With his first instrument, the cornet, and an intuitive sense of self-production, in youth he traversed the diversity of the city's music scenes (jazz, hip hop, house, electronic, rock, avant garde, salsa, latin jazz, et al) before embarking on a several-year residential relocation to Brazil. Beloved by listeners and collaborators alike for his ability to absorb and poetically refract the sound of any context he's immersed in, Gay's return home to Chicago in the early 2010s marked the beginning of a compositional output that has since been referred to by WIRE Magazine as "Pan-Americana." As elusive as he is prolific, across seven under-the-radar years of work Gay diligently composed, produced and recorded seven collections of original music before compiling and issuing his unreleased 'greatest hits' as a debut album – Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun – for International Anthem in 2018. Also in 2018 Gay composed an original score for the Tribeca award-winning short doc The Good Fight. In 2019, he composed an original score for the Brazilian underground carnival profile This Is Bate Bola, and debuted new music commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Despite his legendary elusiveness, he is a constant collaborator who has co-written works released by Makaya McCraven, Bottle Tree, The Notwist, and more. In 2017, he was an artist in residence at iconic Chicago arhitect Edgar Miller's Glasner Studio, where he composed original music for the space. In 2018, he was a 3Arts / Stan Lipkin & Evelyn Appell Lipkin Awardee. In 2019, he composed and performed a duet with the DuSable Bridge while it was raised over the Chicago River. In 2020, he was an artist in residence for University of Chicago / Arts & Public Life's Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture. For Time:Spans Festival 2021, at DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City, Gay debuted a new composition – "Known Better. Still Lit" – that was commissioned and performed by Wet Ink Ensemble.

Gay's latest album Open Arms to Open Us was released by International Anthem & Nonesuch Records in November 2021. Across 2022 Gay toured with his quartet in support of his new album – performing at notable performing arts centers and festivals such as the Barbican (London), North Sea Jazz Fest (The Hague NL), and Big Ears (Tennessee). In late 2022 he released Certain Reveries, an album of duo compositions on International Anthem, and an accompanying film – “Balogun,” in tribute to the late Eddie Harris - which he staged, directed, filmed, and scored entirely himself. When he’s not on the road, he’ll be continuously writing and creating from his studio within Theaster Gates’ Rebuild Foundation.

On his breakout album In The Moment (International Anthem, 2015) Makaya debuted the fruits of a compositional approach rooted in collectivist, collaborative, improvisational jazz traditions, but evolved to innovatively employ Ableton editing, overdubbing, layering, and Ableton studio creation techniques (about which, WIRE Magazine said: "While Teo Macero's work with Miles Davis might seem the obvious reference point, In The Moment is closer in spirit to Madlib and J Dilla"). He's refined his approach over several subsequent, critically-acclaimed bodies of work (including 2017's Highly Rare and 2018's Universal Beings), writing a wholly original kind of rhythmically ornate, often hypnotic and highly melodic modern music, and becoming a major creative force in the shifting conceptions and growing popularities of jazz and BAM. In 2019, Makaya composed an original score for Mike Testin's Browse. In 2020, he created an original soundtrack for Mark Pallman's Universal Beings film, XL Recordings invited him to re-imagine and re-produce Gil Scott-Heron's I'm New Here, and his song "Requests" scored an award-winning ad campaign for The New York Times. In 2021, he put his remixing/producer stamp on a collection of classic tunes for Blue Note Records called Deciphering The Message. Never one to be pigeonholed, Makaya is taking a more traditional pen-to-paper approach to a new orchestral suite of odd-meter original compositions called In These Times (commissioned in part by the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis), which is slated for release by the three-label partnership of International Anthem, Nonesuch & XL Recordings in 2022, receiving many accolades and landing on many ‘Best of 2022’ lists (including in the top 10 of NPR Music’s albums list). Also in 2022 Makaya composed an original score for the Netflix-distributed documentary Civil: Ben Crump, a film that follows the civil rights attorney who represented the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many other victims of police brutality. In 2023, Makaya tours globally in support of In These Times (including scheduled stops at Bonnaroo Festival, Big Ears, and others), while also finishing production on a new Brandee Younger album, and working on his next lead-artist collection.

Born to missionaries in Atlanta, Angel's childhood was spent moving as her parent’s ministry mandated: from Georgia to Kentucky to several years in Kenya, the family finally settled in Chicago’s South suburbs. After high school she studied clarinet and music education at the Moody Bible Institute, though her compounded experiences as a Black student of classical music eventually drove her out of the conservatory and into the workforce. In 2014 Angel recommitted herself to a life in music, following in-roads through Chicago’s experimental music community with touchstones like David Boykin’s Sonic Healing Ministries and Damon Locks’s Black Monument Ensemble, and forming her own improvisationally-focused collective, The Participatory Music Coalition. Inspired by everything from the poetry of Margaret Burroughs to the music of Yusef Lateef and even Mozart, Angel composed and self-recorded her debut The Oracle for International Anthem in 2019. In 2020 she released Transition East and a critically-acclaimed LIVE album, and debuted an original suite of compositions commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago for Yoko Ono's Skylanding sculpture garden. Though these last few years have been nothing short of an explosion onto the scene, it is the future of Angel's artistry that has us most thrilled. When asked what’s next, she is lucid: “I have really big artistic goals and hope to expand compositionally. I’ve always wanted to write a symphony and I’m really interested in film scoring.” She's a featured artist/co-writer on a Sons of Kemet single released in early 2021. Also in 2021, she composed original music for a Ross Gay poem included in Jagjaguwar’s 25th anniversary collection Dilate Your Heart; and on Juneteenth, she released a collection of solo compositions called Hush Harbor Mixtape Vol. 1 Doxology on International Anthem. In early 2022, she was artist in residence with NYC Winter Jazz Fest, where she debuted the commission piece “Afro Town Topics” in collaboration with Marshall Allen; and she performed at Carnegie Hall in New York as part of their AfroFuturism series. Later in 2022 she will release her ambitious double LP album Requiem for Jazz – a Sun Ra-inspired suite that marries Classical composition, Black jazz, psychedelia, and lo-fi trap-style beatwork.

Her scores and site-specific installations span the worlds of art, film, classical dance, and performance. Select commissions have been presented by the Joyce Theater (NY), the Miller Theatre (NY), and MoMA PS1 (NY), as well as film festivals worldwide. Working with the Lancaster Museum of Art and History, in October 2020 Scacco debuted Generator, an original composition for two cellos that was performed within the Networks of Power sculptural installation in the open air of California’s Mojave Desert. Scacco has been an ensemble member of Savath + Savalas and Helado Negro, and is one half of psych-folk duo Storms with Eva Puyuelo. Her solo and collaborative recordings appear on a number of experimental labels in the US, UK, Australia, and Japan. She has remixed patten, Holopaw, Certain Creatures, Same Waves, and Leverage Models. Scacco released her first solo album, Circles, on Prefuse 73’s Eastern Developments imprint, and was the co-founder and guitarist of Seely, the first American band on British record label Too Pure. Her latest output is The Order of Things, on Longform Editions, and her most recent film work is the score to Another Hayride, a documentary by Matt Wolf. In early 2022 Scacco opened for legendary synth pioneer Suzanne Ciani at the Church of Heavenly Rest in New York, as part of the Ambient Church series.

In thei career as a jazz bassist, Butterss has performed with Larry Goldings, Josh Johnson, Chris Speed and Walter Smith III, among others. Butterss’ co-writing credits include compositions with Makaya McCraven (for his critically lauded 2018 album Universal Beings), Daniel Villarreal (for his 2022 album Panamá 77), and guitarist/composer Jeff Parker (for his album Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy). In 2020 Butterss contributed writing and arrangements to several songs by Karen O and Ben Goldwasser for the feature-length film Where is Anne Frank?. Butterss has been living, working, and creating in Los Angeles since 2014, where they’re also a mainstay of guitarist Jeff Parker’s improvising quartet that performs regularly at ETA in Highland Park. In July 2022 Butterss released their debut eponymous album Activities (Colorfield Records) to wide critical acclaim, including The Quietus, WIRE Magazine, and Aquarium Drunkard, who said: “On (their) solo debut, Butterss embraces an expansive electro-tinged jazz and reveals the full depth of (their) musicianship."

She regularly records for film and television, including scores for The Good Place, Promising Young Woman, Deadly Illusions and Queens. As a string arranger, Marta has written and recorded strings for Fleet Foxes, Candlebox, Lovi Poe, Troi Irons, and Daniel Villareal. Within the film composing medium, she co-wrote the guitar/synth/strings score to the feature documentary 1 Billion Orgasms, and shorts El Profe and Remedios. Most recently, she collaborated with composer Ben Babbitt for dystopian film The Registry. In 2022 she released a critically-acclaimed duo album with Jeremiah Chiu on International Anthem, Recordings from the Åland Islands, which combined field recordings with improvisations on synthesizer and viola. Marta values collaboration above all else, and has worked closely with composers Drum & Lace, Jherek Bischoff, Geneveive Vincent and more. With a strong ear and tact for self-production, she is flexible and dexterous in helping co-writers flesh out their concepts. In an era where most media music is born out of sample libraries, Marta regularly works with composers to compliment their framework with accentuating string melodies and symphonic arrangements – and is no stranger to experimentation for unique textures and sounds. As a chamber musician, Honer participated in the Industry’s experimental opera production Sweet Land and is a regular member of Sonic Open Orchestra, who recently recorded Gavin Bryar’s The Sinking of the Titanic. Alongside performing and recording, Honer is a faculty member at California State University Los Angeles.

His musical expertise stems from his childhood experiences as a classical violinist and pianist — which evolved into his practice as a synthesist and composer. Chicago born and raised, he spent his time as an undergraduate (at DePaul University) and graduate (at University of Illinois at Chicago) student studying Graphic Design and Art, while performing and playing in Icy Demons, Chandeliers, and Axis:Sova, amongst his own solo projects — artists all operating out of the collective arts space and recording studio on Chicago’s South Side, Shape Shoppe. It was at Shape Shoppe that his musical vocabulary expanded. The collective space was home to many of Chicago’s free-jazz stalwarts (including Keefe Jackson and Nick Broste) and extended as a community space and recording studio to their artistic family — Mahjongg, Bitchin’ Bajas, Beirut, Man Man, Need New Body, Jeff Parker, Count Bass D, Natural Information Society, etc… The music of Icy Demons — helmed by Griffin Rodriguez and Man Man’s Chris Powell — brought together electronic, post-rock, and jazz elements, infused by a rotating cast of members including Jeff Parker, Tomeka Reid, Dylan Ryan, and members of Chandeliers. It was through these formative years that Jeremiah developed his foundation as an electronic music composer — combining ideas from his art & design practice into his approach to music composition.

In 2014, Jeremiah moved to Los Angeles to refocus his practice as an electronic music composer and sound artist, where he currently composes and performs with a variety of like-minded collaborators including Celia Hollander, Booker Stardrum, Ben Babbitt, Dusting Wong, Takako Minekawa, Byron Westbrook, and Sam Prekop. His compositions span a variety of approaches, from more pop-oriented synthesizer scores to experimental compositions for installation environments. In 2018, the Getty Center commissioned his work, A Piano Cannot Play a Sine Wave, in part of their Pianographs performance. The piece is a graphic score for player piano composed visually onto the surface of the piano scroll. Simultaneously (in 2018), his feature-length collaborative score (with Marta Sofia Honer and Greg Herzenach) for the documentary film, 1 Billion Orgasms, soundtracked a quirky, yet dark portrait of an engineer’s pursuit of a strange personal dream. In 2021, Chiu composed, mixed and edited a two-channel sound installation / environmental music composition for the historic Neutra VDL House in Los Angeles. His upcoming score for a High Desert Test Sites — in collaboration with Celia Hollander and Byron Westbrook — sonically activates the three façades of Halsey Rodman’s Joshua Tree-based sculptural structure Gradually/We Became Aware/Of a Hum in part of their 2022 season of programming. In 2022 Chiu released a critically-acclaimed duo album with Marta Sofia Honer on International Anthem, Recordings from the Åland Islands, which combined field recordings with improvisations on synthesizer and viola.

Through Dos Santos and Ida y Vuelta, he’s demonstrated a range of knowledge and skill in various stripes of folkloric Latin music; but, ironically, he didn’t really play traditional Latin music until he moved to the States from his hometown Panamá City. His deepest roots in drumming are from the progressive punk and hardcore scenes of Central America, where his bands NOHAYDIA and 2 Huevos 1 Camino were active in the late 90s. Those formative experiences are the foundation of his career in music.

After his teen years thrashing on the punk scene, Villarreal started a life-changing tutelage with Freddy Sobers, the drummer of El General and Nando Boom (both known for pioneering reggaeton music in Panamá). “He taught me how to play all kinds of rhythms and told me I didn’t have to just play punk music,” Villarreal told the Chicago Reader in 2021. “He played everything from Rush to reggaeton to Chick Corea to salsa music... He told me if I wanted to be a good drummer, I had to learn all the styles. He took me under his wing, and I learned a lot from him.”

Villarreal migrated to the US in the early 2000s. His first decade was spent living on a farm near Woodstock, Illinois, where he was a social worker, connecting migrant laborers with community health clinics. He also spent that time raising his two daughters, Estelle and Fania. But all his spare time went to nurturing his passion for drums. As he found more collaborators, played more gigs and became more embedded in the music community, in the early 2010s he moved down the highway into the City of Chicago, determined to grind it out as a full-time musician.

A subsequent decade of non-stop sideman work saw the growing national awareness and success of Dos Santos across three albums and extensive touring, all while Villarreal was imagining what his own solo record could be. Between 2019 and 2021 he recorded his debut album Panamá 77 (named for his home country and birth year) for International Anthem, which was released in May of 2022. About the collection, Villarreal said: “This album is an affirmation of both my origin story and who I am today. I see my life and my music as a collaboration of improvisation and intention all in the spirit of community and joy.”

Panamá 77 received critical praise from MOJO, Aquarium Drunkard, Treble Zine and, among many others, the Chicago Tribune (who called it “a densely layered record of abundance”), earning Villarreal opening slots on tour with Lee Fields, in Chicago with indie darlings Whitney, and a set at the 2023 NYC Winter Jazz Festival. For the rest of 2023, Villarreal will continue to tour with his band in support of Panamá 77 while finishing work on a collection of Lados B, along with releases of new co-written material with Valebol (his duo with VV Lightbody) and The Los Sundowns (his duo with Grupo Fantasma/Brownout leader Beto Martinez).

Born to a musical family in the rust belt town of Coshocton, Ohio, Mattison’s ear was nurtured by the large collection of CTI records her parents owned. She studied classical piano from the age of 6, immersing herself in Debussy, Chopin and Scarlatti as much as the sounds of Roberta Flack, Janet Jackson, and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony that came through her FM radio. But the classical music competitions of her high school years left her fatigued, and she headed off for  Kent State University in pursuit of another passion: Fashion Design.

At Kent State, Mattison found herself in a world in which she loved creating, but didn’t feel she belonged. She turned to singing for comfort, auditioning for every choir she could, eventually earning herself a spot as lead vocalist for Kent State’s Jazz Ensemble I. Simultaneously, her passion for writing was ignited. She changed her major to English and dug deep into the exotics of fiction and poetry (she cites poet Michael Ondaatje and writer Gloria Naylor as heroes from that time) while pursuing a minor in music. She bought herself a keyboard, started pairing jazz piano progressions with unique and scarce lyrics, and began playing gigs at a local pub as MATTISON. 

Mattison moved to New York City with her bandmates in 2005 to pursue her musical ambitions. Sunny’s Bar, Pete’s Candy Store, and Mercury Lounge were some of the first venues to book Kate and her band. By early 2007, she was touring with other projects as well, and had bought herself the Fender Rhodes piano she would use for the next decade. In late 2007, her mother Mary, a Music and French teacher, was diagnosed with brain cancer. Despite being encouraged to stay in the city by her mother, she moved back to Ohio with her siblings. Mary passed away that September, leaving Kate devastated and lost. Returning to New York City, she began exploring themes of loneliness, betrayal, anger, through the unlikely format of sugary sweet pop music. Mattison self-released her first work, named  Mary in her mother’s honor, in 2008. A five-song EP released only on vinyl, it portrayed her early oblique approach to lyricism, and obvious jazz and AM pop songwriting sensibilities. 

Mattison was living in a world as a New Yorker only a New Yorker could understand. Bartending 3-4 days a week, writing music, playing gigs, never sleeping, and living hard. By 2010 opportunities were slowly coming in but, still heartbroken by the loss of her mother, she desperately needed progress. She added to her band’s lineup, and changed the name to 79.5. This new beginning set forth what 79.5’s ever-evolving sound has become, which includes longtime collaborator, saxophonist and flautist Izaak Mills. Highly celebrated releases followed: in 2012 a 12” Single “Boogie/OOO'' was self-released, with that their live show reviews were written up twice in The New Yorker. In 2016, the “Terrorize My Heart” 45 dropped and became a staple in DJ sets around the world. The band’s debut LP Predictions” was released with high praise from NPR, NME, and Billboard. The Mattison-penned “Terrorize My Heart (Disco Dub)” from the same album was nominated for track of the year at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide FM awards, and added to Questlove's "100 Essential Songs You Should Know" playlist. 

In May 2023, Mattison and 79.5 will release a new self-titled album 79.5 on Razor-N-Tape Records.

Uhlmann made his songwriter debut in 2015 with LA indie experimental outfit Fell Runner (alongside fellow burgeoning writer Steven Van Betten) born out of the group’s collective enrollment at CalArts. Albums Fell Runner (2015), Talking (2019), and What I Am (2022) display wide ranging guitar performance, melding syncopated chordal work with long, washed out riffs to tie each song together. The year 2016 saw Uhlmann’s inclusion in Chicago’s Typical Sisters — fully immersed in the rich post rock and jazz traditions harking on the likes of Tortoise and Chicago Underground Duo. The groups three album run of Typical Sisters (2016), Hungry Ghost (2019), and Love Beam (2021) find Uhlmann progress from tapping into Frisell-like songs to more produced pieces that combine elements of sampling and looping. 

Uhlmann has multiple albums of solo compositions— Small Day (Colorfield Recordings, 2024) explores the outreaches of sparse melodies and hushed ambient soundscapes. Again and Again (Northern Spy, 2023) is Uhlmann’s most polished singer-songwriter effort to date, marrying sunny guitar pop with confessional and reverential lyricism. Neighborhood Watch (Topshelf Records, 2020) and Odd Job (2017) lean on a successful execution of tender folk and chamber pop tendencies while remaining well balanced and tastefully minimalist through and through. 

Uhlmann is a member of and has written and composed music for jazz trance large ensemble SML (via International Anthem, whose debut Small Medium Large debuted at #15 on Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz chart), a duo guitar outfit Duffy x Uhlmann (via Ordinal Records, with Meg Duffy of Hand Habits), and various groupings and experiments in improvisational pairings (a trio with Sam Wilkes and Josh Johnson, a duo with Dustin Wong). His live performance and resume includes stints as a regular recording/touring member of Perfume Genius, Hand Habits, and Anna Butterss, among a growing list of others. 

He has composed works for dance, film, commercials, and has had pieces premiered at REDCAT and The Poetry Foundation. Additionally, Uhlmann has produced for Tasha, Derde Verde, and others.