"Felipe Zenicola was born in 1981 in Rio de Janeiro and started playing the electric bass at the age of 15. One year after taking regular classes, he continued practicing and playing as a self-thought musician. Coming essentially from a rock background, in 2000 Felipe started drawing interest for experimental music, free jazz and free forms of improvisation. Few years later, when Rio´s exploratory music scene was growing exponentially around Plano B venue in Lapa, Zenicola was able to play regularly and that was an important moment for developing his approach towards improvisation and new ways of handling the instrument.

In 2010 Zenicola started Chinese Cookie Poets, together with Marcos Campello and Renato Godoy, one of the most acclaimed experimental music bands in Brazil. The CCP experience was key for consolidating his unique playing that explores extended techniques, a heavy, frantic and cathartic way of dealing with the bass strings, low ambient/drones, minimal ostinatos and complex rhythmic patterns: a blend which makes him a very singular voice in the electric bass language today.

Since 2014 Felipe has been collaborating regularly with Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, with whom has released two albums so far: Botafogo (Bocian/QTV) and New Brazilian Funk (PNL). For the past 15 years Zenicola has collaborated in several projects, records and concerts with great minds from different sonic planets and parts of the globe, such as Zbigniew Karkowski, Yoshihide Otomo, Negro Leo, Paal Nilssen-Love , Julie Kjær, Tetuzi Akiyama, J-P Caron, Frode Gjerstad, Arto Lindsay, Marcela Lucatelli, Cadu Tenório, Sanannda Acácia, Lars Greve, Ava Rocha, Jards Macalé, and Bill Orcutt."

"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."

"João Valinho is a percussionist and Visual Artist based in Lisbon, Portugal."