"Philip Jeck studied visual arts at Dartington College of Arts in the 1970's and has been creating sound with record-players since the early 80's. He has worked with many dance and theatre companies and played with muscians/composers such as Jah Wobble, Steve Lacy, Gavin Bryars, Jaki Liebezeit, David Sylvian, Sidsel Endresen and Bernhard Lang.

He has released 11 solo albums, the most recent "Cardinal", a double vinyl release on Touch. "Suite", another vinyl -only release, won a Distinction at The Prix Ars Electronica, and a cassette release on The Tapeworm, "Spool", playing only bass guitar. His CD "Sand" (2008) was 2nd in The Wire's top 50 of the year. His largest work made with Lol Sargent, "Vinyl Requiem" was for 180 record-players, 9 slide-projectors and 2 16mm movie-projectors. It received a Time Out Performance Award. Vinyl Coda I-III, a commission from Bavarian Radio in 1999 won the Karl Sczuka Foderpreis for Radio Art.

Philip also still works as a visual artist, usually incorporating sound and has shown installations at The Bluecoat, Liverpool, Hayward Gallery, London, The Hamburger Bahnhof Gallery, Berlin, ZKM in Karlsruhe and The Shanghai and Liverpool Bienalles.

Philip Jeck has won the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers 2009. A presentation ceremony took place at The Royal Institute of British Architects, London, on 9th November 2009.

He has toured in an Opera North production playing live to the silent movie Pandora's Box (composed by Hildur Gudnadottir and Johann Johannson).He has also worked again with Gavin Bryars on a composition "Pneuma" for a ballet choreographed by Carolyn Carlson for The Opera de Bordeaux and has recently made and performed the sound for "The Ballad of Ray & Julie" at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool."

"Christian Fennesz (born 25 December 1962) is an Austrian guitarist and composer active in electronic music, often credited on recordings simply as Fennesz. His work utilizes guitar and notebook computers to make multilayered compositions that blend melody and treated samples with techno-influenced production. He lives and works in Vienna, Austria.

Fennesz first received widespread recognition for his 2001 album Endless Summer, released on Mego Records. He has collaborated with a number of artists, including Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jim O'Rourke, Ulver, David Sylvian, and King Midas Sound.

Fennesz was born and raised in Austria and studied music formally in art school. He started playing guitar around the age of 8 or 9. He initially performed as a member of the Austrian experimental rock band Maische before signing to electronic music label Mego Records as a solo artist. In 1995 he released his first EP Instrument, which explored electro-acoustic and ambient stylings.

In 1997, Fennesz released his debut full-length album Hotel Paral.lel, which saw him delve more explicitly into laptop production and early glitch aesthetics. He followed with the 1998 single Plays, which contained near-unrecognizable covers of the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" and the Beach Boys' "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)". In the following years, he released his second album Plus Forty Seven Degrees 56' 37" Minus Sixteen Degrees 51' 08" and collaborated with a variety of artists, including Peter "Pita" Rehberg and Jim O'Rourke as part of Fenn O'Berg. In 2001, he released his third studio album Endless Summer to widespread critical praise and recognition. He collaborated with figures such as David Sylvian, Keith Rowe, eRikm, Ryuichi Sakamoto in the following years, and released the albums Venice (2004) and Black Sea (2007) to further critical praise.

In 2009 Fennesz teamed up with Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) to create In the Fishtank 15. The following year Fennesz released Szampler, a cassette containing his sample collection on the Tapeworm label. This release was later remixed by Stefan Goldmann and released as Goldmann vs. Fennesz: Remiksz. In 2011, he appeared on the live Ulver release The Norwegian National Opera, contributing guitar and effects to "Not Saved." In November 2013, Fennesz played the final holiday camp edition of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Camber Sands, England. In 2014, he released the studio album B�cs. In 2015, he collaborated with UK group King Midas Sound on the album Editions 1."

"Richard Gavin Bryars (born 16 January 1943) is an English composer and double bassist. He has worked in jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, avant-garde, and experimental music.

Born on 16 January 1943 in Goole, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, Bryars studied philosophy at Sheffield University but became a jazz bassist during his three years as a philosophy student.

The first musical work for which he is remembered was his role as bassist in the trio Joseph Holbrooke, alongside guitarist Derek Bailey and drummer Tony Oxley. The trio began by playing relatively traditional jazz � they toured with saxophonist Lee Konitz in 1966 � before moving into free improvisation. Bryars became dissatisfied with this when he saw a young bassist (later revealed to be Johnny Dyani) play in a manner that seemed to him to be artificial, and he abandoned improvisation, becoming interested in composition instead. In 1998 the trio reformed briefly, giving two live performances and making recordings.

Bryars's first compositions owe much to the New York School of John Cage (with whom he briefly studied), Morton Feldman, Earle Brown and minimalism. One of his earliest pieces, The Sinking of the Titanic (1969), is an indeterminist work that allows the performers to take a number of sound sources related to the sinking of the RMS Titanic and make them into a piece of music. The first recording of this piece appeared on Brian Eno's Obscure Records in 1975. The 1994 recording was remixed by Aphex Twin as Raising the Titanic (later collected on the 26 Mixes for Cash album). In 2012, the centenary of the Titanic's sinking, Bryars made a new extended version, with film projections by Bill Morrison and Laurie Olinder, that included his four children as a low-string ensemble (viola, 2 cellos, bass) and turntablist Philip Jeck, subsequently released on GB records (BCGBCD21 2013)The Sinking of the TitanicDuration: 38 seconds.0:38Sample of The Sinking of the Titanic by Gavin Bryars.Problems playing this file? See media help.

Another well-known early work is Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1971), which has as its basis a recorded loop of a homeless man singing a musical fragment that the old man had improvised. On top of that loop, rich harmonies played by a live ensemble are built, always increasing in density, before the whole thing gradually fades out. A recording of this work was made in 1993 with Tom Waits singing along with the original recording of the vagrant during the final section.

Bryars was a founding member in May 1970 of the Portsmouth Sinfonia, an orchestra whose membership consisted of performers who "embrace the full range of musical competence" � and who played popular classical works. Its members included Brian Eno, whose Obscure Records label would subsequently release works by Bryars. In one of the label's first three releases, Eno's album Discreet Music, Bryars conducted and co-arranged Three Variations on the Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel, which constitutes the second half of the album.

The 1992 composition A Man in a Room Gambling was written on commission from Artangel. Bryars's music is heard beneath monologues spoken by the Spanish artist Juan Mu�oz, who talks about methods of cheating at card games (drawing on The Expert at the Card Table by S. W. Erdnase). The ten short works were played on BBC Radio 3 without any introductory announcements, and Bryars wrote that Mu�oz hoped they would appear to the listener in a similar way to the Shipping Forecast, "bemused by this fleeting and perhaps enigmatic curiosity."

Bryars has written many other works, including five operas, and many instrumental pieces, among them four string quartets and several concertos. He has written several pieces for dance, including Biped (1999) for Merce Cunningham, as well as works for William Forsythe, Carolyn Carlson, Edouard Lock and David Dawson. In 1981�1984 Bryars participated in the CIVIL warS, a vast, never-completed multimedia project by Robert Wilson, who also directed his first opera, Medea. His cello concerto Farewell to Philosophy was recorded in 1996 by Julian Lloyd Webber. He has also written a large body of vocal and choral music for groups such as the Hilliard Ensemble, the Latvian Radio Choir, the Estonian National Men's Choir, Red Byrd, Trio Mediaeval, Singer Pur, Nordic Voices and The Crossing, whose recording of "The Fifth Century" won a Grammy in 2019. He has written a great deal for early music performers including six books of madrigals, several works for viol consort and a collection of 54 "laude" based on a 12th century manuscript.

Bryars' When Harry Met Addie (a tribute to jazz singer Adelaide Hall and saxophonist Harry Carney) was premiered at the Duke Ellington Memorial Concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, on 1 May 1999. The piece was performed by the London Sinfonietta Big Band and commissioned by the baritone saxophonist/bass clarinettist John Surman. Cristina Zavalloni sang the soprano and the London Sinfonietta Big Band was conducted by Diego Masson�

Bryars founded the music department at Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort University), and was Professor of Music there for several years. He left in 1994 to concentrate on composition and performance. He lives in England, and, for part of the year, on the west coast of Canada.

Since 1986 Bryars has run The Gavin Bryars Ensemble with his preferred musicians, consisting chiefly of low strings. Now, in addition, this regularly includes his children (2 cellos, piano and double bass)

Since 1974 Bryars has been a member of the Coll�ge de 'Pataphysique and was elected Regent in 2001. In 2015 he was named Transcendent Satrap, the highest honour in the Coll�ge, a position he shares with Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Eug�ne Ionesco, Umberto Eco, and others.

In 2020, Bryars composed Altissima Luce for Sound World�s Coronavirus Fund for Freelance Musicians, a project supporting struggling musicians during the UK�s Covid 19 lockdown. It was included on the album Reflections alongside specially written pieces by other composers such as Nico Muhly, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Evelyn Glennie and Sally Beamish.

In 2023, Bryars collaborated with Goole band Sandra's Wedding on their new EP, "Another Rugby League Town".

Also in 2023, Bryars provided a special guest vocal for experimental composer Bill Vine's work, "Norwich Under the Water". The piece premiered at Norwich Cathedral in August 2023.

In November 2024, Bryars received the Ivor Novello Award for Innovation, presented in association with the Musicians' Union, at The Ivors Classical Awards."

"Christopher Richard Watson (born 21 November 1953) is an English musician and sound recordist. A founding member of the Sheffield-based industrial band Cabaret Voltaire, Watson's subsequent work in field recordings since 1981 has included television documentaries and experimental musical collaborations."

"Claire M Singer is a composer and performer of acoustic and electronic music, film and installations. Known for her experimental approach to the organ her work draws inspiration from the dramatic landscape of her native Scotland, exploring rich harmonic textures and complex overtones that create ever-shifting melodic and rhythmic patterns disappearing almost as soon as they emerge. Her three critically acclaimed releases on Touch feature Singer playing both organ and cello ('..each piece is timeless and genuinely magical' - The Quietus). Performances include Queen Elizabeth Hall; Glasgow Cathedral; Tate Modern; Westerkerk opening for Low and the Barbican opening for Stars of the Lid. The Guardian wrote 'Claire M Singer really knows how to wring the best out of this magnificent instrument, creating moments of sustained rapture' Her solo organ work The Molendinar featured in The New York Times '5 Minutes That Will Make You Love the Organ'.

Awards include the Oram Award in 2017 for her innovation in sound and music and the Festival Castell de Peralada Award for best film score in 2019 (Tell It To The Bees). In 2020 her work Gleann Ciùin was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award, which was commissioned by the London Contemporary Orchestra. Recent projects include a collaboration with Chris Watson for organ, field recordings, orchestra and choir premiering at her festival Organ Reframed at Union Chapel in 2022.

Singer has been Music Director of the organ at the award-winning venue Union Chapel in Islington, London since 2012. In 2016 she founded the only festival of its kind in the UK, Organ Reframed, which focuses on commissioning and presenting innovative new experimental music, which re-imagines the organ for both artist and audience. Past commissions include Éliane Radigue, Low, Hildur Guðnadóttir and Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie."

"Faith Coloccia is an American artist and musician. She is most known as being the founding member and primary songwriter for the post-rock band Mamiffer. Coloccia has also been a member of Everlovely Lightningheart, Pyramids, House of Low Culture and Split Cranium. In 2009, she co-founded the independent record label SIGE Records with her husband Aaron Turner (Isis, Sumac)."

"The David Sylvian that fronted new wave pop band Japan wore luminescent hair and glam make-up; on the cover of his solo debut, 1984's Brilliant Trees, he was stylish and refined, a gentleman popster. But the illustration that introduces 2003's Blemish sends a different message: he's bedraggled and unshaven, his far-off expression turned haunted. The new millennium has seen a more serious Sylvian, several steps further along on his musical journey and seeking new sounds to explain new traumas.

While Japan started off as one of many '70s New Romantic bands, they made an unpredictable break with their hit "Ghosts" - a searching and evocative single where spare rhythms and fleeting electronic sounds lay under Sylvian's smouldering tenor. "Writing 'Ghosts' was a turning point for me," Sylvian recalls. "So much of what we created with Japan was built upon artifice. With that song I'd felt I'd had the breakthrough I was looking for. I'd touched upon something true to myself and expressed it in a way that didn't leave me feeling overly vulnerable. In the coming years I'd forget about all notions of vulnerability, opening up the material to a greater emotional intensity. I knew that I had to find my own voice, both figuratively and literally."

On his solo records of the '80s, Sylvian's explorations in music took him from the pop-funk, stylish jazz and windswept exotica of 1984's Brilliant Trees; the ambient landscapes and epic ballads of 1985's Gone to Earth; and the romantic orchestrations of 1987's Secrets of the Beehive. His collaborators included leaders of progressive music, from jazzmen such as Mark Isham, John Taylor and Kenny Wheeler to the rock and fusion guitarists Robert Fripp, Bill Nelson, and David Torn. All three albums married strong melodies to intricate atmospheres.

"The details are what always interested me. And so I just began to spend more and more time on those details, until they came to the forefront of the material-textures and atmospherics. I began to elaborate on those more and more and push the rhythmic element a little bit further back."

Other projects from that period included ambient works with trumpeter Jon Hassell and Can alumnus Holger Czukay, as well as a collection of photographic collages titled Perspectives, whose exhibition in Tokyo sparked the documentary video, Preparations For a Journey. Regular collaborations with composer and Yellow Magic Orchestra star Ryuichi Sakamoto yielded Sylvian's first international hit, "Forbidden Colours."

In the early '90s, Sylvian embarked on a series of acclaimed tours with Robert Fripp, leading to their 1993 studio release 'The First Day' as well as their 1994 multi-media installation 'Redemption - Approaching Silence' in Tokyo's P3 gallery. This followed Sylvian's first foray into the world of art installations in 1990, when in collaboration with Russell Mills, Sylvian created the installation entitled 'Ember Glance (the permanence of memory)' also held in Tokyo. And 1991 saw the release of Rain Tree Crow, a Japan reunion under a different name. But Sylvian grew less prolific as the decade wore on, enjoying his new marriage to Ingrid Chavez and taking four years to finish 1999's Dead Bees on a Cake. As seductive yet eclectic as any of his prior work, Dead Bees included the hit single "I Surrender," where Sylvian crafts an eye-openingly beautiful vessel around his spiritual journey. Immediately following Dead Bees on a Cake, Sylvian also released a retrospective of his work titled Everything and Nothing, a re-arrangement and re-evaluation of his career dating back to Japan.

Sylvian's work with his spiritual teachers has led him through a rigorous process of study and self-examination. Says Sylvian, "I've never come across anything that is as pinpoint accurate as the message you get through the guru. You go through this process with other people who have common goals, you see them confronting their fears, the tests that they're put through, and you look at the manner in which they're tested and think, 'I could handle that.' But when the opportunity for you to learn from your fears comes along, it's like, 'Jesus Christ, give me any other lesson you choose, but not that one.'"

His determination to confront his vulnerabilities led to arguably his most powerful album to date, 2003's Blemish. Recorded in his home studio in six weeks, with contributions received via the Internet from improv legend Derek Bailey and electronica artist Christian Fennesz, Blemish captured Sylvian in the process of breaking up with his wife. "I wanted to get into those difficult emotions, and penetrate them as deeply as I felt I was capable of doing, in the security of that working space. So although there were elements of my life that were bringing all these negative emotions to the fore, what I was doing in the studio was taking them further - whereas in life we try to restrain them, we hold them back. We don't allow ourselves to go too far with it because they feel dangerous, they feel threatening," says Sylvian. "Living through these emotions was very difficult, but finding a voice for them was so cathartic. After that six-week period, I'd felt I'd worked through some very difficult emotions. I felt an enormous amount of release."

Blemish also marked the debut of his own independent label, SamadhiSound. "I think of [SamadhiSound] as being global, and not necessarily based in the States. It's stretched between the States, Europe, and Japan. I think nowadays it doesn't really matter where we are physically located. We create our own culture around us to a large extent, whether it's what we're listening to, what we're watching, what we're reading - it can have very little to do with one's immediate cultural environment. We are in a global culture in that respect." Samadhi has featured artists from around the world, including new releases by Sweet Billy Pilgrim, Harold Budd, Thomas Feiner, and David Toop, and the last studio recordings by Derek Bailey. This reach is also borne out in a remix album, The Only Daughter, where pieces from Blemish are reinterpreted by artists including Burnt Friedman, Sweet Billy Pilgrim, and Jan Bang and Erik Honoré.

Most of the pieces on Blemish depart from traditional pop song forms, a process that began all the way back with "Ghosts" and that continues in his solo work. More recently, he has also released Snow Borne Sorrow and Money for All, an LP and EP from the band Nine Horses. Nine Horses is a trio that includes his brother and regular collaborator Steve Jansen and electronica artist Burnt Friedman, as well as contributions from singer Stina Nordenstem, trumpeter Arve Henriksen, and Ryuichi Sakamoto on piano. Alluring and urbane, the project's trip-hop textures belie its troubled lyrics, inspired by both personal affairs and world concerns. His single with Sakamoto, "World Citizen" - recently featured on the soundtrack to the film Babel - bluntly captures his concerns as a global artist living in post-9/11 America. "It wasn't my natural inclination to get into writing protest songs. But it was a request from Ryuichi to give it a bash. And I felt that there was very little dissent being vocalized in the States," says Sylvian. "I feel furious at what's being done in the name of the American people."

In 2009, the project that began in Blemish continues with Manafon, an album that assembles the world's leading free improvisers, including Evan Parker, Keith Rowe, Fennesz, Sachiko M, Otomo Yoshihide, and John Tilbury, among several others. In small ensembles, the improvisers create backdrops for the skeletal songs, and challenge the relationship between improvisation and composition, ensembles and lead voices, and intimacy and solitude. Lyrically challenging, it is also one of the most astonishingly and unpredictably beautiful works Sylvian has produced.

Most recently Sylvian revisited the presentation of his music in forms beyond the CD. 'When loud weather buffeted Naoshima' was commissioned by the Naoshima Fukutake Art Museum Foundation on the island of Naoshima, Japan, as part of the NAOSHIMA STANDARD 2 exhibition which ran from Oct 2006 to April 2007. The composition was site specific. In fact, Sylvian has said that the work isn't really complete until the sounds of the town Honmura are incorporated into the listening experience. The piece has since been added to the foundation's permanent collection. In 2009, Sylvian collaborated with composer Dai Fujikura and a small ensemble on the audio installation "When we return you won't recognize us," located on Gran Canaria of the Canary Islands. The work was inspired by a 2003 genetics research article focusing on the Canary Islands, which discovered that despite Spanish colonization and the slave trade, fully half to three-quarters of the population retains its aboriginal genetic lineage. As Sylvian writes, "My interest lay in the connection between the physical or scientific reality of our biological make-up, the links to lineage (genetic genealogy), location and, to move beyond the realm of science into intuitive logic, the interior life of a community or people. An implied cultural heritage."

With the release of Manafon, Sylvian continues to confront the challenges, both personal and global, that have enriched his work for three decades. And he continues to follow this path - with patience, perseverance, and beauty.
"-Chris Dahlen

"John Joseph Wardle (born 11 August 1958), known by the stage name Jah Wobble, is an English bass guitarist and singer. He became known to a wider audience as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd (PiL) in the late 1970s and early 1980s; he left the band after two albums.

Following his departure from PiL, he developed a solo career. In 2012, he reunited with fellow PiL guitarist Keith Levene for Metal Box in Dub and the album Yin & Yang. Since 2013, he has been one of the featured pundits on Sunday morning's The Virtual Jukebox segment of BBC Radio 5 Live's Up All Night with Dotun Adebayo. His autobiography, Memoirs of a Geezer, was published in 2009."

"Mark Sanders has played with many renowned musicians including Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Derek Bailey, Henry Grimes, Roswell Rudd, Peter Brotzmann, Barry Guy, Otomo Yoshihide, Jah Wobble, Sidsel Endresen , Charles Gayle, Peter Evans and William Parker. He works with John Edwards in a duo and with groups including Evan Parker, `Foils` with Frank Paul Schubert and Matthius Muller and groups with Veryan Weston, John Tilbury, Agusti Fernandez and Mathew Shipp. Mark works in a regular improvising duo with John Butcher and also performing John`s composition `Tarab Cuts` which has played festivals in Rio de Janiero, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Glasgow, Bristol and London. In a trio with cellist Okkyung Lee, John and Mark have played in Belgium, France, England and Scotland. He also has a longstanding duo with Sarah Gail Brand which has featured on the BBC`s `The Stuart Lee Show`and in the film `Taking the dog for a Walk`.

He has performed solo for a Christian Marclay exhibition at The White Cube Gallery in London, Evan Parker`s festival`Unwhitstable` in Wroclaw, Poland for `Solos Festival` The 100 Years Gallery London, an improvised music series in Derby and Cafe Oto in London. Working with Christian Marclay in his `Everyday` piece for film and live music, he has performed in Aldeburgh, Ruhr Trienalle, Vienna Bienalle, Holland festival and London`s QEH and has also collaborated with him playing for the film `Screenplay`in London and Lisbon. In situations using composition in one form or another Mark works in various projects including `13 Vices` with Brian Irvine/Jennifer Walshe, Alex Hawkins Ensemble featuring Peter Evans, Simon Fell Ensembe, groups with Hasse Poulsen and Luc Ex , Sarah Sarhandi`s `Both Universe`, Elaine Mitchener`s `Sweet Tooth` and has played in the groups of Shabaka Hutchings including`Sons of Kemet` Conceptual Artist Sam Belinfante collaborated with Mark in his piece `On the One Hand, and the Other` in two exhibitions at Camden Arts Centre, London For Conceptual artist Henrik Hakensen`s film `The End` he has performed as an improvising soloist with orchestras conductedd by Jessica Cottis, playing the music of John Coxon in Glasgow, Sydney and Monte Carlo As a guest with New York`s ICE Ensemble he has performed John Zorn`s `The Tempest` in London and at Huddersfield New Music Festival.

Mark also works in the groups of Paul Dunmall including Deep Whole Trio with Paul Rogers, in duo and `Frisque Concordance` with Georg Graewe , and the ensembles of Mikolaj Trzaska, Uwe Oberg and Peter Jaquemyn. He has performed in the USA, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Morrocco, South Africa, Australia, Mozambique and Turkey, playing at many major festivals including Nickelsdorf, Riga, Ulrichsburg, Glastonbury, Womad, Vancouver, Isle of Wight, Roskilde, Berlin Jazz days, FMP, Mulhouse, Luz, Minniapolis, Banlieue Bleues, Son D`hiver and Hurta Cordel."

"Jana Winderen is an artist based in Norway with a background in mathematics, chemistry and fish ecology. Her practice pays particular attention to audio environments and to creatures which are hard for humans to access, both physically and aurally - deep under water, inside ice or in frequency ranges inaudible to the human ear. Her activities include site-specific and spatial audio installations and concerts, which have been exhibited and performed internationally in major institutions and public spaces. Recent work includes The Art of Listening: Underwater at Lenfest Center for the Arts, Colombia University, New York, Listening through the Dead Zones for IHME, Helsinki, The Art of Listening: Underwater for Audemar Piguet at Art Basel, Miami, Rising Tide at Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo, Listening with Carp for Now is the Time in Wuzhen, Through the Bones for Thailand Art Biennale in Krabi, bára for TBA21_Academy, Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone for Sonic Acts, Dive in Park Avenue Tunnel in New York and Ultrafield for MoMA, New York. In 2011 she won the Golden Nica at Ars Electronica for Digital Musics & Sound Art. She releases her audio-visual work on Touch (UK)."