« 2011 Festival

In order of appearance!

Monika Brooks
Monica Brooks hails from the mountain tops of the western plains, primarily focusing on the relationship termites have to astronomical phenomena such as the aurora australis. Monica is often found playing few notes in slow succession on the piano accordion in West Head Project, Splinter Orchestra, Mayas/Altman/Brooks Trio, and made Z grade celebrity status in the band formerly known as Ubercube. She also amuses herself with radios and guitar pedals in a trio with Anna Vo and Nadene Pita. Monica on occasion delves deep into the superficial habitats of indie music as a perpetual novice of the piano and computer, and thoroughly enjoys a good yodel with other beer-swilling slags around the Sydney sub-tropics. Monica has made a number of attempts to transform into an artist/sound sculptor, and used to spell her name with a ‘k’ to appear more exotic.

Sam Pettigrew
You were born on the back seat of your parents honda in the car park of paddington women’s hospital on the 12 of January 1989. That makes you 22 now. Your dad wanted to call you Civic Pettigrew, but your mum wouldn’t let it happen. One time you made an alter ego, but you prefer playing double bass.

Rishin Singh
Rishin is an improvising trombonist whose current projects include playing with The Splinter Orchestra, and Black Cracker (with Jon Watts). He also performs with the Sydney klezmer band: Black Vat Trio.

Jim Denley
born Bulli, Australia 22/1/57
www.splitrec.com
An emphasis on spontaneity, site-specific work and collaboration has been central to his work. He sees no clear distinctions between his roles as instrumentalist, improviser and composer. Collaborations, his radio feature for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation won the Prix Italia in 1989. His interest in radio has continued with the ABC over 20 years. His Cd Through Fire, Crevice and the Hidden Valley, recorded in the Budawang Mountains, received an Honorary mention in the Digital Musics category of the Prix Ars Electronica 2008. In 1990 he was a member of Derek Bailey’s Company for a week of concerts in London. He co-founded with the electro-acoustic text/music group Machine for Making Sense. In 2006 and 2007 he received a Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts to research and develop his concept of Meta instrument. He has played throughout Australia, Europe, Japan and the US with artists such as Maggie Nichols, Kari Rønnekleiv, Stevie Wishart, Sidsel Endresen, Thembi Soddell, Natasha Anderson, Monika Brooks, Clare Cooper, Tess de Quincy, Ami Yoshida, Amanda Stewart, Ikue Mori, Satchiko M, and Annette Krebs. With MURAL, (Kim Myhr and Ingar Zach) he played in March 2010 the Rothko Chapel in Houston. A CD of that concert will be released in 2011.

Reuben Derrick *NZ*
Reuben has been working in New Zealand and Australia since 1997 as a freelance performer and music teacher. Recent performance highlights were at music festivals in Australia (the Now Now) and New Zealand (Bomb the Space, Wellington Jazz Festival, New Zealand International Jazz and Blues Festival, Fredstock). These performances ranged from large conceptual ensembles to solo improvisations and spontaneously formed groups to well rehearsed units, with instrumentalists, vocalists and electro-acoustic artists. In 2007 he recorded an album of solo improvisations on saxophone and clarinet, “Peeping Behind the Bucket” (http://reubenderrick.bandcamp.com), and formed the group, “The Crust”. This group performed original arrangements of compositions by Steve Lacy and recorded an album in 2008 following a successful New Zealand tour (http://thecrust.bandcamp.com). In 2009 he spent a month in Sri Lanka with three other improvisers from New Zealand (one of these a native Sri Lankan) to collaborate with three traditional ritual artists. This ambitious project was a success and the group “Baliphonics” hope to do further performances in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. More recently Reuben played in several performances of a new composition for dancer and small ensemble, featuring improvisation between the musicians and dancer. Recently he has been recording and performing in outdoor soundscapes. This particular project will be extended during 2011 in collaboration with Richard Nunns, who is an expert in traditional Maori instruments.

Simon Ferenci
Simon Ferenci is a trumpet player from Sydney who was a finalist in the National Jazz Awards at the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz in 2003 and again in 2010. His main project as a leader is the Simon Ferenci Quartet which also features Hugh Barrett on piano, Mike Majkowski on bass and James Waples on drums. He plays in other jazz/improvised groups including the Splinter Orchestra, Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra, Paul Derricott’s Arrow, and also in many latin/rock/funk/soul etc bands.

Milica Stefanovic
A fretless bass, a few pegs and some chains. That’s where it all began. Milica is a musician, composer, songwriter, tutor and industry type who has been active in the Sydney music scene for over 15 years. She is a graduate of the Newtown High School of the Performing Arts and in 2000 completed a Bachelor of Arts (Music) Honours degree at the University of Western Sydney, majoring in Composition and Performance. One of Sydney’s most sought after bass guitarists, Milica has toured nationally and internationally with acts such as Extended Family, MA, Wons Phreely, Genevieve Maynard, Kaya, Peregrine and the Michael Henry Trio. She is currently working on a new songwriting project called Honeytree. Milica is also one of the only remaining long-term members of the Splinter Orchestra. Respect.

Evan Dorrian *ACT*
Evan is an Australian improvising musician and sound artist. Using the drum kit and percussion as sound sources, he pulls apart the traditional notions of his acoustic instruments and reconstructs them as pure sound matter and busted anti-rhythm. His main projects are Spartak; an electro-acoustic duo that sees 60’s fire music and post-punk drift in dub ambience while Pollen Trio is an exploratory outfit that is founded on melodic song-form and textural improvisation. Alongside this work, Evan has also collaborated with Australian jazz figures such as Adam Simmons, Cameron Deyell, Abel Cross and Miroslav Bukovksy; tireless improvisers like Dave Brown and Mike Cooper as well as electronic sound sculptors including Seaworthy, Andrew Pekler and Adrian Klumpes.
www.myspace.com/evandorrian

Natasha Anderson *MELB *
NATASHA ANDERSON is a Melbourne composer and musician working internationally across a number of genres. She creates live electro-acoustic and audiovisual performances, composes acousmatic and classical works, builds sound installations, and works as a composer and sound designer for dance and theatre. Recently she has performed with Thymolphthalein at the Music Unlimited Festival (Austria) and SWR New Jazz Meeting (Germany), had a residency at the Montalvo Arts Center (California) and been commissioned to write a solo cello and electronics piece for Judith Hamann (Golden Fur) and an electroacoustic work for cochlear implant users (the Bionic Ear Institute). Her improvisation (Morphallaxis) with Jerome Noetinger and Amanda Stewart at MIBEM was chosen by the ABC to be Australia’s entry in the 2009 International Rostrum of Composers.

Ben Byrne *MELB *
Ben Byrne is an artist, musician, curator, researcher, tutor, producer and writer. He has performed extensively in Australia and overseas, both solo and in various groups, and has just released Disposition on his own label Avantwhatever. His solo performances of visceral improvisation represent a conscious and thorough consideration of the laptop as instrument, focus on the relationship between the musician and his equipment as it plays out in any given space and ask the audience to chart their own path as the music constantly emerges from and disappears into a mess of signals, actions and noise.
http://www.avantwhatever.com/


Amanda Stewart
Amanda Stewart is a Sydney based poet, vocalist and intermedia artist. She has collaborated with a diversity of musicians and film, radio, dance and theatre makers including Chris Abrahams, Tess De Quincey, Cor Fuhler, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Ikue Mori, Norie Neumark, Jon Rose and Ute Volker and is a co-founder of the Australian ensemble, Machine For Making Sense (with Jim Denley, Chris Mann, Rik Rue and Stevie Wishart). Her CD/Book set of selected solo works, I/T is available from Split Records.

YAN JUN *BEIJING*
Working on realm of sound and words…… Yan was born in Lanzhou in 1973, now based in Beijing. B.A. of Chinese Literature…… Yan’s live performance engages space feedback, loop and voice/language to make hypnotic noise. He also doing filed recording and related sound art. Yan runs the label Sub Jam since 1998. In 2004 he co-founded KwanYin Records for experimental music and sound exploration…… He runs Waterland Kwanyin, a weekly event of experimental music and sound since 2005, and the annual festival Mini Midi…… He had published 5 essay collections about Chinese new music and 3 poetry collections……
http://www.yanjun.org/
myspace.com/yanjunyanjun

SKY NEEDLE
http://eternalsoundcheck.blogspot.com/search/label/SKY%20NEEDLE
Brisbane’s Sky Needle are one of the best experimental noise pop bands in Australia right now. They create a completely unique take on pop convention where the instruments involved are invented and constructed by the band themselves. What results is pure alien space noise from the cosmic junkyard.
Sky Needle are:
Joel Stern
Ross Manning
Alex Cuffe
Sarah Byrne

Peter Blamey
Peter has been doing performances and making installations for quite a while now, and looks like continuing to do so for the foreseeable future. His work largely revolves around notions of open electronics, where recovered and re-deployed electrical components are used in simple open, short, and long-circuit formations to explore ideas of connection, feedback and re-use. It can get quite noisy.
www.myspace.com/pblamey

Rosalind Hall *MELB*
Rosalind Hall is an artist who is interested in the collaborative experience and experimental approaches to music making. She makes modifications to the saxophone that radically changes the sound of and approach to the instrument. Rosalind crafts individual reeds from many materials, transforming the reed into a sensitive and volatile sound source whose properties are ever changing. She also uses objects in the bell so that with each preparation and reed the vibrations and playing techniques are altered, creating a unique dialogue between the player and the instrument.
www.myspace.com/rosalindhall

Alice Hui-Sheng Chang *MELB*
Extended vocal technique has been Alice Hui-Sheng Chang’s main focus since end of 2003. She improvises with extended vocal technique in hope of evoking a psychological connection to the indescribable feelings. Her work explores various combinations of layering and interactivity of extended techniques via interaction with the soundscape and acoustic properties of the environment, with attention to visual and spatial associations. Through these sounding, movement and listening experiments, she explored condensing and extracting of inner energy, in-site and spatialisation between collaborators, as well as the harmony and dissonance between them.
http://huishengchang.com/

ROSALIND AND ALICE
Attending to breathing spaces and mouth details, Alice Hui-Sheng Chang and Rosalind Hall experiment with similarities between abstract voice and saxophone. Rosalind is interested in making modifications to the saxophone that changes the sound of and approach to the instrument while Alice focuses on developing extended vocal technique as a means for improvisation and communication. The pair have been collaborating since 2008 via a cross-continent collaboration, playing together and creating recordings while being located in different parts of the world. They now both live in Melbourne and are continuing to experiment with various performance forms and approaches.
www.myspace.com/aliceandrosalind

John Blades
A founding member of The Loop Orchestra with Richard Fielding in 1982. Has presented experimental music on Sydney radio since 1982 on 2 MBS FM and has produced six special feature programs for radio national since 1994. He currently presents Background Noise With Richard Fielding on 2 MBS FM. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/360/stories/2009/2762394.htm#transcript

Dragon Generation:Word Salad – John Blades
A Text Sound Composition .Based on randomly created words by Dragon Naturally Speaking speech recognition software.

Chris Abrahams
Chris was born in Oamaru, New Zealand but grew up in Sydney, Australia.
He became very active in the Sydney jazz scene in the early eighties playing with modern jazz groups including Mark Simmonds’ Freeboppers and The Keys Music Orchestra. With Lloyd Swanton he formed the 60’s modern jazz-influenced The Benders in 1982. The band broke up in 1985 after having released three albums - E, False Laughter and Distance. In 1984 Chris recorded and released his first solo piano album - Piano, followed in 1986 by Walk. In 1985 Chris became a founding member of the Sydney indie rock band The Sparklers. As a result of this, Chris began working regularly with the singer and songwriter Melanie Oxley. Chris collaborated with Melanie, writing songs and producing albums, throughout the nineties. There are five releases with her: Resisting Calm (1990), Welcome to Violet (1992), Coal (1994), Jerusalem Bay (1998) and Blood Oranges (2003). Chris released a third solo piano album Glow in 2001. This was followed in 2003 by Streaming, and Thrown in 2004. Chris has collaborated, in both recording and performance, with many contemporary improvising musicians including Burkhard Beins, Mike Cooper and Anthony Pateras. He performs regularly in the improvising music scenes both in Australia and Europe.

Mike Majkowski,
born in Camperdown, 1983, is a double bassist working in the broad field of improvised music.
A founding member of The Splinter Orchestra, Mike is a longtime devotee of Sydney’s improvising/exploratory music community and has curated a number of concerts around town, including NOW now events.
Projects include: SOLO, ROIL (with Chris Abrahams + James Waples), BLIP (with Jim Denley), STRIKE (with Jon Rose + Clayton Thomas).
www.myspace.com/mikemajkowski

James Waples

ROIL
ROIL is a collaboration between pianist Chris Abrahams, bassist Mike Majkowski, and drummer James Waples. Formed in 2007, this Sydney-based trio has been developing their own approach to jazz improvisation. There is a controlled elegance to Roil’s music — not that this precludes the energetic. The music has an eddying quality that moves between group utterance and multi–stranded counterpoint, a weaving of textures that coagulate to form unified phrases before dispersing once more into the churning invention.
www.myspace.com/roilmeaning

Matt Warren
Matt Warren is a time-based media artist and musician who has exhibited and performed in Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, New Zealand and the USA. Matt’s music and sound activities include the solo projects mumble(speak), which toured Australia in 2010, and Broken Tiny, as well as the psyche/drone duo Untermorast, industrial/metal duo M.O.I.O (Machines Of Indeterminate Origin) and the improvisational electronic music trio TRIAD, with whom he completed a 2009 Australian tour. He has also recorded and performed in collaboration with Concrete Lung, Scot Cotterell, Eli Crews, Tom Hall, Leigh Hobba, Beth Lisick, Damo Suzuki and Jean-Yves Thériault amongst others. http://www.mattwarren.com.au

Tim Panaretos
Tim Panaretos is a Hobart-based artist and musician whose chief weapon is the Greek bouzouki. Tim began performing in public relatively recently but already counts a noise rock band and the electro-acoustic improvisational trio Soundtracks Will Dissolve amongst his previous projects; he has also appeared on stage with Damo Suzuki and Eugene Chadbourne. Outside of the psyche/drone duo Untermorast, Tim is developing a solo practice that blends influences as diverse as free jazz and noise, Improv, folk, psyche, minimalism, avant-rock and metal, all underscored by a love of Greek Rembetika music from the first half of the Twentieth Century. http://www.blacktunings.wordpress.com

UNTERMORAST
Matt Warren - processed vocal utterances, textures, effects.
Tim Panaretos - electric trichordo bouzouki, laptop/effects.
Based in Hobart, Untermorast began late in 2009 as a psych-drone duo with influences ranging from black metal, doom and industrial to psychedelic, ambient, 20th century minimalism and improvised music. The two artists share a love of atmospherics and their initial output was quite bleak, with a sense of ritualism and spaciousness having crept in to their soundscapes more recently. www.myspace.com/untermorast

Cleptoclectics
Cleptoclectics: Variable Drone Beats, Swinging Interval Meditations, Syncopated Granulation Edits

Peon
Peon smashes your soul with sawtooth subs, slippery sinewaves and salivating squelches, seducing you with sexy songs.

48/4
48/4, he’s a beast, he’s a dog, he’s a mutha fuckin problem.

Jenson Brewster
More booty more bass: Jenson Brewster is to electronic music what Tom
Jones is to middle-aged women. Beats that thunder more than a
quake and basslines which make Jaco Pastouris sound like a pansy.

“Cleptoclectics+Peon+48/4+Jensen Brewster”
www.104.net

Tony Buck
Australia’s foremost percussionist, Tony has been living in Europe for 12 years, performing and recording with every major improviser of the last two decades. His phenomenal technique and deeply personal language are a blessing to behold.

Magda Mayas

Buck/Mayas duo
http://www.myspace.com/tonybuckandmagdamayas

Joel Stern *BRIS*
Multi-instrumentalist, field recordings, electronic and acoustic instruments, improviser and composer, and organiser of Audiopollen, OtherFilm, Glee Club. In the early 00s Joel collaborated with many of the Japanese and English artists connected to the ‘reductionist’ and ‘onkyo’ movements in London. In Australia, Joel’s most notable work includes his electro-acoustic duo with Anthony Guerra (resulting in numerous cd releases) expanded cinema work with Sally Golding as Abject Leader (touring NZ, USA and Australia). Recently, Joel has been a central player in the burgeoning Brisbane underground scene (featured in the Wire, Signal to Noise), and has had work exhibited as part of Watthaus for festivals such as Brisbane International Arts Festival and Restrung. (www.abjectleader.org/joel/joeldiscogography.htm)
http://www.naturestrip.com/reviews%20pages/propsreviews.htm

Alex White
Alex is artist, musician, arts facilitator and community worker. As a laptop musician he has performed in many Australian sound based festivals and events over the past 5 years including Liquid Architecture, Electrofringe, Impermanent Audio, Disorientation, High Reflections, Now Now and Stutter. Alex’s music is a balance of improvisation built upon and melded with algorithmic and feedback systems utilising micro sections of single audio files over manipulated into chaos and instability. Alongside his music. As an organiser Alex has co-directed the 2007 and 2008 Electrofringe festivals, co-directed the 2008 Sydney Liquid Architecture Festival, co-directed Serial Space 2009 - 2010 and produces the monthly series High Reflections with Caleb K. Alex initiated and assists the development of the Lion Mountain Studio project.
www.myspace.com/alexwhiteautoclave
http://soundcloud.com/alex-white
http://www.lionmountain.org/

The Splinter Orchestra
The Splinter Orchestra are one of the few large-scale improvisational ensembles working in Australia, or anywhere else for that matter.
Formed in 2003, the group has comprised of up to 50 members. Made up of individuals from the improvised music scene, electronic musicians, sound artists and those who are involved in environmental sound and field recording, the Splinter Orchestra create a stark minimalism despite their large number – without any leaders or conductors.
The group aims for graceful tension, restraint and simplicity. They are intent on becoming one instrument
The current festival lineup is…
Laura Altman, Tim Wall (clarinets)
Reuben Derrick, Jim Denley, Matt Ottignon, Ian Pieterse, Jeremy Tatar (saxes+flutes)
Rishin Singh, Gerard Crewdson, Grant Arthur (low brass)
Simon Ferenci, Joe Cummins, Joseph Derrick (trumpets)
Sam Pettigrew, Mike Majkowski, Rory Brown, Tom Wade, Milica Stefanovic (bass)
Tim Cunningham (guitar) Chris Abrahams (piano)
Dave Green, Emily McDaniel, Marcus Whale, Aemon Webb, Jon Watts, Martin Kirkwood, Dan Whiting (electronics)
Melanie Herbert, Brianne Curran, Nadene Pita, Heather Shannon (violins)
Monika Brooks (accordian)
Alex Masso, Finn Ryan, Josh Isaac, James Waples, Masi (percussions)
Tony Osborne, Gail Priest, Sonya Holowell (voices)

Gerard Crewdson
working across genres and
specialising in brass and voice,
have collaborated with numerous
groups and performers including
Fertility Festival, Upper Hutt Posse (NZ)
Splinter Orch (Syd) and Splitter Orch (Berlin)

“EMPIRE OF THE EMPIRICAL” – Gerard Crewdson
A graphic novel loosely based on 18th Century philosphocial theories of Terror and the Sublime performed live in slide show format.

Laura Altman
Laura Altman has been an important young voice on the Sydney impro scene for a couple of years, playing with the Splinter Orchestra, Monika Brooks, and Peter Farrar, amongst others. Her delicate clarinet suggests a new way of thinking about the instrument - one doesn’t have the impression of ‘the clarinet’, more a set of frequencies and ambiguities from her direction. Laura also composes.
www.myspace.com/altmanlaura

Joseph Derrick
No longer babyface!

Hollis Taylor
Hollis Taylor is a violinist/composer and ornithologist. Her compositions have won numerous awards, and her music is played regularly worldwide by ensembles such as Ethel and Elements string quartets (New York City). Her dissertation on the vocalisations of the Australian pied butcherbird straddles the fields of zoömusicology, ornithology, and composition. She is a 2010/2011 Research Fellow at the Laboratoire d’Eco-anthropologie & Ethnobiologie of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, and a 2011/2012 Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin Institute for Advanced Study. She lectures on “The Music of Nature and the Nature of Music” and performs her compositions based on pied butcherbird song. She is the author of Post Impressions: A Travel Book for Tragic Intellectuals, which documents (in text, audio, and video) Jon Rose and her bowing fences throughout Australia. Web: www.hollistaylor.com

Hollis Taylor Solo
Transcriptions of the vocalisations of the Australian pied butcherbird are the basis for all of Hollis Taylor’s current compositions/improvisations. This set for solo violin finds Hollis performing with a wide gamut of field recordings.

Aemon Webb
Aemon Webb is a postmodern schizophrenic man. He makes glitch music via digital splicing and microwaved compact discs, plays arhythmic appear-like-I-have-no-sense-of-time drums, screams his lungs out for cosmic noise improv collective Nhomea, and performs subdued electronic soundscapes as a splinterer. Influences result from meeting Mr. Attali at the crossroads, who informed him to continue making decentralised music. Aemon currently and sleeplessly resides in roadwork-infested Chippendale, Sydney.

Jon Watts
Jon was born in Bulli, Wollongong in the early nighties. Since then he has built some sand castles, cut some hair, and played some music. He hopes to continune to do these things for some time.

Alan Courtis
Alan Courtis (a.k.a. Anla Courtis, Alna Courtis, Courtis, etc.) is one of the most prolific experimental musicians emerged from Argentina. Born in Buenos Aires on february 22nd, 1972 he studied classical guitar, piano, theory and composition and holds a degree in Communication Science from the University of Buenos Aires, where he currently runs an annual music workshop. He played electric guitar in diverse bands and in 1993 he co-founded the group Reynols. He has more than hundred solo and collaborative releases.
www.myspace.com/courtis

Kim Myhr
A young, innovative guitarist with an emphasis on a wide range of percussive, harmonic and timbral effects. He has had performances throughout Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and Japan. His projects these days is a duo with Sebastien Roux (electronics/FR), the trio MURAL with Denley and Ingar Zach, the group “Silencers” with Benoit Delbecq (piano/FR) as as well as a piece for Trondheim Jazzorkester feat. Sidsel Endresen, Christian Wallumrød and many others.

Film by Gunver Nelson
For four decades Gunvor Nelson, a Swede who lived in the U.S. until 1993, has made work that explores both personal and larger issues. Her work has been featured in numerous European and North American festivals, one-woman shows, and she has been the recipient of several awards and grants. Some of these awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts grants, as well as a Rockefeller Foundation grant.
Nelson’s films were shown quietly in the underground circuit on the West and East coasts of the United States, until the mid-70s when she began to get press from sources that ranged from Playboy editors to Pauline Kael. One major theme is the way our consciousness connects time and space. The lush flower and leaf close-ups in “True to Life” (2006) never become pretty pictures, with the continually moving camera pushing leaves aside and the rustling on the sound track depicting nature in terms of the artist’s continuing journey.

Sean Baxter
Sean Baxter (drumkit and percussion) is an Australian improviser who has forged an international reputation as a bold explorer of percussive possibilities both as a soloist and through his work with the acclaimed avant garde trio, Pateras/Baxter/Brown. Focusing on the use of extended techniques applied to the conventional drumkit, he utilises an arsenal of metallic junk and other percussive detritus to expand the sonic palette of the percussion tradition. His performance aesthetic evokes a variety of sonic practices, ranging from extreme metal and punishing noise to free jazz and the Modernist abstraction of the classical avant garde. In addition to Pateras/Baxter/Brown, he performs regularly with the brutal, free-jazz/grindcore quartet, Embers, and in frequent ad hoc collaborative and solo incarnations. As a soloist, his practice ranges from acoustic junk percussion and extended drumkit technique to feedback noise—creating intense sonic abstraction by utilising the natural, acoustic resonance of the drumkit pushed to extremes. He is also a voracious group improviser, and has collaborated with some of the world’s most adventurous musicians, most recently including: Robin Fox, Kusum Normoyle, Kim Myhr, Lloyd Honeybrook, KK Null, Paul Grabowsky, Han Bennink, Peter Brotzmann, John Wiese, Valerio Tricoli, Lucas Abela, Robbie Avenaim, Carolyn Connors and Marco Fusinato. A founding member of pioneering Melbourne experimental groups bucketrider, Lazy and Western Grey, Baxter has been an active presence in Australia’s avant garde for the past couple of decades both as a performer and curator. Currently, he is the artistic director of the venerable Make It Up Club, Australia’s longest-running weekly concert series dedicated to avant garde improvised music. http://www.myspace.com/seanbaxterimprov

Sean Baxter Solo Floor Tom Feedback
“With a wry nod to to Max Neuhaus and John Cage’s Fontana Mix-Feed (1967), Baxter’s recent explorations in abstract noise improvisation have led to the use of acoustically generated feedback, manipulated via the resonant membrane of a floor tom. In an effort to create brutal, electroacoustic soundscapes without succumbing to the techno-fascist demands of outboard electronic processing, his solo floor tom feedback project embraces acoustical physics and aleatoric composition at the same time. Using the natural resonance of the drum, mediated by a microphone running through a high-gain PA system, Baxter coaxes extreme frequencies from a familiar, percussive object by means of constant variations in tuning and the application of preparations to create immense harmonic fluctuations and timbral abrasion to a point where the drum is, literally, playing itself.”

Martin Kirkwood

Peter Farrar

Kirkwood/Farrar Duo
Kirkwood and Farrar have been doing the odd duo gig for the last 2 years. They explore the similarity and difference of acoustic / electronic tones, durations and cycles in live improvisational practice.

Hermione Johnson
Hermione is a composer and pianist living in Wellington New Zealand. She performs with the Wellington Most Famous Orchestra of Miraculous Delights and plays organ with the Cave and Bush Band and Fertility Festival. Recently she has performed with trombonist Gerard Crewdson, drummer Tatsuya Yoshido and saxophonist Jeffrey Henderson.

Jeff Henderson
Jeff Henderson is one of New Zealand’s most preeminent musicians, appearing in an array of assorted musical incarnations and running an agile and provocative gamut from blown-out saxophone skronk to Vodou stomp and Rasin psych, from Neanderthal opera to Ongaku reductionism. He has appeared alongside a host of like-minded and stellar figures, including Steve Lacy, Marilyn Crispell, Shoji Hano and Eugene Chadbourne. His investigative yet visceral approach to performance is lucid and enthralling.

Jason Kahn
Born 1960, New York, USA.
Composition, installations, percussion, electronics.
Based in Zurich, Switzerland.
Exhibitions and concerts in museums, galleries, art spaces, festivals and clubs throughout Europe, North and South America, Australia, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Turkey and South Africa.
Sound pieces for film, dance and radio.
http://jasonkahn.net

Adam Sussmann,
Born 1978 Sydney Australia, is a guitarist, electronic musician and composer who seeks to take singular conceptual approaches to extremes. “I am interested in the complex behaviour of simple systems”. Adam has composed/produced sound for the disciplines of Dance, Film and Theatre. His compositions were performed by the Splinter Orchestra at the innaugral and subsequent NowNow festivals, and have since been performed internationally to critical acclaim. Recently he completed tertiary studies in electronic arts, where he established a practice as a painter and installation artist. Adam is a member of the Bands: Stasis Duo, Xwave, SSS and 2779. He has also collaborated with Artists such as Peter Blamey, Toshimaru Nakamura, Louise Curham, Oren Ambarchi, Mattin, Takefumi Naoshima, Tetuzi Akiyama, Martin Ng, Mattin, Chris Abrahams, Anthony Guerra, Amanda Stewart, Jason Kahn, Arek Gulbekoglu, Nylstoch, Jim Denley, Annette Krebbs, Joel Stern, Brett Larner and Will Guthrie.

Matt Earle

S T R I N G S A N D F E N C E S
A multi-media experience featuring a live amplified string quartet of Hollis Taylor, James Rushford, Judith Hamann, and Jon Rose, in collision with video sequences from The Great Fences of Australia project. Bowed short strings meet really long bowed strings. The first performance of this took place a year ago in Melbourne.
For more on the fence project.
http://www.jonroseweb.com/f_projects_great_fences.html
Hollis Taylor is an American-born composer, violinist, teacher, writer, and the world authority on the songs of the Pied Butcherbird. She was the youngest ever member of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra and was an Oregon State Fiddle Champion. She lives in Australia but this is a rare chance to hear her.
http://www.hollistaylor.com/
Judith Hamann and James Rushford are two thirds of Golden Fur, a Melbourne based group who are mixing academic composition with improvisation, laptop electronics, and do it yourself low tech experimental music. They are making waves.
http://www.goldenfur.com.au/about.html
Jon Rose is surprised to find himself in his 60th year of existence. For most of that time he has played the violin, there have been the occasional highlights, but in general it hasn’t done him much good.
http://www.jonroseweb.com/a_jonrose_biography.html

Scott Sinclair
http://www.companyfuck.com/

Isaiah Ceccarelli
http://www.isaiahceccarelli.com

Michel F Côté
Michel F. Côté is a percussionist and sound designer. He founded Bruire and has been working with the group, in all of its different forms, since 1989 (Akustica, 1990; Montréal Musique Actuelle, 1990; and the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, 1993). He has collaborated on various recording, theater, film, and video projects (with Luc Bourdon, René Lussier, André Duchesne, Jerry Snell, and Robert Lepage) and has also hosted radio programs devoted to musique actuelle on the arts network of Radio-Canada. He has a number of recordings, including Les fleurs de Léo, L’Âme de l’objet, and Klaxon gueule.

Duo Vulgarités
(Côté + Cecarelli)
http://www.myspace.com/vulgarites

Noel Meek
Noel Meek is a Wellington based vocalist. Having been on the stage his entire life, he developed his extra-normal vocal techniques with avant-garde theatre troupes and eventually abandoned theatre to dedicate himself to music. Having improvised with the likes of Tetuzi Akiyama and Phil Minton, Noel also sings medieval and renaissance choral music, dabbles in noise and drone music, and travels widely with his performing.

Rory Brown
Rory Brown

Alex Masso
Alex Masso is drummer, who got through a degree in Jazz Performance at Sydney Conservatorium and is currently keeping busy playing music he finds interesting. Most of the music is jazz, improvised music or something along those lines. He co-leads Trio Apoplectic, which has toured extensively in 2006-09 and released two albums, “Trio Apoplectic” through Jazzgroove Records and “Sofia” through Rufus Records. Other projects include The Splinter Orchestra,The Vampires , Marc Hannaford Trio, and Chiba. Alex has also been fortunate to work on odd occasions with some of his favourite musicians, including Australian jazz legends Bernie McGann and Warwick Alder, Sudanese musician Asim Gorashi, saxophonists Kris Wanders, Jeff Henderson and Peter Farrar, and guitarist Dave Brown.

Mats Gustafsson
Born 1964 in Umeå, Northern Sweden.
Saxplayer, improviser and composer. Soloartist and international tours and projects with a.o. Peter Brötzmann, Sonic Youth, Merzbow, Jim O´Rourke, Barry Guy, Otomo Yoshihide, Yoshimi and in working groups The Thing, Sonore, FIRE!, Gush, Boots Brown, Swedish Azz and Nash Kontroll. Large ensemble work with Barry Guy New Orchestra, Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet and the NU – ensemble.1600 concerts and over 150 recordproductions in Europe, North America and Asia.
Collaborations with contemporary dance, theater, art as well as projects with noise, electronica, contemporary rock and free jazz.
Producer of international festivals and concert tours as well as work with own record labels Slottet, OlofBright Editions and Blue Tower Records.

Paal Nilssen-Love

Paal was born in Molde, Norway, Dec 24. 1974, and raised at a jazz club in Stavanger, run by his parents. It was natural to choose his fathers drums as his instrument and jazz as his work. From 1990 on he took actively part in the jazz milieu in Stavanger and joined bands with established musicians such as trumpeter Didrik Ingvaldsen and saxophonist Frode Gjerstad. In many ways, these collaborations were essential as they pointed out the directions for Paal’s later musical development and career. During his studies at the Jazz dept at the University in Trondheim, where the first self initiated bands were established, things developed really fast – and Paal was nationally acknowledged at the age of 20. The forming of the quartet Element in 1993 in many ways represented the start of a new phase in Paal’s musical life. Element musically became a platform for several other groups with bassist Flaten and pianist Wiik, and lead to collaborations with Iain Ballamy and Chris Potter, amongst others. Paal moved to Oslo in 1996, where he joined and/or took part in the forming of bands like Vindaloo, SAN, Håkon Kornstad Tio, The Quintet and Frode Gjerstad Trio. He later on got more into self initiated projects and collaborations with Swedish musicians, such as pianist Sten Sandell and saxophonist Mats Gustafsson.Paal played his first solo concert in 1999, and since then the solo concept has been an important part of his work: “Everyone should try doing some solo work, just to feel who you really are and what gets you going”. His solo album “Sticks and stones” was put out in 2001 on SOFA Rec. Being active in several bands at the same time has always been Paal’s deliberate working method. He is constantly conscious about the projects he is in, as his participation in each and one of them is fully dedicated. Playing is not about getting from start to goal, but rather being in an everlasting process, a continuous movement where each new piece of music performed is a prolongation of the latest. Hence, keeping focused and concentrating all energy around what’s happening there and then is of greatest importance - as is the freedom in the music, the ability of being free within the expression. All bands, although various styles and musical versatility in general, represent important pieces that make up a total, and all bands are formed or joined with a clear vision. Today Paal’s portfolio includes Atomic, School Days, The Thing, Frode Gjerstad Trio, Sten Sandell Trio, Scorch Trio, Territory Band, FME, and various duo projects such as with reedmen Ken Vandermark, John Butcher, Mats Gustafsson, organist Nils Henrik Asheim and noise wizard Lasse Marhaug. And not to forget the recently joined Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet. Before turning 30 Paal has stated his position as one of the most profiled drummers in Europe today, he has made numberless performances at festivals and clubs in Europe and USA and participated on more than 50 recordings. He runs his own annual festival – All Ears - for improvised music in Oslo, which is an important part of his musical life, and he plans to start his own recording label for vinyl productions. Like Pat Metheny put it in 2002, after having played with Paal at Molde International Jazz festival: “He is simply one of the best new musicians I’ve heard during the latest years!” And after having heard Paal in 9 different settings at the same festival, Down Beat reporter Dan Quelette stated: “His week at Molde proved a revelation: Nilssen-Love is one of the most innovative, dynamic and versatile drummers in jazz!”

Ingebrigt Haken Flaten
Ingebrigt studied Jazz at the Music Consevatory in Trondheim, Norway, from 1992-95 with bassplayer Odd Magne Gridseth. Since ‘95 he has been a professional musician, refining his sound by touring extensively all over the world with some of the most diverse and important improvisers on the international circuit today. He have participated on more than 100 recordings. Ingebrigt is currently focusing on his work in the Scandanavian ensembles Atomic and The Thing, both of which have toured Europe, Japan and the U.S. regularly over the past decade. He also leads his own quintet and is a member of the bands Free Fall, The Electrics, The Outskirts, Dave Rempis Percussion Quartet, Scorch Trio, Trinity, IPA, Daniel Levin Trio and Atomic Schooldays. Ingebrigt also have ongoing projects with musicians from the undergrounds of Mexico City, New York, Chicago, Austin and Houston, Håker Flaten represents a special era in Norwegian bass tradition. Inspired by Jimmy Garrison, Richard Davis and William Parker, aswell as European bassists such as Barry Guy, Dave Holland and Peter Kowald, he provides an historical continuity of the instrument’s tradition, and as such, improvisation. Ingebrigt’s bassplaying also draw inspiration and energy from his deep roots in the bustling Norwegian jazz scene. This can be summarized by placing him and his contemporaries in the great lineage of Norwegian progressive jazz musicians that include the famed Jan Garbarek, Arild Andersen and Terje Rypdal, as well as the less well-known pianist, Svein Finnerud, and bassist, Bjørnar Andresen, all of whom were key figures in shaping Norwegian avant garde jazz into the sound we have today. Today, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten is one of the great ambassadors of the Norwegian sound,carrying this strong tradition further, both musically and geographically. He is constantly pushing and challenging himself, seeking out collaborations that hold a promise to lead to new and unheard territories.

The Thing
The Thing was established in the spring of February 2000 when the three musicians met do play several concerts and to record the first CD on Crazy Wisdom, a sub label of Swedish Universal. In 2001, they also recorded another CD on the same label as a quartet with Joe McPhee. Both CD´s are out of print.The trio was a long wanted constellation where several musical styles meet in a very high energetic outlet. All members are influenced by different traditions of free music derived from Germany, England and America, and these influences are to be felt and not necessary heard.
When the trio started out, the book contained mainly of tunes by Don Cherry, hence the group’s name. Since Joe McPhee`s participation, the group’s reportuar has included other free jazz standards by David Murray, Frank Lowe and Norman Howard. Also, the groups enthusiasm towards rock music, is heard when they play “To Bring You My Love” by PJ Harvey on the second CD. Today the book has expanded to include tunes by The White Stripes, The Sonics and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. This is just an example that explains how close musical styles are today, how similar the energy is and can be, and how much today`s audience is melted together, devoted to creative music. The Thing is now signed on the Norwegian label Smalltown Supersound.Mats Gustafsson is today Sweden’s and one of Europe’s biggest names on the free music scene. Through groups like Gush, AALY trio and Peter Brötzmann`s Chicago Tentet, he has established himself as a very powerful saxophonist, and has somewhat reinvented the way of playing the saxophone.Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Paal Nilssen-Love has become known as Norway`s heaviest rhythm-section. Since they`re long time collaboration started in 1992, they have been working in several groups, amongst them are School Days with Ken Vandermark, Scorch trio with Raoul Björkenheim, and the Swedish/Norwegian jazz-group Atomic.The Thing also performs with Joe McPhee, Ken Vandermark, Otomo Yoshihide, Jim O`Rourke, Thurston Moore and Cato Salsa Experience.

The SSO (The Sydney Saw Orhestra)
S Y D N E Y S A W O R C H E S T R A
Not to be confused with the other SSO. Well, you really couldn’t confuse them, as the Sydney Symphony Orchestra sounds pretty much like eh…any other symphony orchestra. The Sydney Saw Orchestra however does not sound like the other SSO, nor does it perform at the Opera House, or any other kind of house, as this is its first and probably last concert in Sydney. Unlike the other SSO, this SSO doesn’t have a management or indeed money, it also doesn’t have insurance, which it should probably have, as playing a saw can be quite dangerous if you grab it on the wrong side or place it in the wrong position. Saws are also killer on the arms and wrists as members of the Pannikin project found out in 2005 – probably the last time seven saws were heard in Australia at one time. So the performance will be only 15 minutes. Scroll down to number 17 on this page to get the idea.
http://www.jonroseweb.com/pannikin/concert_notes.html

Altman/Mayas/Brooks
Gail priest – realtime arts issue 89
“Sandwiched between two hyperactive visual acts was the contemplative trio of Magda Mayas, Monika Brooks and Laura Altman. It’s very, very quiet, the overlapping of soughing and sighing from Brooks’ accordion and Altman’s clarinet creating a sustaining environment for the rattles and moans coaxed from the piano by Mayas, who without ego leads this concentrated exploration. This trio exemplifies what I find most interesting about improvised music: each musician equally in the moment, equally open to discovery, listening at the very deepest level and choosing their techniques in relation to each other, to create an absorbing, cohesive whole.”

Company Fuck
Company Fuck (or CxFx) is in reality Scott Sinclair - an Australian with a long history in improvised music, who left this behind a few years ago and has since been performing his “one-man noisecore karaoke explosion” to audiences all around Europe. CxFx’s super fast mixes of more ’serious’ and ‘difficult’ sounds with pop and karaoke firmly place him in the realm of the ‘avant retard’. To use the words of Dolly Parton - “It takes a lot of money to look this cheap!”

CxFx works in his own distinctive territory combining extreme vocal improvisation, digital noise, and deliberate musical homage/parody. With no allegiance to one sound or scene, CxFx simultaneously plunders pirated pop music whilst also blowing apart the formulas of so-called ‘underground’ genres. CxFx often sounds like one man conjuring a million artists together for a bloody entangled mess of manic audio intercourse and copyright infringement. Nobody is safe from the CxFx treatment.

CxFx is known for his brutal and unpredictable live shows, which has found audiences strangely entertained on tours all over Europe and Australia. Sure, CxFx uses a laptop, but any similarity to other computer musicians stops there. In performance CxFx is a totally improvised wireless noise monster, able to fast-forward through an entire rainbow of musical styles with every electrified scream, grunt, cough, or spit. In his own unique way, CxFx transforms the stage into a hyper-violent karaoke bar of the future - and he may even persuade the audience to sing along.

CxFx releases music on Hirntrust Grind Media (AT), Fuckyoutapes (AT), God Redikz (NZ), and Half/theory (AUS).
http://www.companyfuck.com/
Youtube!