"John Eyles: The first record I owned was "Twist & Shout" by The Beatles. The first album I bought was "Smiley Smile" by The Beach Boys, in 1967. The first jazz album I bought was "Filles de Kilimanjaro" by Miles, in 1968. The first CD I bought was "Gaia" by Marilyn Crispell, in 1989. I haven't yet paid to download an MP3... I started writing about jazz in 1992 when a friend asked me to be the jazz columnist for Murdoch's TODAY newspaper. (Thanks, Nick.) TODAY closed down late in 1995. Since then I have written for many print-based and web-based media, although I have an uncanny knack of writing for publications that close down! (The Independent Catalogue, Rubberneck, Avant, Opprobrium, One Final Note, Paris Transatlantic, BBCi ...) As well as AAJ, I currently write for The Squid's Ear -- currently in good health! I have only ever parted from two publications on bad terms, the first a British-based magazine that asked me to write a good review of a mediocre album as the label had bought advertising space in the magazine, the second a US-based website whose editor asked me to rewrite my review of an old album because my view of it did not agree with his; in each case, I refused and never wrote for them again. When reviewing an album, I do not start writing until I am sure--usually after at least ten listenings. I could never write a review after one or two listens. If I really don't like an album, I'll usually leave it be. I would prefer poorer music to be neglected and fade away gracefully than to be panned. If I'm not 100% sure, I'll include some suggested improvements. For recreation I enjoy improvising using voice, alto or sopranino saxophone, being a regular participant at AMM drummer Eddie Prevost's weekly Friday evening workshop, and a founder member of the Mopomoso Workshop group. I am a member of the improvising trio Bouche Bee, with guitarist Petri Huurinainen and vocalist Emmanuelle Waeckerle."

Tony Hardie-Bick, a member of London Experimental Ensemble, is an "Innovator, entrepreneur, musician and engineer. Designer of software musical instruments and synthesis algorithms. Inventor of Acoustic Pulse Recognition, a passive acoustic touch sensing technology based on phase difference analysis, commercialised by Elotouch in 2006. Holds several acoustics and digital signal processing patents. Also has extensively consulted on intellectual property, initiating and developing patent portfolios and related IP strategies for numerous clients in the UK, USA, Canada, Europe and Australia. Has toured Europe and North America as a professional keyboard player with the band Sham69. Continues to explore music, improvisation in music, musical instrument design, performance and acoustics, analogue and digital electronics, signal processing, among other interests."

"Ken Ikeda is a video artist and composer born in Tokyo (1964) , currently a resident in New York. He has exhibited sound art and visual installations around the world and has collaborated with painter Tadanoori Yokoo and artist Mariko Mori. Mist On The Window is his third album, following Tzuki (2000) and Merge (2003) both from Touch label and Mist on the Window (2007) from SPEKK."

Daniel Kordik, born in Slovakia and currently based in London, is an improvising synthesizer player who co-runs the Earshots label and concert series with Edward Lucas. They have a long standing trombone and synth duo: Kordik / Lucas, and with Noel Taylor.

Edward Lucas is an improvising tromboninst who co-runs the Earshots label and concert series with Daniel Kordik. They have a long standing trombone and synth duo: Kordik / Lucas.

"Elo Masing is a composer/free improviser of Estonian origin, currently based in London, UK. Her music has been performed internationally by renowned soloists and ensembles and released on the Squeaky Kate and squib-box labels. She has recently been awarded a PhD at the Royal Academy of Music, where she explored the physicality of instrumental performance in chamber music, and with support from the Academy, received private tuition from Rebecca Saunders. Elo is co-director of clapTON ensemble and with composer-improviser Dave Maric forms the free improvisation duo Vicious Circus whose debut album Troglodytes Troglodytes was released to critical acclaim in 2014."

Keisuke Matsui is a London, UK-based guitarist, known for the groups London Experimental Ensemble, and Officer!

"NO Moore's guitar playing combines elements wrenched from the short history of the electric guitar, from the Blues to Free Improvisation, and combines them with a love of early electronic experimentalism, synthesis, and musique concrète. The result is an often surprising sound world for electric guitar, encompassing both a loose respect for its traditions and an absolute commitment to the new and the consequences that follow."

"Jordan Muscatello is a London-based bassist predominantly active in improvised music. A frequent attendee of Eddie Prévost's weekly workshop, he has performed with many members of London's community of improvising musicians and is a regular member of Rick Jensen's Apocalypse Jazz Unit."

"As an artist, Pettersen has worked long and hard to develop his craft and in doing so has achieved a depth and sophistication that is just now being recognized. An emerging Americana artist in the 90's still driven by the twin influences of Springsteen and the country rebel artists of his youth, Pettersen gained attention for his second release "Somewhere South of Here". Steeped in Americana and country rhythms, the album fell somewhere between the traditional sounds of Americana and the rocking slide guitar of country radio and the tongue in cheek single "DWIOU" (Driving While Intoxicated on You) found a place in jukeboxes worldwide and on the country line dance charts.

But Pettersen's passion for music of all genres was unlimited and led to forming the rock band The Strangely's with friend and drummer Pete Abbott, his brother Mike (one of the finest guitar players Ed knows to this day), and bass player Lori Adams. Despite the great sound of the band, without label support and the inability to tour widely, the Strangely's drifted apart leaving Pettersen with two of his finest rock cuts, the moody and dark "Broken Mirror" and the plaintive "Justine". Around the same time a mysterious illness hit Pettersen hard, sending him through a long odyssey of doctors and hospitals, and being felled by acute physical pain for which there was no visible cause. Temporary paralysis of the vocal chords was a recurring symptom and so for several years Pettersen concentrated on songwriting and production, producing the quirky and gorgeous voiced duo Rosasharn and developing the concept for the Song of America.

An innate drive to hone his craft and work with the best of the best led Pettersen to Nashville in 2002. There, working with the best meant assembling a crack recording unit dubbed The Great American Rhythm section, featuring Reggie Young, Bob Babbitt, Dave Hungate, Catherine Marx, and Ed Greene on drums. The unit played a key role in many of the recordings for Song of America and other Pettersen productions. The only explanation that Pettersen could come up for why they convened at will when called was "They liked to play with each other and I didn't tell them what to do. Am I going to tell Reggie Young who has more number one hits than any guitar player how to play?" So while other songwriters were networking with country artists in town, Pettersen started getting cuts like his marvelous "I Guess We Shouldn't Talk About That Now," on Bettye LaVette's Grammy nominated 2007 The Scene of the Crime and "I Don't Want Anything" on Candi Staton's Who's Hurting Now?, from 2009. The latter includes one of the most delicate and poignantly beautiful lines of all time "Like the beauty of a child's smile, the future on an angel's wing".

In just the last few years Pettersen has re-emerged as a full-fledged recording and touring artist and in the meantime his voice and talents have grown tremendously. Discovering his Norwegian roots and Scandinavian heritage is the catalyst for the hauntingly melodic acoustic tunes on I Curse the River of Time. But it is the amalgamation of his early years honing a few well-crafted words in advertising, working with playwright and mentor John Bishop, trying a hand at film production, overcoming hardship and illness, and through it all constantly studying music, art, literature, and life that makes Pettersen an artist of note and a poet worth discovering."

"Emmanuelle Waeckerlé is a London based artist and academic whose interdisciplinary practice explores the materiality of language and connecting issues of place and identity. Through a number of interrelated projects stretching back over twenty years, Emmanuelle uses performative strategies (live and mediated), text (very few words) and on the page work to construct ephemeral occasions, scores and other creative tools suitable for the marking and reading of (being in) space. Recurring themes are - the relationship between walking writing and reading - the limitations and creative potential of translation - poetics of survival and resistance

Emmanuelle is a Reader in Photography and relational practices at University for the Creative Art in Farnham, and director of bookRoom research cluster and bookRoom press. Between 2007 and 2014 she was part of the small team running the centre des livres d'artistes in St Yrieix la Perche in France.

Emmanuelle studied Photography with Mick Williamson at Sir John Cass (now Metropolitan University). She then completed an MA in Fine Art at the Slade school of Art in 1996 under Stuart Brisley. After a few years of part time lecturing on the Photography degree and the MA in Fine Art at Kent Institute of Art and design she was appointed senior lecturer in Visual communication at University for the Creative Arts in Farnham in the Photography department. She became a Reader in 2012."

Mirei Yazawa; born Nagano, Japan; educated Goldsmiths college, London BA (Hons) Fine Art; is an artist who work with body movement, bodily sensation and improvisation to explore how we construct reality and share it.

"Yifeat Ziv is a vocalist, a composer, a free improviser and a sound artist.

She combines voice, electronics, field recordings and text to create interdisciplinary sound works that derive from her research of the human voice, language, acoustic ecology and listening practices. Her recent works were performed and exhibited in places such as Cafe OTO (UK), Wellcome Collection (UK), PQ: Prague Quadrennial (CZ), Design Museum Holon (IL), Eretz Israel Museum (IL) and the Israeli Centre for Digital Art (IL).

She has worked and performed with a wide variety of artists and ensembles including David Toop (UK), William Parker (US), Stefan Thut (CH), London Experimental Ensemble (UK), Igor Krutogolov Toy Orchestra (IL) and the Revolution Orchestra (IL). She is also the co-founder of vocal ensembles The Hazelnuts and ABRA Ensemble with whom she has released four critically acclaimed albums and performed worldwide in international festivals including Marseille Jazz des Cinqs Continents (FR), Tri-C Jazz (US), Safaricom Jazz (KE), Filter4Voices (CH) and Red Sea Jazz (IL).

Ziv holds an MA in Sound Arts from the University of the Arts London (London College of Communication) and a B.MUS in Cross-disciplinary Composition from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. She is the recipient of the Siday Fellowship for Musical Creativity (2018-19) and the AER Art for the Environment award (2019)."

"Iain Sinclair FRSL (born 11 June 1943) is a Welsh writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, most recently within the influences of psychogeography.

Sinclair was born in Cardiff in 1943. From 1956Ð1961, he was educated at Cheltenham College, a boarding independent school for boys (now co-educational), in the spa town of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, in the West of England, followed by Trinity College, Dublin (where he edited Icarus). He attended the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London), and the London School of Film Technique (now the London Film School). In 2013 he became a Visiting Professor at the University for the Creative Arts.

His early work was mostly poetry, much of it published by his own small press, Albion Village Press. He was (and remains) closely connected with the British avant garde poetry scene of the 1960s and 1970s Ð authors such as Edward Dorn, J. H. Prynne, Douglas Oliver, Peter Ackroyd and Brian Catling are often quoted in his work and even turn up in fictionalized form as characters; later on, taking over from John Muckle, Sinclair edited the Paladin Poetry Series and, in 1996, the Picador anthology Conductors of Chaos.

His early books Lud Heat (1975) and Suicide Bridge (1979) were a mixture of essay, fiction and poetry; they were followed by White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings (1987), a novel juxtaposing the tale of a disreputable band of bookdealers on the hunt for a priceless copy of Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet and the Jack the Ripper murders (here attributed to the physician William Gull).

Sinclair was for some time perhaps best known for the novel Downriver (1991), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 1992 Encore Award. It envisages the UK under the rule of the Widow, a grotesque version of Margaret Thatcher as viewed by her harshest critics, who supposedly establishes a one party state in a fifth term. Radon Daughters formed the third part of a trilogy with White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings and Downriver.

The volume of essays Lights Out for the Territory gained Sinclair a wider readership by treating the material of his novels in non-fiction form. His essay Sorry Meniscus (1999) ridicules the Millennium Dome. In 1997, he collaborated with Chris Petit, sculptor Steve Dilworth, and others to make The Falconer, a 56-minute semi-fictional "documentary" film set in London and the Outer Hebrides about the British underground filmmaker Peter Whitehead. It also features Stewart Home, Kathy Acker and Howard Marks.

In an interview with This Week in Science, William Gibson said that Sinclair was his favourite author. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009.

A significant proportion of Sinclair's work has consisted of an ambitious and elaborate literary recuperation of the so-called occultist psychogeography of London. Other psychogeographers who have worked on similar material include Will Self, Stewart Home, Michael Moorcock and the London Psychogeographical Association. [...]"