"Tatsuya Nakatani. Acoustic Sound Artist, Master Percussionist. b. 1970, Osaka Japan

Tatsuya Nakatani is an acoustic sound artist and master percussionist originally from Osaka, Japan. He has released over eighty recordings in North America and Europe. Residing in the USA since the mid-nineties, he has performed countless solo percussion concerts and has collaborated with hundreds of artists in international music festivals, university concert halls, art museums and independent venues. Infamous for his constant touring, Nakatani criss-crosses the country every year inspiring audiences with his pioneering sound. In addition to his solo performances, he conducts the Nakatani Gong Orchestra (NGO), a mobile community engagement project which organizes local ensembles performing on multiple bowed gongs.Nakatani teaches master classes and workshops at universities, giving students an opportunity to share his unique musical approach and philosophy for creating visceral, non-linear music.

He has created his own instrumentation, effectively inventing many instruments and extended techniques. Utilizing drums, gongs, cymbals, singing bowls, wooden sticks, metal objects, and the bows and mallets he handcrafts in his Kobo; he creates an intense, intuitively primitive, expressive music that defies genre. His work references improvised-experimental music, free jazz, and noise, while still retaining the sense of space and beauty found in traditional Japanese folk music."

"Shane Parish is a guitarist residing in Asheville, North Carolina, who spends much of his time developing his unique voice on the instrument. A self-taught musician, his teenage years were spent improvising and writing original music with friends. Later he taught himself to read music, studied theory, and learned classical guitar, jazz and folk styles. His sound simultaneously draws from the guitar's rich history and aims for its future. He communicates through emotion, unexpected melodicism, technical whimsy, a nuanced sense of form, and rich timbral variety.

Parish is known for his work fronting the electric duo Ahleuchatistas, described by The Wire Magazine as "...knotty, instrumental rock that blends punk, prog, jazz, non-Western music and improv into something exhilarating and even awe-inspiring." Other media who have had their say about Ahleuchatistas include Pitchfork ("possessed of many moments of beauty and mayhem"), National Public Radio ("the kind of musical tug-of-war that sounds as jagged as it is graceful"), and The New York Times ("music of upfront physicality and twitchy intent"). Their 2004 album, The Same and the Other, (re-issued in 2008 on Tzadik Records) was described by NYC composer John Zorn as "one of the most intense documents of compositional rock complexity ever recorded," and "a cult rock masterpiece." The project has toured internationally and released albums on Tzadik, International Anthem and Cuneiform Records.

Parish is also known for his dexterous, finger-style acoustic guitar work, informed by American masters such as Mississippi John Hurt and Elizabeth Cotten, Brazilian masters such as Luiz Bonfa and Bola Sete, Spanish masters such as Fernando Sor and Francisco Tarrega, jazz masters such as Jim Hall and Charlie Christian, to name but a few. Avant Music News described Parish as "one of the most consistently innovative finger-picking acoustic guitarists in a generation." His 2016 breakthrough solo acoustic album, Undertaker Please Drive Slow, was released on Tzadik records, placing him in the company of such celebrated guitar soloists as Marc Ribot, Tim Sparks, Derek Bailey, and Bill Frisell. Of this recording, Marc Ribot wrote "Shane Parish is one of the most interesting new guitar voices to come out of the country blues tradition of Mississippi John Hurt, Lighting Hopkins..."

Parish continues to release recordings of public domain folk music. In 2019 he self-released a 147-song album entitled The Fireside Book of Folk Songs, consisting of his unique takes on hymns, sea shanties, work songs, and folk ballads. His original composition, "Leicester Hwy", was included in the 2019 Tompkins Square guitarist compilation, Imaginational Anthem, curated by Ryley Walker.

As a collaborative free improvisor, Parish has performed and recorded with many creative musicians, and has released duo albums with trumpeter Jacob Wick, percussionists Tatsuya Nakatani and Frank Rosaly, and guitarists Wendy Eisenberg and Tashi Dorji. This work has been featured in Downbeat Magazine, Bomb Magazine, The Wire and more.

He has recently begun incorporating his voice into his performances, adding a layer of sound and narrative.

He is a sought-after educator, and a musician for hire."

Zach Rowden is a bassist and violinist from Richmond, Virginia now living in New Haven, Connecticut who works at Tri-Centric Foundation. He studied at University of Hartford. He is known for the group Tongue Depressor with Henry Birdsey.