Kuro Neko Music

Yukitomo Hamasaki is composer, sound artist and is also managing the Tokyo based sound label "mAtter". His music career at the age of 18, taking his cues from djing. His interests include light, a cloud, and the collision that has happened by micro space. And his theme is to compose them as a musical composition. He also produces installation work and graphic design. - about mAtter : mAtter is a sound & design label, with works centering around Yukitomo Hamasaki. The label take an approach to various types of media, such as sound design, architecture, and product design. It interprets/restructures these concepts in a lot of different ways, based on mAtter's own perspective, with the goal of constructing dense space. The members of the project aren't specified, and they switch depending on the various projects. The members mainly consist of musicians, architects, video artists, and writers.

Fred Lonberg-Holm coordinates and directs performances of his Lightbox Orchestra, an improvising ensemble with a flexible, ever-changing membership. Lonberg-Holm does not play an instrument in this group, but rather conducts its non-idiomatic improvisations via the "lightbox" and by holding up handwritten signs. The lightbox contains a light bulb for each musician which Lonberg-Holm switches on or off to suggest when they should play. Chicago based cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm has played and studied music in a variety of situations from the Juilliard School to the gutter. A former student of Anthony Braxton, Morton Feldman, Bunita Marcus and Pauline Oliveros, his primary projects are his Valentine Trio and The Lightbox Orchestra. He is also a member of a number of ongoing collective projects (The Boxhead Ensemble, The Friction Brothers with Michaels Zerang and Colligan, The Flatlands Collective, Keefe Jackson's Fast Citizens) as well as participating in numerous one off "ad-hoc" or in frequently convening ensembles. He also currently plays in groups led by Joe McPhee (Survival Unit III), Peter Brotzmann (Chicago 10tet), nd Ken Vandermark (Vandermark 5, Frame 4tet, Territory Ensemble).

ASTRO is Hiroshima Hasegawa's solo project. He was in the band named C.C.C.C. which was one of the biggest Japanese noise groups. Born in 1963, Hasegawa has begun his improvisation with his voice and drums. And in 1990, he made the group C.C.C.C. which's concept was impovisative mass-noise with very loud sound. The group became legend with the members Mayuko Hino, Ryuichi Nagakubo, Fumio Kosakai. Also he has begun his solo unit ASTRO with analog synthesizers in 1993 as well as playing in C.C.C.C. Now he is actively playing and issuing and doing many collaboration with other artists. The artist who played together by now are Yamazaki Maso, Kawabata Makoto, Keiji Haino, Seiichi Yamamoto, Masaya Nakahara, Reiko.A, KK Null, Damo Suzuki and many more. And there are released works beyond 50 titles. His playing style is like drifting between the meditation and awakening state with electronics and still he is pursuing it.