"Simon Sieger, born in France in 1986, is brought up in a family where jazz and improvised music, as well as literature and philosophy are the main interests. Taught by his father, saxophonist and improviser Pascal Sieger, he rapidly becomes a talented pianist, oriented towards free jazz and the exceptions of jazz history like Monk, Tristano, Sun Ra, or Cecil Taylor and very influenced by the early piano styles of James P. Johnson and Pete Johnson. He also plays the trombone, influenced by George Lewis, Albert Mangelsdorff and Gary Valente.He starts working with Thomas Weirich in 2006 and Raphael Imbert in 2010, and extends his field of play to contemporary music, electronic music and fabrication of instruments. In 2011, he completes the jazz course in Conservatory of Marseille, and is expecting a grant for his doctorate in 2012, which will be a re-writing of the multiple histories of improvisation. His style is diverse and very open to new ways of expression, like the one through the O'Max software, developed by the IRCAM. He recently recorded a trio with Thomas Weirich (guitar) and Famoudou Don Moyé (Drums) in the album "Improvisation Music Vol. 1", and with Raphael Imbert for his album "Heaven"."

"For a number of years now, energetic double bassist, filmmaker and producer Grip has played an important role for the new scenes of improvised music in Europe. As founder of Umlaut Records, he opened up for creative forms of organizing collectives of musicians and promoting their music internationally. Since 2003 he has been one of the main organizers of Hagenfesten in Dala-Floda, Sweden, a stand-alone festival, and quite frankly possibly the most pleasant venue for free improvised music not only in Sweden but in the whole of Europe. Few other places offer quite the same endearing combination of sophisticated musical risk-taking, and up-beat, social get-together. GripÕs musicianship is informed by a similar knack for welding musical sophistication with social communication, often with an analog film camera at hand. With a handful of short films Joel Grip met mexican filmmaker Mauricio Hern‡ndez and shortly the film production company Umlicht was established. They are right now working on their third and forth feature film together. Umdicht is amplifying the pencil of Joel GripÕs hand, partly through the irregular issue of Lšsa Blad and partly in the future release of books."

"Michael Griener, born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1968, began playing drums in 1982, lives in Berlin since 1994.

Under the influence of the HOHE-UFER-concerts initiated by Günter Christmann he became involved early on in the various forms of Jazztradition, Free Improvisation and New Music, which led to a longer collaboration with Christmann in his Vario-projects (a.o. C.I.M.-Festival Den Haag 1990, Moers-Festival 1992, Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik1993).

He has worked frequently with dancers, actors and poets (most recently in a project on Paul Celan with German writer Oskar Ansull). His duo KIMMO ELOMAA with electronic wizard jayrope received a grant by the city of Berlin in 2002 Received the 1. price as "most creative soloist" at the "New German Jazz Award" in 2006 His current projects include a.o.:

Uli Gumpert Quartet, TGW (Thieke-Griener-Weber), a Duo with Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky, Lacy Pool, Squakk and Carl-Ludwig Hübsch' Primordial Soup Michael Griener teaches jazz drumming at the University for Music "Carl Maria v. Weber" in Dresden and jazz-history and rhythm at the Jazzschule Berlin."