Since the mid-1960s there has been determined and persistent presence in music making that owes nothing to establishment preferences, fashionable nuances or market forces. Experimentalism and improvisation speak of enquiry, curiousity and adventure in music. And, albeit that these practices have had to exist within the corrosive slipstream of the aforementioned tendencies, the search for meaningful and fulfilling musical expression can only become real through and towards self-empowerment.