Grex (greks) n. 1. a multicellular aggregate of the groups Acrasiomycota or Dictyosteliida, formed for the purposes of travel and food collection. 2. a Bay Area creative music partnership composed of Karl A.D. Evangelista (guitar, vox, etc.) and Margaret Rei Scampavia (keys, winds, vox, etc.).

Grex (the band) was formed in and around the Mills College music axis, late night inside jokes, and intense dissections of South African music, emphasizing genre bending, cross-idiomatic conceits and melding elements of mostly everything (Evangelista has a background in free jazz and Scampavia is a biologist) into something stark and eldritch. Elements of jazz, pop songwriting, garage rock, 20th century chamber music, and free improvisation merge to form an idiom in and of itself--”Grex music”--a living, breathing musical entity.

Active Projects include the development of a new repertoire for both the Grex Quintet and Grex proper--exploring the interaction between various looped elements/static sound structures in an improvisationally active environment (as well as the superimposition of individualized sonic psychologies in a real time group environment, taking cues from Ornette Coleman's harmolodic theory)--the completion of Suite: Taglish, Evangelista's exploration of Filipino-American roots (awarded a Zellerbach Grant, on behalf of Asian Improv Arts, in 2010), the ambient lowercase free jazz band Swarm Intelligence, the wicked afrobeat/free funk/kosmigroov/mbaqanga project Dino Piranha, Scampavia's ongoing transformation of risque and emotionally harrowing 90's pop songs into gentle ballads, eight piece ensemble music (slated for 2012), getting married, and visiting the Oakland Zoo and Winchester Mystery House.

Discography:
Live at Home (SUA, 2010)
Live at Trinity Chapel (SUA/Unofficial, 2010)
Second Marriage (SUA, 2011)
Taglish (as Karl Evangelista/Grex Quintet, SUA, 2012, forthcoming)

(Selected) Venues Played: The Great American Music Hall (San Francisco), Cafe du Nord (San Francisco), Artisphere (VA), Bayanihan Community Center (San Francisco), Echo Curio (Los Angeles), El Rio (San Francisco), Green Alcatraz (Berkeley), Groveland Farmer's Market (Groveland), In the Flow Festival (Sacramento), KALX Live (Berkeley), Kingman's Ivy Room (Albany), Littlefield Concert Hall (Oakland), Luna's Cafe (Sacramento), Mama Buzz Cafe (Oakland), ResBox (Los Angeles), The Stork Club (Oakland), The Handbag Factory (LA), Chapel of the Chimes (Oakland), Subterranean Arthouse (Berkeley), Totally Intense Fractal Mindgaze Hut (Oakland), Trinity Chapel (Berkeley)

Formal Collaborators (members of expanded ensembles, past and present): Francis Wong (saxophone), Cory Wright (reeds), Jason Hoopes (bass), John-Carlos Perea (electric bass), Jordan Glenn (drums), Chad McKinney (harmonium), Curtis McKinney (electric bass), Chris Skebo (trumpet), Caitlin Moe (vocals/piano), Jim Kaiser (bicycle wheel/electronics), Patrick Rost (electronics), (in Dino Piranha:) Phillip Greenlief (tenor saxophone), Will Redmond (guitar), Noah Phillips (guitar), Doug Stuart (bass), (in Swarm Intelligence:) Kasey Knudsen (tenor sax), Dan Seamans (bass)

Obvious Debts are owed to Fred Frith, Ornette Coleman and Prime Time, John Coltrane, Anthony Braxton, The Blue Notes/Brotherhood of Breath, Jack Bruce, Bill Dixon, Julius Hemphill, Eric Dolphy, James "Blood" Ulmer, Massacre, Monteverdi, Roscoe Mitchell, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Mal Waldron, The Shadows, Elvis Costello, Dengue Fever, Skeleton Crew, Lou Reed, Henry Cow, The Battered Ornaments, Lou Reed, Radiohead, Can, The White Stripes, Liberation Music Orchestra, Flying Lotus, Outkast, Erik Satie, Don Cherry, Jimi Hendrix, DNA, The Smashing Pumpkins, Marion Brown, Sonny Sharrock, Sonny Rollins, Myra Melford, Arnold Schoenberg, AMM, Grachan Moncur III, tUnE-yArDs, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Supersilent, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Radu Malfatti, St. Vincent, John Carpenter, Portishead, Tyshawn Sorey, Steve Lehman, Wu Tang Clan, Dave Holland, Sonic Youth, Cream, Crazy Horse, The Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Igor Stravinsky, kulintang, and Javanese Gamelan