Madeleine Cocolas is a Brisbane-based Australian composer and producer who creates predominantly post-classical and ambient instrumental music. Her work moves between lush soundscapes to experimental electronics, field recordings and solo piano. Madeleine has released solo music through various international labels and has presented work at QAGOMA (Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art), Sydney’s SXSW (South by Southwest), Powerhouse Museum and Phoenix Central Park.  

Keiji Haino is a Japanese musician born in 1952 in Chiba, Japan. After hearing American rock band The Doors as a teenager, he immersed himself in a vast spectrum of musical expression, from primitive blues to medieval European music. In 1970 he became the lead singer of the avant-garde rock group Lost Aaraaf, named after a poem by the American author Edgar Allan Poe, before forming the experimental rock group Fushitsusha in 1978. During these years, he learned to play the guitar and several percussion and traditional instruments and recorded his first solo pieces. Following a break in the 1980s, he has alternated between solo and collaborative projects, combining rock, noise, improvised music and drone. 

Hand to Earth is an Australian-based contemporary music ensemble. Comprised of Daniel Wilfred, Sunny Kim, David Wilfred, Peter Knight and Aviva Endean, the group draw on the minimalist music of Brian Eno and Jon Hassell to create a bed for contrasting voices. Daniel sings in language and is the keeper of Yolŋu manikay (songs) from Northeast Arnhem Land that can be traced back over 40,000 years. His is the oldest continuously practised music tradition in the world. Sunny sings in English and Korean, intoning gestures that invoke raw elemental forces. Together, their vocals play against the drone of David Wilfred’s yidaki and atmospheres created by trumpeter and sound artist Peter Knight and clarinettist Aviva Endean.

Chihei Hatakeyama is a Tokyo-based ambient musician and mastering engineer who creates chiming, shimmering soundscapes with acoustic instruments (including guitar, vibraphone, and piano) and laptop processing. His works often evoke scenes from nature and include field recordings and other organic sounds. Since the release of his acclaimed debut album in 2006, Minima moralia, he has been remarkably prolific as both a solo artist and collaborator.

Eiko Ishibashi is a Japanese multi-instrumentalist whose work has ranged from improvised music and acclaimed singer-songwriter albums to scores for film, television, theatre and exhibitions. Her records have been released by Drag City, Black Truffle and Editions Mego, among others. In 2020 she was commissioned to create music for the exhibitions Japan Supernatural at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney and Memory of Future at Mandako coal mine in Kumamoto, Japan. Among her film work is the score for Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 2021 Academy Award–winning film Drive my car for which she won the Discovery of the Year award at the World Soundtrack Awards and Best Composer award at the Asian Film Awards.

Nyokabi Kariũki is a Kenyan composer, sound artist and performer. Her music is ever evolving, spanning classical contemporary to experimental electronic music. She has explored sound art, pop, film, East African musical traditions and more. She seeks to create meaningful and challenging art, illuminated by a commitment to the preservation of and reflection on African thought, language and stories. 

Jim O’Rourke is an American experimental rock musician who has been working across music and film since the late 1980s. As a producer he has made albums with Sonic Youth, Beth Orton, Stereolab, John Fahey and Joanna Newsom, and for the Grammy Award–winning album A ghost is born by Wilco. He has been a member of Gastr Del Sol, Fenn O’Berg, Loose Fur, The Red Krayola, and Sonic Youth. He has also scored films for Werner Herzog, Koji Wakamatsu and Olivier Assayas, and was the musical consultant for Richard Linklater’s movie The School of Rock.  

His wide-ranging practice traverses his series of albums on Drag City, to working with legendary avant-garde composer Merce Cunningham and commissions for INA GRM (Music Research Group) in Paris. He also champions underappreciated artists like Tony Conrad, Loren Connors and Roland Kayn, both through his own reissue labels and archival work that secures the future of their music.

Gail Priest is an artist living on Dharug and Gundungurra land in Katoomba, NSW. Priest has been performing for over 20 years nationally and internationally. Her live exploratory music uses voice, micro sounds from objects, field recordings and electronics. Employing multiple effects and processing chains, the laptop becomes an instrument that allows for the sculpting of sounds to extract their essence.  

In Priest’s hands, organic sounds become synthetic, synthetic sounds seem organic, beats and cycles emerge and disintegrate in a push and pull between the figurative and the abstract, the sensual and brutal.  

Carl Stone is considered one of the pioneers of computer music. Having used computers in live performance since 1986, he has been called ‘the king of sampling’ by New York’s Village Voice. Stone was born in California and now divides his time between LA and Japan. He studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton Subotnick and James Tenney and has composed electro-acoustic music almost exclusively since 1972. His works have been performed in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America and the Near East. In addition to his schedule of performance, composition and touring, he is the emeritus professor in the Department of Media Engineering at Chukyo University in Japan.