"Marcio Mattos was born Rio de Janeiro, 20th March 1946; double bass, 'cello.

Studied acoustic guitar in early teens, switching to double bass and cello, mainly self-taught, after becoming interested in Jazz. Later entered the Villa-Lobos institute where he became involved in improvisation and electronic music. Since coming to Europe in 1970 has performed, recorded and broadcast both in Britain and abroad in groups including John Surman, Evan Parker, John Stevens, Keith Tippett, Derek Bailey's Company, Dewey Redman and Marylin Crispell amongst others. Has also worked with dance companies such as Ballet Rambert and The Extemporary Dance Theatre Company, and in electro-acoustic music groups such as the West Square Electronic Music Ensemble.

A long- standing member of the Eddie Prevost Quartet and various Elton Dean groups. Other current British projects include the "Bardo State Orchestra", Chris Burn's Ensemble, "Wooden Taps" with Maggie Nicols, "Embers" with John Butcher and others, "Lines" with Phil Wachsmann/Jim Denley and others, and "Full Monte" with Chris Biscoe, Brian Godding and Tony Marsh . International projects working in Europe have included Georg Graewe's Grubenklang Orchestra, Stefano Maltese's "Open Music Ensemble", Tony Oxley's Celebration Orchestra, "AXON"- trio with Phil Minton and Martin Blume , bass/cello and shakuhachi duo with Shiku Yano, and in Japan various groupings with Sabu Toyozumi and Keiko Midorikawa.

Also trained as a Ceramic artist at Goldsmiths college and continues to make and exhibit work in clay."

Ian Brighton is a free improvising guitarist, known for the bands Balance, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, and Spontaneous Music Orchestra.

Neil Metcalfe is a UK flutist who has been a member of groups Evan Parker Octet, Garage, London Improvisers Orchestra, Paul Rogers Freedom Orchestra, The Dedication Orchestra, The Intuitive Art Ensemble, The Runcible Quintet, Transatlantic Art Ensemble, Trio F O, and Unlaunched Orchestra.

Trevor Taylor is an improvising musician based in the UK, performing electroacoustic improvisation. He is best known for his band Circuit, and his associations with saxophonists Evan Parker and Paul Dunmall. He is also the label leader for FMR (Future Music Records).

"Steve Beresford (born 1950) is a British musician who graduated from the University of York. He has played a variety of instruments, including piano, electronics, trumpet, euphonium, bass guitar and a wide variety of toy instruments, such as the toy piano. He has also played a wide range of music. He is probably best known for free improvisation, but has also written music for film and television and has been involved with a number of pop music groups.

Beresford played in Derek Bailey's Company events and in the groups Alterations with David Toop, Terry Day and Peter Cusack, and the Three Pullovers with Nigel Coombes and Roger Smith. He was also a member with Gavin Bryars and Brian Eno of the Portsmouth Sinfonia.

Beresford has continued to play free improvisation with a number of prominent musicians, including Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, John Zorn, and Han Bennink. He has collaborated extensively with Swiss-American artist/musician Christian Marclay and is an active member of the long-standing London Improvisers Orchestra.

From 2010 he performed various pieces by John Cage, including Indeterminacy with Tania Chen and comedian Stewart Lee, and a performance with Ilan Volkov at The BBC Proms 2012 at The Royal Albert Hall in London.

He has also worked with a number of popular musicians, including Ray Davis, The Slits, Frank Chickens, Ted Milton and The Flying Lizards. In 2015 he performed a duoproject with the upcoming Norwegian singer Natalie Sandtorv at the Blow Out! festival in Oslo, Norway.

He was awarded a Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists in 2012. He is a senior lecturer on the Commercial Music course at University of Westminster.

Beresford's music and his teachings have inspired the musical community in the UK for over a decade. British songwriter and performer Katy Carr cites Steve Beresford's lectures on musical themes associated with Free improvisation, Experimental music, John Cage, musique concrète, Diamanda Galás and The Slits as a source of initial inspiration with regards to the creation of her debut album, Screwing Lies released in 2001."

"b. 5 June 1961, Chicoutimi, Quebec, Canada. Carrier began his career as a professional jazz musician, playing alto saxophone in Vancouver in 1979. He soon attracted attention from fellow musicians and a growing audience through his often audacious approach to his music. Based since 1982 in Montreal, he has shown himself to be a fluid and inventive performer of improvised music, especially since the formation in 1990 of his trio, in which he was joined by bass player Pierre Coté and drummer Michel Lambert. Following the release of Intuition, which was nominated as Jazz Album Of The Year at the 1998 Gala de l'ADISQ (Québec's Music Awards show), Carrier's trio toured Europe, playing at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Also in 1998, Carrier founded Nouvel Ensemble De Musique Improvisée (NoEMI), a gathering of like-minded free players, among whom have been Dewey Redman and Sonny Greenwich.

Early in 2002, Carrier spent some months composing new works in Rome, having won an award by the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec. More tours of Canada and some European countries followed, as did more acclaimed albums. Over the years, in concert and sometimes on record, Carrier's trio has been augmented by guest pianists who have included Steve Amirault, who appeared on Carrier's Juno Award-winning Compassion (2000), Paul Bley and Gary Peacock, heard on Traveling Lights (2004), Uri Caine, on All'Alba (2003), Jason Moran and Bobo Stenson. Among other musicians with whom he has worked are Mat Maneri, Uwe Neumann and Gary Peacock.

Carrier's sound is tough and he attacks his music with verve and unpredictability, demanding, and successfully receiving from audiences, attention to and understanding of the swiftly changing moods he explores."

"Francois Carrier knows how to surround himself, find the most compatible partners, and maintain a recorded presence all over the world. His rich, deep playing that blends lyricism with boldness and a sense of surpassing one's self has earned him a place in the Eight Annual International Critic's Poll of El Intruso 2015 and in the DownBeat's 2013 Best Alto Sax Players List. In 2001 he won a Juno Award in the Best Contemporary Jazz Album category for his third album Compassion (Naxos Jazz).

To date, François combines an impressive discography of over thirty internationally acclaimed albums with legendary musicians such as Paul Bley, Gary Peacock, Bobo Stenson, Tomasz Stanko, Uri Caine, Jason Moran, Dewey Redman, Mat Maneri, Sonny Greenwich, Jean-Jacques Avenel, John Edwards, Steve Beresford, Rafal Mazur, etc. Drummer Michel Lambert has been his most faithful collaborator. Together, Michel and François undertook several tours in Europe, Asia and Canada.

In 2002, François spent six months in Québec Studio in Rome as a saxophonist-composer where created links with the Italian music scene. He also lived in the Québec Studio in London in 2011, where he worked among other things in the development of his Free Opera and initiates a number of recording sessions with several London musicians.

In 2005 he was spotted by British label Leo Records with whom he released five unique albums. Several European avant-garde music labels then join the party such as Creative Sources (Portugal), Ayler Records (Sweden-France), FMR Records (England), Not Two Records (Poland). Following the major international media coverage, the demands keep multiplying. Thus soon, François will publish four new albums recently recorded during his 2015 European tour on NoBusiness Records (Lithuania) For Tune Records (Poland) and FMR Records."

Jon Seagroatt is a British-born instrumentalist, electro-acoustic composer and improviser, educator and producer. He's a member of Comus, Current 93, Red Square, Nonstop Tango and the Psychedelic Raiders, and He's toured and performed in Britain, Europe and the Far East. He plays variously bass, flute, soprano & tenor saxes, bass clarinet, percussion and electronics.

"Philipp Wachsmann. Born Uganda, 1944; violin, viola and electronics.

In the CD booklet to Gushwachs, John Corbett notes that Phillip Wachsmann came to free improvisation from a predominantly classical background, particularly via the contemporary experiments of "indeterminacy, graphic and prose-based scores, conceptualism and electroacoustics, listening to Webern, Partch, Ives, Berio and Varèse, reading 'Die Reihe' and interrogating the rhythmic, harmonic and melodic preoccupations of Western art music. Starting in 1969, Wachsmann was a member of Yggdrasil, an ensemble performing works by Cage, Cardew, Feldman, Ashley and others and in this group he used contact mikes on the violin and made his own electronic instruments, ring modulators and routing devices. Ironically, his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris (1969-1970) pushed him hard in the direction of free music. He recalls: 'Despite her neoclassical orientation, her insistence that composition is about the imagination of performance and its realisation, the live moment, and her stunning ability to make this happen was a powerful influence on me, steering towards 'performance' and therefore 'improvisation'.'"

Wachsmann moved from Yggdrasil to Chamberpot - recorded on Bead 2 - and shortly thereafter appeared on Tony Oxley's influential February papers, forward looking in the virtual 'industrial' orientation of some of the tracks, years before this became an accepted genre; the two musicians have continued to work together, in various groupings but notably in the percussionist's Celebration Orchestra. Philipp Wachsmann has also performed and/or recorded with: Derek Bailey's Company, e.g. on the recording Epiphanies; Georg Graewe; Barry Guy; Iskra 1903; King Übü Orchestrü; London Jazz Composers' Orchestra; Evan Parker, particularly as part of the Evan Parker Electronic Project; Quintet Moderne; Fred Van Hove's ML DD 4; Rüdiger Carl's COWWS (now CPWWS) Quintet; and Lines, with Martin Blume, Jim Denley, Axel Dörner and Marcio Mattos. He also plays as a solo musician.

Phillip Wachsmann also administers Bead Records."