"Described by Spin Magazine as "An apocalyptic, supersonic general of the banjo..." Brandon Seabrook has made a name for himself in the New York avant-garde music scene as an explosive guitar and banjo performer, relentlessly committed to immediacy and precision.

Seabrook honed his terror-inducing riffage skills at the New England Conservatory in Boston. He has since performed extensively in North and South America, Mexico and Europe, as a solo artist, bandleader and collaborator. He has been summoned by the likes of Anthony Braxton, Elliot Sharp and Joey Arias for his unpredictably spiked approach to improvisation and impeccable caterwauling. He has been profiled in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Magnet Magazine, Fretboard Journal, NPR and The Wire.

Seabrook Power Plant, the nuclear trio donned "a manic clusterfuck of merciless banjo torture" by the Village Voice, is Brandon's brainchild, blending the brutal energy of punk-rock with the intricate execution of through-composed avant jazz. The band has released two albums to much critical acclaim. Time Out New York praised the band's eponymous debut as "not only one of the most baffling experimental releases of the year... also one of the best."

Brandon is an accomplished solo artist, named Best Guitarist in New York City by the Village Voice 2012. In 2014, New Atlantis Records released his first solo album titled Sylphid Vitalizers. Noisey called the album a "dissonant guitar army...(with) mind-blowing prog-rock complexities - all at mind-numbing breakneck speed."

Brandon is currently working on two new albums with his noise-prog trio, Needle Driver and a new sextet featuring immoral, percussive compositions under the name Die Trommel Fatale. This recent work is a poly-rhythmic exploration of the dark side of the drum, layering cello, bass, electronics, voice and guitar against dichotomous drummers."

"Nava Dunkelman is a percussionist and improviser based in Brooklyn, NY. Born in Tokyo, Japan and raised in a multi-cultural environment by an American father and Indonesian mother. Her musical approach is innovative and dynamic, combining virtuosity and intuition. Meticulous in an intrinsic way, she uses her distinctive sound palette to explore and give life to a vast spectrum of musical possibilities.

Nava's current projects are electro-percussion experimental noise duo IMA with Amma Ateria, and percussion duo NOMON with her sister Shayna Dunkelman. She also has performed and collaborated with Fred Frith, John Zorn, William Winant, Ikue Mori, Brandon Seabrook, Angélica Negrón, Pauchi Sasaki, and gabby fluke-mogul and many others. She has performed classical and contemporary pieces with the William Winant Percussion Group, Joan Jeanrenaud, San Francisco Girls Chorus, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and others. Nava studied percussion under Eugene Novotney at Humboldt State University before attending Mills College, where she studied with William Winant, Fred Frith, Maggi Payne, and Zeena Parkins."

"Marika Hughes is a cellist, singer, composer, song-writer and teacher. A native of NYC, Marika was exposed to a varied creative life from an early age. Her parents owned a jazz club on the Upper West Side and she was fortunate to enjoy an exciting classical music life as the granddaughter of the great cellist, Emanuel Feuermann. She was a regular on Sesame Street, was a member of New York Youth Symphony, spent summers at the chamber music camp, Greenwood, was a student at festivals in Europe and busked in NYC with her high-school string quartet. Marika received her B.A. from Barnard College in political science and cello performance at the Juilliard School, where she studied with Ardyth Alton.

Shortly after completing her studies, Marika left NYC and moved to San Francisco, CA. It is there that she began to explore a musical life outside of the western classical tradition of her childhood training. In addition to playing in the Berkeley and Santa Rosa Symphonies, she joined Quartet San Francisco and enjoyed performing and recording for a host of artists and films including, Tom Waits, Mr. Bungle, Xiu Xiu, Santana and Finding Nemo.

Marika joined Carla Kihlstedt and Shahzad Ismaily in 2 Foot Yard. The band released two CDs; 2 Foot Yard (Tzadik, 2005) and Borrowed Arms (Yard Work, 2008). She founded the band Red Pocket with Jewlia Eisenberg and they released their CD, Thick, on Tzadik's Oracle Series. She also joined Jewlia's a cappella trio, Charming Hostess. She is a featured singer on that band's release, Sarajevo Blues (Tzadik 2005). Marika began her compositional work here, writing string arrangements and songs for all of these groups.

In 2006, Marika moved back to NYC. She has enjoyed playing with many local musicians she has long admired as well as some superstars. She has performed and/or recorded with D'Angelo, Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige, Sean Lennon, Valerie June, David Byrne, Lou Reed, Ani DiFranco, Imani Uzuri, Charlie Burnham, Anthony Braxton, Toshi Reagon, Adele, Aruan Ortiz, Nasheet Waits and Henry Threadgill. She has appeared on The David Letterman Show, The Jimmy Fallon Late Night Show as well as Saturday Night Live.

Upon returning to NYC, Marika began to write for her own groups. She has written songs steeped in instrumental composition and lyrical content. In the last few years she has enjoyed writing entirely instrumental tunes for her new string quartet of cello, upright bass, violin and acoustic guitar (with Rashaan Carter, Charlie Burnham and Marvin Sewell respectively). She has released three records of original music under her own name; Afterlife Music Radio (2011) with pieces written specifically for her solo cello by artists including Nasheet Waits, Carla Kihlstedt and Eyvind Kang, The Simplest Thing (2011) an album of original songs and most recently, New York Nostalgia (2016) with her band, Bottom Heavy.

Marika has worked with Triad Trust, a Boston based NGO for 10 years. The ImprovED program which Marika helped to create (in rural South Africa and Haiti) utilizes a unique improvisation technique that provides students a stage to rehearse critical moments in their young lives. Thru original song and dramatic sketches, the local ImprovED troupe teaches ideas and practices related to self care and HIV?/AIDS testing/prevention/ treatment in the communities where they live.

In addition to her cello duties, Marika enjoyed being a guest host for Terrance McKnight's radio show, All Ears on WQXR, she has been a featured storyteller on The Moth and was a cast member of Stew's play, Family Album produced by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Marika lives in Brooklyn, NY."

"Born in Oslo, bassist and composer Eivind Opsvik was introduced to music at home. His father loved to play the saxophone and constantly spun records-everything from Ornette Coleman to Billie Holiday and The Beatles. An early memory features Eivind on drums, jamming out "A Hard Day's Night" with his father. Later, a denim-clad rocker cousin lent him a bass guitar and the newfound ability of adding pitch to rhythm was a revelation. Opsvik spent the rest of his teens getting to know this instrument, as well as the double bass, while also experimenting with a 4-track tape recorder and pouring music into his head.

At the age of twenty, Opsvik began studies at the Norwegian Academy of Music, focusing on classical bass. By then, he was already an active participant in Oslo's vibrant jazz scene, regularly playing with musicians like Paal Nilssen-Love, Christian Wallumrød, Bjørnar Andresen, and Håkon Kornstad; while also performing at festivals and clubs around Europe.

In 1998, Opsvik relocated to New York City, where he has thrived as a working musician, collaborating on projects with among others Anthony Braxton, Paul Motian, John Zorn, Nate Wooley, and Bill Frisell and performing in a wide range of venues like Carnegie Hall, Village Vanguard, Le Poisson Rouge and The Stone. At the Manhattan School of Music he studied jazz and met some of his closest musical brothers, including Loren Stillman, Jeff Davis, and Jacob Sacks. Building on the bonds and shared musical understanding that developed while at school, Eivind invited these players to help him fulfill his vision for the solo project, Overseas.

Opsvik has stated that "overseas" is a fitting way of describing his life-whether in New York or Norway, he is always an ocean's distance from home. This deep loyalty towards friends and loved ones has, over time, been reflected in Overseas' various lineups. The first record was realized with the help of long-term friendships that went back to Opsvik's earliest days in New York. As he continued his journey through the city via late night gigs, Opsvik connected with other players-visionaries versed in noise improv, electronic, jazz, and classical-who, on subsequent Overseas records, were brought in to augment the lineup. Since 2005, the band has remained consistent, featuring Tony Malaby, Jacob Sacks, and Kenny Wollesen; in 2010, guitarist Brandon Seabrook also became a regular member. Over the years, they have played countless shows around New York City, as well as extensively toured Europe and the American east coast.

In addition to four Overseas albums and his extensive session work, Opsvik's discography also includes four experimental chamber-pop records made in collaboration with songwriter Aaron Jennings (under the moniker of Opsvik & Jennings) and a multimedia project with photographer Michelle Arcila, which pairs tens songs with ten photographic prints. This project, titled A Thousand Ancestors, came out of Opsvik's solo double bass performances, which sometimes featured projections of Arcila's photographs. In recording these bass-centric pieces, he would layer bass with subtle overdubs of lap steel guitar, vintage keyboards, and drum machines, with Arcila's prints displayed around the studio. The project proved to be an auspicious collaboration for the couple, who, as The New York Times put it, "share an aesthetic of haunting introspection, and the desire to seek out beauty in austerity."

Other critics have described Opsvik's work as "sonorous," "like a waking dream," and able "to transport the listener to another time and place, creating a cinematic experience...[like] the soundtrack to an imaginary film." His Overseas records create "a world of unfolding soundscapes" that defy categorization; they have "a compositional complexity that suggests jazz, [but] also references a diverse and imaginative palette of genres and influences." Opsvik's jazz is "the slow burn, down-turned variety that still has plenty of beauty underneath all of its darker undertones." But it's not just jazz for jazz-heads. By tapping into the energy, groove, and directness of rock, Opsvik reach people who are afraid of jazz and think they have to "understand" it.

Ultimately, Opsvik is the epitome of a multi-faceted, multi-instrumentalist working musician. While steadily playing gigs and recording sessions as a bass player, he is also a capable hand on the guitar, the keyboard, or behind the drums. At the Greenwood Underground, his basement studio, Opsvik records, mixes, and produces his own music, as well as various projects for his friends. Since 2007, he has also been running the Loyal Label, releasing a carefully curated catalog of albums, which run the gamut in terms of musical exploration but are all united with careful aesthetic choices and creative graphic design.

Maturing as a musician, Eivind never wanted to be up front in the band, but it would be incorrect to say he's been hiding. As a kid, watching bands perform on Norway's only TV channel, his gaze was instinctively drawn to the rhythm section, waiting for the camera to move the tight frame off the singer so that he could catch a glimpse of the bass player's steady hands or the drummer's hypnotic concentration. The rhythm section were the guys with their heads down doing the real work. Adolescent instincts are pure in that they don't know why they want what they want, but the quiet and focused dignity that Eivind honed in on has driven his life for the past 30 years.

(Eivind is currently a member of these bands/projects: Tony Malaby's Paloma Recio, Die Trommel Fatale, Nate Wooley Quintet, Skuli Sverrison's Seria, Two Miles A Day (Sacks, Maneri, Motian), Anthony Braxton's Tristano Project, Vinnie Sperrazza's Apocryphal, David Binney, Okkyung Lee, Jeff Davis Trio with Russ Lossing, Mary Halvorson's Reverse Blue, Plainville, Kris Davis' Capricorn Climber, Håkon Kornstad, Rocket Engine, Tone Collector, Jesse Harris' Cosmo, The Interaction of Non-Interaction (w Ben Gerstein), Poor Pluto ...and more)"

"Henry Fraser is a bassist, composer, and improviser from Boston, MA. He received his B.F.A. from New England Conservatory of Music in the spring of 2014, where he studied with Cecil McBee, John McNeil, Anthony Coleman, & Ted Reichman. Since moving to Brooklyn, NY in 2014, Henry's unique combination of technical facility and aesthetic flexibility have made him an in-demand sideman and formidable band leader. Henry has performed throughout Europe and South American, including suchfestivals as the Panama Jazz Fest and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Current projects include Michael Foster's The Ghost, the Chris Pitsiokos Quartet and Maestro Day, a quartet co-lead by saxophonist, Sam Weinberg, as well as regular collaborations with the likes of Joe Morris, Brandon Seabrook and Jack Wright."

"Chuck Bettis was raised in the fertile harDCore soil, nourished within Baltimore's enigmatic avant garde gatherings, and currently blossoming in New York's downtown musical tribe. His unique blend of electronics and throat has led him into various collaborations with great musicians from around the globe.

He has performed live collaborations with John Zorn, Fred Frith, Matmos,Yoshimio, Mephista and Afrirampo to name a few. Some of the musicians Bettis has recorded and played live with are as follows; Ikue Mori, Nautical Almanac, Audrey Chen, Yellow Swans, Toshio Kajiwara, Mick Barr, etc, plus a long history of punk bands he was in (most notably the experimental punk band Meta-matics as well as the enigmatic All Scars).

Current working groups are; Snake Union with Dave Grant, Die Trommel Fatale with Brandon Seabrook/Marika Hughes/Eivind Opsvik/Henry Fraser/Dave Treut/Sam Ospovat, Overishins with Mick Barr, Johnny DeBlase, Mike Pride and Mossenek with Mick Barr & Colin Marston, as well as improvising, recording, or composing with an array of musicians from around the world."

"John McCowen is a New York based composer and performer whose work focuses on extending the possibilities of the clarinet family. John embraces long-form drones, difference tones, and beating harmonics as a means to extrude the dimensionality within - treating the clarinet as an acoustic synthesizer. His works for ensemble utilize spectral techniques to superimpose the timbral/sonic characteristics of the clarinet onto a grouping of instruments. This may include the clarinet as a solo instrument while the ensemble functions as a resonant system.

John was a founding member of the Chicago avant-rock group, Wei Zhongle, where he performed on amplified clarinet/electronics. His most recent release of three compositions for solo contrabass clarinet, Solo Contra (IARC0015), is out now on International Anthem Records. His discography includes releases on International Anthem, Astral Spirits, Cairn Desk, NNA Tapes, New Atlantis, Self Sabotage, Edible Onion, and DAAANG. He has toured extensively throughout North America as well as trips to Europe and Asia. These performances/spaces include Le Guess Who Festival(NL), Norður og Niður Festival(IS), Hot Air Music Festival, Bowling Green New Music Festival, Supersonic Festival(ENG), Berkeley Art Museum(BAMPFA), The Stone, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, International Clarinet Festival 2014, and more. John was the 2017 artist-in-residence at Lijiang Studio in Yunnan, China. He received the Elizabeth Mills Crothers Award for music composition in 2016 from Mills College where he also received an MA in Music Composition."

"Originally from Lincoln, Nebraska, I played piano and sang in boys' choir before picking up my first pair of drumsticks in 5th grade. Late nights spent improvising in friends' parents' basements eventually revealed to me the wisdom of moving to the Bay Area, where I studied percussion with William Winant, Peter Magadini, George Marsh and lately with the Haitian master drummer Daniel Brevil. Recently relocated to Brooklyn, NY, I play drums in Beep, Naytronix, Timosaurus, Passwords (duo with Lorin Benedict), CavityFang, Young Nudist, Enablers and my solo project PIKI. I was lucky to play with Cecil Taylor, Leo Smith, and Maryanne Amacher at Mills College, where I received my MFA in percussion performance. Since then I've worked with Tuneyards, William Winant, The SF Contemporary Music Players, Aram Shelton, Ches Smith, members of Rova Saxophone Quartet, Bill McHenry, Angelica Sanchez, Phillip Greenlief, and Ava Mendoza."