Bootstrapping manifests a self-organizing sonic system from nothing. The seed is the impulse, the mechanism is improvisation. **Bootstrappers** is the name for Sharp's improvising rock trio here featuring longtime collaborators David Hofstra on electric bass, drummer Don McKenzie, with Sharp on electric guitars and electronics. The music reflects the classic "power trio" filtered through cyberpunk, techno, and free jazz: raging, psychedelic, and filled with fantastic extrapolations. One may hear strains of Jimi Hendrix "Band Of Gypsies", Bela Bartok string quartets, Sonny Sharrock's noise rhapsodies and Ornette Coleman's harmolodics. Dave Hofstra is a veteran of such legendary bands as The Contortions, The Raybeats, The Waitresses, and The Microscopic Septet and has lent his talents to the work of Otis Rush, Roswell Rudd, Greg Osby, and Bill Frisell. Don McKenzie, master of deep-pocket hip hop, funk, jazz and rock, is a member of Vernon Reid's Masque and has recorded or performed with Marc Ribot, P. Diddy, GraveDiggaz, Sweetback, and Cecil Taylor. Sharp is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, visual artist and author who has pioneered use of fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetics in musical composition. His many collaborators have included Radio-Sinfonie Frankfurt; singer Debbie Harry; Ensemble Modern; Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; blues legends Hubert Sumlin and Pops Staples; pianist Cecil Taylor; multimedia artists Christian Marclay and Pierre Huyghe; and Bachir Attar, leader of the Master Musicians Of Jajouka. • **Barbiana Complex** is a Hoboken, NJ-based art/noise/improv ensemble featuring Barbara Solsky (vocals/guitar), Mike McCann (drums/percussion), Warren Kitt (bass), and Elliott Levin (sax/flute). Described by Chuck Eddy of Rolling Stone as "thick, sprawling, psychedelic fuzz goth," Barbiana Complex has performed at legendary venues such as CBGB, Continental, and the Viper Room, and has recorded and/or performed with artists such as David First (Notekillers), Gary Lucas (Captain Beefheart/Jeff Buckley), and Wharton Tiers (Theoretical Girls). Our latest recording, SKY VIEW MIRROR, is currently being released on vinyl. Best known for his work with the seminal outfit SWANS, **Westberg**'s output beyond that group is sprawling and restless. His name recurs and ripples through many interconnected micro- histories surrounding New York City's music and art scenes. From appearances in film works associated with the Cinema Of Transgression, through to his participation in bands such as The Heroine Sheiks and Five Dollar Priest, Westberg's name is woven deeply into the fabric of New York over the past three decades. A note from Lawrence English "Norman Westberg's guitar playing with SWANS has influence a generation of musicians across genres. I can personally attest to how his particular approaches to that instrument, in creating both harmony and brute force, have challenged and ultimately influenced my own sonic preoccupations. What Norman has created with his solo works is an echoing universe of deep texture and harmonic intensity. His solo compositions generate an affecting quality that drives the listener towards reductive transcendence. His guitar, as singular source, becomes transformed through a web of outboard processes. He transforms vibrating strings completely, taking singular gesture and reshapes it through webs of delay, reverb and other treatments. To me, these works echo many of the concerns of American minimalism and sprawl outward together with the work of bands such as Stars Of The Lid. Norman has created a very dense and powerful statement of intent with these recordings and I couldn't be more pleased to have some small part in helping to share them."