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Guillermo Brown and his godfather, James, share more than a surname. A groove expert lauded by Billboard magazine for his “counterpoint polyrhythms” and “funky breaks,” Guillermo E. Brown, the former Wesleyan University music student, swaggers to the beat of his own drum. As with James, this transcends music. Rather, it is a mode of thinking - one that combines cut-up imagery with bootyshaking soundscapes, diverse and familiar. It’s a mode that doubles as Guillermo’s latest album title, “Shuffle Mode.” After a decade’s work within the confounding paradigms of free jazz, experimental hip hop, new world music, art rock, and indie electronica, Brown bounds for transformation. Informed, in part, by his past partners/collaborators including David S. Ware, Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Dave Burrell, Anti-Pop Consortium, El P, Spring Heel Jack, Carl Hancock Rux, George Lewis, Vernon Reid, & DJ Logic among others, Guillermo E. Brown has earned his stripes and omni rhythmic identity at once. Off the drum throne, Brown remains a futuristic and theatrical force. Acting, writing, and singing in his one-man theatre piece, “Robeson In Space,” co-producing in Mike Ladd’s Negrophilia, vocalizing and handling electro-percussion duties in Vijay Iyer’s “Still Life with Commentator” at BAM, twiddling knobs with Matthew Shipp in Telephone Popcorn and designing twisted beatscapes for Grisha Coleman’s echo::system; these are some of the duties managed by Brown, the non-drummer. The multi-talented Brown has even moved with best of them in Marlies Yearby’s Movin Spirits Dance Theatre and Bill T. Jones’ The Fela Kuti Project. Brown’s phonographic breadth can be heard on over 30 recordings including his own albums Soul at the Hands of the Machine, The Beat Kids' “Open Rhythm System”, “Black Dreams 1.0,” “…Is Arturo Klauft,” and “Handeheld.” BiLLLL$ is an outstanding new musical project that sees Guillermo sharing duties with William Johnson (aka Gordon Voidwell) hence the 4 L's of the band name. As enticing as as a risk free trip to inner-outerspace, BiLLLL$ cast Brown and his cohorts Johnson and Cochemea Gastelum (aka Johnnny Arrow) in the director's chair. Here in the BiLLLL$ dimension expect absolute supreme dopeness. In addition to Shuffle Mode and BiLLLL$, Brown looks forward to releasing The Beat Kids' 2nd release “Sound Magazine”, continuing work on his ensemble performance piece Syrup, The Cut Up Quintet, and Breuklen Tek Orchestra. Brown’s version for a better tomorrow includes dealing dub to teens in the Chelsea neighborhood of NYC, better living through arts and literacy to little ones in the Lower East Side, workshopping with Italian drummers & beatmaking with OH middle schoolers & thinktanking/critiquing students in the Clive Davis Dept. of Recorded Music and the Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Free Layouts for MySpace

Recently featured in the New York Times, vocalist/composer Imani Uzuri is an eclectic artist who creates, performs and collaborates across various genres including concerts, experimental theater, recordings, visual/performance art and sound installations. She has performed at numerous international venues/festivals from Morocco to Moscow; from Lincoln Center to The United Nations including a recent special solo performance at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Her diverse collaborators include Herbie Hancock, Wangechi Mutu, Vijay Iyer, Sanford Biggers, Talib Kweli and John Legend. Television appearances include David Letterman and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and The Roots. Uzuri's nomadic world travels, and her interest in sacred music and experimentation is reflected in her various projects including her critically aclaimed debut album Her Holy Water: A Black Girl's Rock Opera. New York Magazine has called her work "stunning". Her forthcoming new album The Gypsy Diaries, which features vocals, violin, cello, acoustic guitar, sitar and daf, is a lyrical and spiritual soundscape.

www.imaniuzuri.com

Black & White photo credit: Yossi Michaeli

Trained in classical Hindustani vocal music, composer/ performer Samita Sinha uses the range of her voice together with electronics and multilingual text in solo performance and multichannel vocal pieces. Besides her solo work, Sinha has a duo project with Marc Cary called ANATOMY (electronic/ Hindustani/ jazz), uses her voice as an improvising instrument in jazz ensembles (in Marc Cary’s FOCUS Trio, Sunny Jain Collective, and Eternal Now), and has toured internationally as a vocalist with the late performance poet Sekou Sundiata’s the 51st (dream) state. In addition to her international performance career, Sinha has been awarded grants from the Urban Artist Initiative and Queens Council on the Arts, a Fulbright Scholarship to study music in India, and has been a composer-in-residence and two-time juror at Millay Colony on the Arts. She has created music for film (Prashant Bhargava’s “Backwaters”) and video installation (Jaishri Abichandani’s “3 Muses”). Her debut CD with her group Kaash (Sunny Jain, Jesse Neuman, Dan Fabricatore), entitled Seep, was named a Top Pick of 2006 in All About Jazz and appeared in Billboard’s “Top 5 Hear and Now.”