This album consists of segments from eight different recordings from Thollem’s 2019 tours. They represent a cross-section of great improvisers and venues dedicated to adventurous music.

Now in his mid-60s, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Shelton is finally getting the notoriety he has long deserved. As the son of drummer and Association for the Advancement of Creative Music charter member, Ajaramu Shelton, he grew up around many of his father’s collaborators and employers, including Sonny Stitt, Gene Ammons, Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman and Fred Anderson. Largely raised by AACM organist Amina Claudine Meyers, he went on to study with harpist Dorothy Ashby and organist Lyman Woodard. In addition to leading the various versions of his group, Spectrum, Shelton has been a member of Hakim Jami’s Street Band, The Vizitors, The Northwoods Improvisers, Kindred, The Faruq Z. Bey Quartet, The Soar Trio, the United States Army Band and Joe Tex’s group. He has performed and/or recorded with Fred Anderson, James Blood Ulmer, Han Bennink, Dennis Gonzales James Carter and Dushun Mosley. His new duo record with percussionist Hamid Drake is being released Sept 15 on Two Rooms Records.

Joel Peterson is a multi-instrumentalist and composer who works in a wide range of musical fields. He has performed or recorded with William Hooker, Elliot Sharp, Han Bennink, Damo Suzuki, Marshall Allen, Rhys Chatham, Amy Denio, Salim Washington, Tatsuya Nakatani, Jack Wright, Eugene Chadbourne and many others. His chamber music has been performed by members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Opera Theater, The Toronto Symphony and New Music Detroit. Peterson is a founding member of Immigrant Suns, Scavenger Quartet (with Frank Pahl), Kindred (with Faruq Z. Bey), Xen Harmonic Gamelan, Viands, Chatoyant and Odu. He also owns and operates the art space Trinosophes - and formerly Bohemian National Home as well- in Detroit.

Jeremy Barnes (Drums) lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Rosie Hutchinson (Violin) performs as Hosie. Her work stretches folk music through percussive lyrics, dissonance, psychedelic harmonies, and multiple languages. Songs weave together classical violin, guitar, and raw percussion with extended vocal technique and synthetic sounds.

Born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, AJ Woods (Guitar) has been a part of the Southwest music scene for over a decade. He has released two full-length albums (S/T, 2013, The Fence, 2016), a critically-acclaimed EP (Halocline, 2019), as well as singles and live recordings, all of which have earned him comparisons to people such as Jason Molina and Neil Young. Still, "Woods'[s] lyrical style, guitar playing and singing are his own—something that can't often be said." (Alibi) He's played with acts such as Jim Stallings (JJ Light, Sir Douglas Quintet), A Hawk and a Hacksaw, Big Thief and The Handsome Family among many others. With music and lyrics that are “poignant and powerful" (ABQ Free Press), Woods creates not only songs, but "unpretentious poetry." (Alibi) “As soon as I heard these songs and watched the video, my mind was instantly made up that this was something exceptional, both calming and beautiful to listen to (and watch) and certainly deserving of Song of the Day on Folk Radio
UK.” (Folk Radio UK) In times like these, Woods's music and words are grounding forces. They take us back to the earth on which we live and depend, remind us that we have hearts, bones that break and heal, blood that leaves, blood we can share. They show we are related to, made and capable of many things.

Jacopo Andreini (Drums) is involved in music since the end of the '80s. Multi- instrumentalist and curious reasearcher for new sounds and places, he met and played with hundreds of bands and musicians. After more than 150 albums and 2000 concerts is still ready for the next one.
afoforomusicclub.bandcamp.com

Since 2009 Michael Bisio (Bass) has been bassist for The Matthew Shipp Trio and on faculty at Bennington College. With over 120 recordings his latest as leader is The Art Spirit (ESP-disk) 2021. Early in 2022 MBefore (Tao Forms) will be released featuring the iconic Karl Berger.

“One of the things the really knocked me out last Saturday was the incredible, unstoppable playing of Mr. Bisio. Considering there is no drummer here, Bisio plays like an entire rhythm team, providing a pulse at times, spinning a web, blurring rhythmic, melodic and fractured lines in a nonstop fashion which will take your breath away at times.”- Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG

Carmina Escobar is an extreme and experimental vocalist, improviser, sound and intermedia artist from Mexico City. Her practice focuses on sound, the voice, the body, and their interrelations with physical, social, present and memory spaces. In her work, the Voice is the phenomenon and concept that unites analogous/digital materials to generate an experience that sets in motion the audience perception. She has presented her work at diverse spaces such as: PST: LA / LA 2018, Cuban Art Factory (HAV), Borealis Festival (NOR) CTM Festival (Bln), World Dada Fair 2016, Current LA Water 2016, RedCat, Machine Project, MexiCali Biennial, MACO Oaxaca, The Wende Museum, I-Park Environmental Art Biennial, New Music Festival 2016 (CZ), MATA 2018. Artist in residence in Montalvo (SF), STEIM (AMS), Binaural (PT), OMI (NY), Academy of Music ElectroacousticMusicStudio (PL), Guapamacataro (MX), FONOTECA NACIONAL (MX), and The MacDowell Residency. Carmina has received the Endowment of the Arts in Mexico on three occasions, the USArtist International Award with the project Estamos Ensemble, the Master Scholarship of NALAC foundation for latin artists, and the 2020 FCA Grants. She is co-founder of the experimental and contemporary music ensemble from Mexico LIMINAR, and the radical, experimental pedagogical voice hub HOWL SPACE.

Emily Hay (Flute and voice) is a flutist, vocalist and pianist who extends the traditional roles and capabilities of her instruments by incorporating the complexity of contemporary classical technique with the spontaneity and experimentation of free improvisation. The result is startling interpretations of sound and intense ensemble interaction. Her explorations on the flute and alto flute embody unusual tone colors and soaring rhythmic structures, augmented by electronically generated effects and often overlapped by unusual vocalizations ranging from primal to operatic with lyrics and sounds from the stream of consciousness. Hay is an active member of the Los Angeles and "left coast" music communities, and has performed in avant garde, art rock, free improvisation, electro-acoustical and contemporary classical ensembles such as U Totem, The Motor Totemist Guild, The 5 UU's , Otherparts, I Am Umbrella, Adam Rudolph's Go Organic Orchestra, The Emily Hay Collective, The Rich West Ensemble, The Jeff Kaiser Okodektet and The Vinny Golia Large Ensemble. Recordings of her work have been released on Cuneiform Records, Recommended Records, Nine Winds, Meta, pfMentum, Public Eyesore and Dragnet Records. She has toured and performed throughout Europe, Canada and the U.S. with concert highlights at the Bimhuis/ Amsterdam, the Ottomat/Italy, New Music America Festival/Montreal, Art Rock Festival/ Frankfurt, Kulturni Dom/Yugoslavia, Staion de Art Sankt Peter/Cologne and the Reithalle/Switzerland. Born in rural Virginia, Emily Hay received a BFA in music from Bard College in New York and an MFA in music from California Institute of the Arts. She studied musical improvisation with Karl Berger, Dave Holland and Roswell Rudd, flute with Samuel Baron, Claude Monteaux, Julius Baker, James Walker and Patricia Spencer, piano with German Diaz and Chet Swiatkowski, composition and theory with Joan Tower, Mel Powell, Benjamin Boretz, Luis Garcia-Renart and Eli Yarden.

Bill Brovold (Guitar) is a painter, composer and artist. In the early 1980s, he was a member of a number of New York avant-garde, No Wave groups including Rhys Chatham Ensemble, East Village Orchestra, Fast Forward and the Zen Vikings. Bill created the Detroit bands Larval and Strange Farm, whose revolving line-ups at times included Billy Ficca of Television, Ernie Brooks of Modern Lovers, and Ron Asheton of The Stooges. Brovold’s long musical history overflows with interesting projects and obscure yet essential names in the worlds of art and avant-garde music. In 2017, Brovold and multi-instrumentalist Jamie Saft released the double LP “Serenity Knolls” on RareNoise Records. In 2019, he started working with Team Love Records to distribute titles from various musical explorations, including two Larval titles: “2” and “Predator or Prey,” originally released on Knitting Factory Records and three albums under his own name: “Superstar;” “Bill Brovold’s Stone Soup, The Michael Goldberg Variations,” which features artists such as Rhys Chatham and Fred Lonberg-Holm; and “Childish Delusions” originally released on Tzadik. When he’s not playing music, building instruments, or making sculpture, Bill teaches art and improvisational music to children in Brooklyn’s public schools. His studio is in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Stefano Giust (Drums) is an Italian improviser musician, drummer, composer and factotum of record label Setola di Maiale. His work is focused on the broad spectrum of improvised and experimental music. From over 30 years he works on these subjects into an acoustic, electric and electronic settings as well as in performative acts. Born in 1968, he has started to recording his music at the age of 14 and since then, his approach remained uncompromising, embracing a DIY attitude. Through the years, he has given concerts in Italy, England, Scotland, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, Belgium, Poland, Croatia, Brasil and Vietnam. He has recorded an impressive number of albums with his own main projects or as co-leader, mostly in the fields of improvised music, free jazz and electronic music. He has played with hundreds of musicians, including Evan Parker, Gino Robair, Gianni Gebbia, Herb Robertson, Tobias Delius, Tristan Honsinger, Steve Beresford, Philip Corner, Giovanni Maier, Peter Jacquemyn, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Massimo Pupillo, Walter Prati, Luc Ex, Hélène Labarrière, Keiko Higuchi, Alessandro Bosetti, Clayton Thomas, Guido Mazzon, Patrizia Oliva, Burkhard Beins, Roy Paci, Lotte Anker, Marco Eneidi, Steve Buchanan and Catherine Jauniaux. Some places he has played in: Hanoi New Music Festival (Vietnam), Angelica Festival (Bologna), Jazz Cerkno (Slovenia), Mostra SESC de Artes (Brasil), MIBnight Jazz Festival (Germany), BRDA Contemporary Music Festival (Slovenia), Interpenetration Festival (Graz), Chilli Jazz Festival (Austria), Vortex/Mopomoso (London), Area Sismica (Forlì), Jazz Club Ferrara, 48th Venice Biennale, ZDB (Lisboa), Resonance 104.4FM (London), Fondazione Mudima (Milano). As acousmatic/electronic composer, some of his works have been used or commissioned by experimental film directors and video-artists. Since 2016 he is among the curators in Bologna of the prestigious Angelica – International Music Festival. In addition, he runs Setola di Maiale, a record label devoted to creative and experimental music since 1993: up to now he has produced 450 titles involving more than 700 musicians from all over the world.

Edoardo Marraffa (Sax) is one of the leading figures of the Italian improvised music panorama. Over more than 20 years he has been working, with an undivided focus and persistence, on the sound of the saxophone, particularly the tenor, thoroughly exploring the boundaries of its expressive potential. This allowed him to develop an unique voice on the instrument, which keeps a consistent touch with the tradition notwithstanding the highly experimental character of his explorations. Main projects as leader are: solo, Casino Di Terra, Mrafi, He takes part in bands like Tell No Lies, Small Talk, Magimc, Eco D'alberi, Calipso. During the the nineties he founded Collettivo Bassesfere and played with Specchio Ensemble and Vakki Plakkula He has appeared at important international festivals in Europe and America such as Vision Festival, Umbrella Music Festival, Mostra Sesc de Artes, Uncool - Music of the Cosmos, Taktlos, Konfrontationen, ArtActs, AngelicA, Controindicazioni, Clusone Jazz, Sant’Anna Arresi, Crossroads, An Insolent Noise, Festival Mètèo, Incubate Festival, Soundsofmusic Groningen, Südtirol Jazz Festival, Jazz&Wine festival, Ring Ring Festival. He collaborated with a lot of musicians such as, among the others: Tristan Honsinger, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Barre Phillips, Lester Bowie, Don Moye, Tim Berne, John Edwards, Avreeayl Ra, Mike Cooper, Lol Coxill, Paal Nilssen-Love, Olaf Rupp, Thomas Lehn, Jeb Bishop, Johannes Bauer, Paul Lovens, Michael Zerang, Mette Rasmussen, John Dikemann, Jasper Stadhouders, Steve Heather, Onno Govaert, Fabrizio Puglisi, Paolo Angeli, Vincenzo Vasi, Cristina Zavalloni, Clayton Thomas, Wayne Horvitz, Wadada Leo Smith, Dave Burrell, Luc Ex. Audry Chen.