henry Cowell and John Cage.

In 1993 he made a CD of a selection of Cowell's piano pieces and made a programme for BBC R3. He has played numerous concerts and festivals in UK, Europe and Canada both as soloist, with Ensemble and with a host of improvisers from around the world. Since 2000 he has renewed his work in both composition and arranging; writing a number of pieces for solo piano and pieces for brass and percussion along with arrangements of improvisations by Derek Bailey and recordings of Alan Lamb. He continues to perform as both pianist and as trumpet player. In recent years he has performed twice at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival with groups led by John Butcher and Simon Fell.

In addition he is participating of the Reverse Collection exhibition at the Tate Modern, Summer 2016."

-Chris Burn Website (https://www.chrisburnmusician.com/bio)
1/25/2023

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