Maggie Nicols started as a dancer at the Windmill Theatre in the 60's, but soon discovered her voice. In 1968 she became a member of John Stevens' Spontaneous Music Ensemble, and then was a part of Keith Tippett's fifty-strong group Centipede. By the late 70's she had become an active feminist, and co-founded the Feminist Improvising Group. Over the years, she has collaborated with other women's groups, such as the Changing Women Theatre Group, and wrote music for a prime-time television series, Women in Sport. More recently she has collaborated with many notable musicians, none more important than her group with Joelle Leandre and Irene Schwartzer, Les Diaboliques.


In 1991 she started a weekly improvised music meeting called The Gathering in London, which has now spread its wings to South Wales and Liverpool. In 2020, she released her debut solo album entitled Creative Contradiction: Poetry, Story, Song & Sound on Cafe Oto's Takuroku label.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_Nicols




Fran Bass is, as her name suggests, an electric bass player, based in Nottingham. As with so many musicians outside of London, she has passed somewhat under the radar, but even a brief listen to the Siapiau recording will attest that she's a player of the first order.

She began playing piano aged six before moving on to trumpet and then taking up bass aged twenty-three, after ten years as a singer. She then joined lesbian band Atomic Kandy, and then spent twenty-five years in the women's music network, touring Europe and the UK. Since then she has played a very wide range of musics, sometimes communicating through music with people when there was no other common language.

She discovered Jazz (and through that improvisation) after a chance encounter with Keith Tippett in a Nottingham Jazz Festival, and further expanded her breadth of expression after playing with Maggie Nicols in the band Mesmerise, and attending Gathering sessions. She has been in over a hundred bands of many different genres.



Richard Harrison has been active in the Manchester scene since the late 70’s, initially with the post punk Mud Hutters then the indie jazz pop Dislocation Dance.

Several tours of Europe with Nico (of Velvet Underground fame) followed by the punk jazz 4/5 piece The Honkies with Caroline Kraabel, Kathy Hulme and Andy Diagram later joined by John Edwards, mainly playing in the London improv scene and throughout Europe. In the 90’s Richard and Andy Diagram formed Spaceheads and have continued to tour and release albums to this day: 16 releases so far including 2 CD’s of improvisations with sound sculptor Max Eastley. Other projects have been God is my Co-Pilot from New York , Graham Massey’s Toolshed and Paddy Steer’s Homelife. Various projects with Matt Wand, Stretchmarks  and a recent release as a duo on an album 'In Lieu'.

  Latterly  Richard has been involved in the Manchester improvising scene with David Birchall and Kelly JJ amongst others, and also Phil Hargreaves from the Liverpool scene - ‘Fall Through The Infinite' is a recent release by Phil and Richard.

In 1999 a CD of wind on wires was released on the ‘Hot Air’ label - Drone Hill: a follow up, is soon to be released, of further recordings.



Phil Hargreaves is a sax/flute player based in Liverpool, where he has been active on the improvised/experimental scene since 1997. That year he started the Frakture Music Space with guitarist Phil Morton, including the Frakture Big Band, a large-scale improvising group. After his collaboration with Phil Morton ended he founded his own label, Whi Music, and began a number of large and small scale projects, including a concerto for saxophonist Evan Parker and a trio with Simon Fell and Rob Dainton, amere3.

After a couple of lengthy spells out due to illness his current projects include Graculus, a duo with classical guitarist/composer Richard Harding, the metal/improv band Malchamech and Bloodcog, a free jazz/power electronics band.