Derek Bailey was an English avant-garde guitarist and an important figure in the free improvisation movement. Bailey abandoned conventional performance techniques found in jazz, exploring atonality, noise, and whatever unusual sounds he could produce with the guitar. Much of his work was released on his own label Incus Records. In addition to solo work, Bailey collaborated frequently with other musicians and recorded with collectives such as Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Company.
Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith is an American trumpeter and composer, working primarily in the field of creative music. He was one of three finalists for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music for Ten Freedom Summers, released on May 22, 2012.
Han Bennink is a Dutch drummer and percussionist. On occasion his recordings have featured him playing soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, trombone, violin, banjo and piano.
Guillermo E. Brown is a multi-disciplinary performer whose works include Soul at the Hands of the Machine, The Beat Kids' Open Rhythm System and Sound Magazine, Black Dreams 1.0,...Is Arturo Klauft, Handeheld, Shuffle Mode, WOOF TICKET EP, PwEP2, forthcoming full-length album Dream&Destroy and performance piece Bee Boy. His one-man theater piece, Robeson in Space, premiered at Luna Stage (2005).
Mat Maneri is an American composer, violin, and viola player. He is the son of the saxophonist Joe Maneri and Sonja Maneri.
Evan Shaw Parker is a British tenor and soprano saxophone player who plays free improvisation.
Henry Kaiser is an American guitarist and composer, known as an idiosyncratic soloist, a sideman, an ethnomusicologist, and a film score composer. Recording and performing prolifically in many styles of music, Kaiser is a fixture on the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. He is considered a member of the "second generation" of American free improvisers. He is married to Canadian artist Brandy Gale. He is the son of Henry J. Kaiser Jr. and the grandson of industrialist Henry J. Kaiser.
John Martin Tchicai was a Danish free jazz saxophonist and composer.
Thirsty Ear Recordings is an American independent record label. It was founded in the late 1970s as a marketing company for the then-unnamed alternative music field, and expanded to issue its own records in 1990.
Orphy Robinson MBE is a British jazz multi-instrumentalist who plays vibraphone, keyboards, saxophone, trumpet, piano, marimba, steelpans and drums. He has written music for television, film and theatre.
Gerald Cleaver is a jazz drummer from Detroit, Michigan.
Disappeared is an album by English electronic duo Spring Heel Jack. The album was released by Thirsty Ear on 22 August 2000.
Boomania is the debut album by the British singer Betty Boo, released on 10 September 1990. King John produced most of the songs on the album; Coxon continued to collaborate with Betty Boo on her second album, GRRR! It's Betty Boo in 1992.
A jazz trio is a group of three jazz musicians, often a piano trio comprising a pianist, a double bass player and a drummer. Jazz trios are commonly named after their leader, such as the Bill Evans Trio.
Sian Alice Group was an English post-rock band with roots in experimental music and the avant-garde.
Sonic Rivers is a collaborative studio album by trombonist George Lewis, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, and saxophonist John Zorn. It was released in June 2014 by Tzadik Records.
New Orbit is an album by American jazz pianist Matthew Shipp recorded in 2000 and released on Thirsty Ear's Blue Series. Shipp leads a quartet with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, bassist William Parker and drummer Gerald Cleaver.
Abbey Road Quartet is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith released in 2009 via Treader label.
Amplified Trio is an album featuring the Dutch drummer Han Bennink, along with John Coxon and Ashley Wales of the electronic music duo Spring Heel Jack. Released in 2007, the album was produced by Treader, a label operated by Coxon and Wales.
68 Million Shades... is the second album by the English musical duo Spring Heel Jack, released in 1996. It was released in the United States in February 1997. The duo supported the album with a North American tour that included shows opening for Orbital. "Midwest" was released as a single.
