[Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American composer and instrumentalist.]

"Genius is a rare commodity in any art form, but at the end of the 20th century it seemed all but non-existent in jazz, a music that had ceased looking ahead and begun swallowing its tail. If it seemed like the music had run out of ideas, it might be because Anthony Braxton covered just about every conceivable area of creativity during the course of his extraordinary career. The multi-reedist/composer might very well be jazz's last bona fide genius. Braxton began with jazz's essential rhythmic and textural elements, combining them with all manner of experimental compositional techniques, from graphic and non-specific notation to serialism and multimedia. Even at the peak of his renown in the mid- to late '70s, Braxton was a controversial figure amongst musicians and critics. His self-invented (yet heavily theoretical) approach to playing and composing jazz seemed to have as much in common with late 20th century classical music as it did jazz, and therefore alienated those who considered jazz at a full remove from European idioms. Although Braxton exhibited a genuine -- if highly idiosyncratic -- ability to play older forms (influenced especially by saxophonists Warne Marsh, John Coltrane, Paul Desmond, and Eric Dolphy), he was never really accepted by the jazz establishment, due to his manifest infatuation with the practices of such non-jazz artists as John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Many of the mainstream's most popular musicians (Wynton Marsalis among them) insisted that Braxton's music was not jazz at all. Whatever one calls it, however, there is no questioning the originality of his vision; Anthony Braxton created music of enormous sophistication and passion that was unlike anything else that had come before it. Braxton was able to fuse jazz's visceral components with contemporary classical music's formal and harmonic methods in an utterly unselfconscious -- and therefore convincing -- way. The best of his work is on a level with any art music of the late 20th century, jazz or classical.

Braxton began playing music as a teenager in Chicago, developing an early interest in both jazz and classical musics. He attended the Chicago School of Music from 1959-1963, then Roosevelt University, where he studied philosophy and composition. During this time, he became acquainted with many of his future collaborators, including saxophonists Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell. Braxton entered the service and played saxophone in an Army band; for a time he was stationed in Korea. Upon his discharge in 1966, he returned to Chicago where he joined the nascent Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). The next year, he formed an influential free jazz trio, the Creative Construction Company, with violinist Leroy Jenkins and trumpeter Leo Smith. In 1968, he recorded For Alto, the first-ever recording for solo saxophone. Braxton lived in Paris for a short while beginning in 1969, where he played with a rhythm section comprised of bassist Dave Holland, pianist Chick Corea, and drummer Barry Altschul. Called Circle, the group stayed together for about a year before disbanding (Holland and Altschul would continue to play in Braxton-led groups for the next several years). Braxton moved to New York in 1970. The '70s saw his star rise (in a manner of speaking); he recorded a number of ambitious albums for the major label Arista and performing in various contexts. Braxton maintained a quartet with Altschul, Holland, and a brass player (either trumpeter Kenny Wheeler or trombonist George Lewis) for most of the '70s. During the decade, he also performed with the Italian free improvisation group Musica Elettronica Viva, and guitarist Derek Bailey, as well as his colleagues in AACM. The '80s saw Braxton lose his major-label deal, yet he continued to record and issue albums on independent labels at a dizzying pace. He recorded a memorable series of duets with bop pioneer Max Roach, and made records of standards with pianists Tete Montoliu and Hank Jones. Braxton's steadiest vehicle in the '80s and '90s -- and what is often considered his best group -- was his quartet with pianist Marilyn Crispell, bassist Mark Dresser, and drummer Gerry Hemingway. In 1985, he began teaching at Mills College in California; he subsequently joined the music faculty at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where he taught through the '90s. During that decade, he received a large grant from the MacArthur Foundation that allowed him to finance some large-scale projects he'd long envisioned, including an opera. At the beginning of the 21st century, Braxton was still a vital presence on the creative music scene."

"John Olson is an American experimental musician, visual artist and writer from Detroit, Michigan. Olson is mostly known for his involvement with the noise rock band Wolf Eyes. His music is often made with handmade woodwind and brass instruments, various electronics, usually processed using effect units.

In an interview with City Pulse, Olson said he was inspired to begin playing music after being invited to a punk gig in their hometown of Lansing, Michigan. In 1991, John Olson started the label American Tapes. Olson was a founding member of the band Universal Indians in 1993.

In 2000 he joined Wolf Eyes, after his bandmate from Universal Indians, Aaron Dilloway, invited him for a studio session.

In 2003, he started the duo Dead Machines along with his wife Tovah Olson (née O'Rourke). This went on to become Olson's most successful project after Wolf Eyes.

In 2016, he published Life Is a Ripoff, a book of 365 record reviews, on Third Man Books. The reviews included range from extreme metal to obscure Christian records.

Olson's Instagram account Inzanejohnny has gained popularity for its "chaotic shitposting", the leading alternative weekly newspaper Now to call Olson "some sort of bizarro influencer."

Olson started the American Tapes label in 1991, which publishes Olson's own music and the music of other experimental artists. As of 2007, the label had over 700 releases. The label is known for the unique design of the tape cases, made of various media collages and abstract shapes and also their elaborate packaging in early days. Due to their limited runs of releases, the label became a target for collectors."

"Nate Young (b. 1977, Mansfield, MO) is a Detroit-based musician working in experimental electronic sound for over twenty years. In 1998, Young founded legendary noise group Wolf Eyes. Solo and as Wolf Eyes, Young has toured the world, released countless records, collaborated with Anthony Braxton and Marshall Allen, and inspired a generation of electronic musicians. Recent accomplishments include performing his compositions with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and creating Trip Metal Fest, an annual free experimental music festival in Detroit entering its fourth year of programming that has brought luminaries such as Morton Subotnick and the Art Ensemble of Chicago to Detroit. In 2016, Young co-created (with John Olson) the record label Lower Floor Music, an imprint of Warp Records.

In the Regression series-Regression (2009), Stay Asleep (2011), Other Days (2012), Blinding Confusion (2013)-Young drew a compositional aesthetic from Italian library music and musique concrète. Since then, Young has been interpreting the traditional musical methods of rhythm and melody into complex synthesizer compositions. These songs were commonly made as a distraction from grief, seasonal depression, and isolation. Sometimes severely ridiculous and unrelenting other times slow, sparse and strange, this material didn't fit in with the Regression series. It was archived and unreleased until now. Nate Young Volume One: Dilemmas Of Identity will be released February, 2019 on Lower Floor Music."