Yes, we're very much a collective, but not completely without ego, so here it is:

Dirk Bruinsma (NL, saxes/compositions)
Jeroen Kimman (NL, electric guitar/composition)
Gerri Jäger (AT, drums/percussion/composition)
Viljam Nybacka (FIN, bass guitar/composition)

Dirk Bruinsma (NL 1962, saxes/compositions)

After having crossed the european continent a good amount of times touring and playing, practically living in trains, cars and airplanes for several years, I have returned to the homecountry and found myself a roof in the city of Amsterdam. New groups and projects have emerged next to those that never stopped. My band 'Blast' is now living in it's eighteenth year and I'm still composing several new pieces for it every year. But there are new projects that have been set up; 'Brown vs Brown', the 'N-collective' and 'The Friendly Boys'. These are groups that extend my musical palette with more jazz, more abstract improv. and (non)sense in multi-media-land. Festivals with laptops and videobeamers (Transmediale Berlin, Nu-Music Stavanger and Sonic Acts Amsterdam) next to boxing matches with dancers (Melkweg Amsterdam) and experiments with the spoken word (Rotterdam Filmfestival, Roratorio Geneva). And of course I have to mention some of my recent encounters (and actual concerts!) with the known figures of my trade; Fred Frith, Axel Dörner, Jaap Blonk, Saadet Türköz, Wolter Wierbos, Martin Schütz, Hans Koch, to mention only a few..... The last couple of years I recorded for: Recommended Records-UK (with Blast), XOR-NL (with N-collective), A-version-UK (with Office-R) and Lampse-UK (with Office-R)

Jeroen Kimman (NL 1972, electric guitar/composition)

Jeroen's music could be described as a desperate attempt to accumulate all the good music that he listens to into his playing and composing. Unfortunately, the influences are so diverse, and ever-changing at a rapid pace, that it seems intrinsically impossible to ever be satisfied by current status-quo. This musical schizofrenia makes up the core of his output... After spending most of his teenage years portraying the local heavy-metal-God, it seemed about time to pursue a budding love for jazz, which is what he then studied at the conservatory of Arnhem. Meanwhile Jeroen was making a living playing in a Mariachi band. In the years that followed he has occupied himself in a broad range of projects and styles, mostly active in the fields of jazz, impro and electronic music. Today, next to Brown vs Brown, he's mainly active in the field of contemporary composed music, and pursuing his love for country music, surrounding himself with b-benders, banjo's and embroided shirts, as well as playing in the country guitar-duo Sleep Gunner.

Composing has always been a vital time-consumption. As a bandleader for his group Roomtone he played on the North Sea Jazz Festival; next to that he composes for most groups he plays with and wrote a whole bunch of music for modern dance and film. Since 2004 his work is supported by the Dutch Funds for composition, and some of his music was released on labels such as Cuneiform, Trytone, Music for Speakers, PAO records, DOX a.o.

He has played with the likes of Michael Moore, Harco Pront, Maarten Altena Ensemble, Rosa Ensemble, Aardvarck, Wiek Hijmans, Wolter Wierbos, Eric Vloeimans, and many others. Musical travels have brought him all over Europe, Brazil and Canada.

Gerri Jäger (AT 1979, drums/percussion/composition)

Playing drums I do since I'm 9. With 11 something of a career started, marching in the local brass band Musikkapelle Oetz (Tirol/Austria), the rest of my teenage-years I had fun playing guitar and drums in all kinds of hardcore/blackmetal-etc.etc.-bands, basically from loud to loudest. Soon I knew that music was good for me and I went to study at the conservatory of Tirol and Amsterdam, where I graduated in 2006. Keeping an open mind in music is important for me so I do many different things with many different people, from free-jazz to alt-rock, playing at modern dance-improvs, experimental club, film music, composing and teaching drums. Some of my current bands next to Brown vs Brown are Roomtone, The Black Napkins, duo Lopez/Jaeger and Knalpot.

Viljam Nybacka (FIN 1980, bass guitar/composition)

I started playing classical guitar at the age of 7 which I did for about 10 years until I took up an interest in jazz and improvised music and switched to the electric guitar. Soon though I found myself playing bass in all kinds of bands simply because there weren't many bassplayers around in my small hometown. In 1999 I moved to Amsterdam to study bass at the conservatory. The year 2002 I spent in Brussels studying with Michel HatziGeorgiou of AKA Moon. Apart from playing bass in Brown vs Brown, my interest goes out to composing and free-improvised settings. Currently I compose and do sound-design for choreographer Inari Salmivaara, am part of the N-collective, and play with Dirk Bruinsma in the Friendly Boys; a structured-free-improv duo. Other people I have played with are Morten J. Olsen, Anders Hana, Wilbert the Joode, Wolter Wierbos, and Koen Nutters.