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No, nothing's wrong with your hearing, so don't mind the static. It's just time for Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music, which is back for its ninth year and starts tonight at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland. The festival will hit a diverse group of venues, from the Kennedy Center to tiny Pyramid Atlantic hidden in downtown Silver Spring. The group of performers this year is just as diverse, ranging from avant-garde icons and highly lauded musicians to artists that eschew musical instruments entirely to create their sound.
For those who have never checked out the Sonic Circuits Festival in previous years (or any of the Sonic Circuits events held throughout the year), now might be the time. Mayor Fenty just endorsed the festival (whatever that means) and a new District of Noise compilation including many of this year's local performers just hit the streets. If our guide below doesn't answer your questions about the festival or its performers, just check out the Sonic Circuits website. We'll also have a second preview for the last half of the festival for you on Thursday.
Tuesday:
Where: Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at Maryland
When: 7 p.m.
Price: Free
Who: Elliot Sharp (avant-garde guitarist)
Annea Lockwood & Tom Buckner (classically trained and lauded musicians veering toward the bizarre)
Never Work (electronic free improv)
BLK w/BEAR (sounds garnered from manipulated interference and vinyl) & VJ Poppins (visual performance artist)
Who we’re most excited to see: Sharp. Admittedly, his recordings sound the most like free improv jazz and may be the most accessible of the bunch, but we like jazz guitar.
Who's most likely to send you reaching for your earplugs: Never Work. They describe themselves as "variously tolerable and intolerable" and their electronic improv is the most likely to hit high-pitched squealing.
Wednesday:
Where: Kennedy Center
When: 6 p.m.
Price: Free
Who: Twenty-First Century Chamber Ensemble (bass, sax, electric guitar, cello, all improv)
Nine Strings + Pilesar (whispering string arrangements coupled with dynamic percussion)
Mind Over Matter, Music Over Mind (whatever sounds can be pulled from sequencers, casios and record players)
Who we’re most excited to see: Twenty-First Century Chamber Ensemble. Mostly because we saw them at Pyramid Atlantic on Saturday night, where their set finished much too quickly. We're excited to find out how those sounds translate on the Kennedy Center stage.
Who's most likely to send you reaching for your earplugs: Mind Over Matter, Music Over Mind. Whenever an act claims it will be redrawing the boundaries of mental health, be afraid. Intrigued...but afraid.
Where: Velvet Lounge
When: 9 p.m.
Price: $10
Who: Fern Knight (dreamy folk quartet)
Luigi Archetti (avant-garde guitarist)
Odal (harsh noise)
Blue Sausage Infant (dreamy krautrock-tinged electronics)
Twilight Memories of the Three Suns (French electro meets kitchen sink)
Who we're most excited to see: Odal. It's something special to see someone so intense and leaving everything onstage. Odal also leaves nothing to the imagination, being something of an exhibitionist.
Who's most likely to send you reaching for your earplugs: Odal. Leaving everything onstage includes his
Thursday:
Where: Embassy of Switzerland
When: 7 p.m.
Price: $10
Who: Bernd Schurer (challenging audio meant to have a visual counterpart)
Martin Neukom (computer generated compositions)
Thomas Peter (digital compositions)
Jan Schaecher (double bass and abstract digital sounds)
Marcus Maeder (digital compositions also meant to have a visual counterpart)
Who we're most excited to see: We can't pick one. Yes, that sounds like a cop-out but the whole night is at the friggin' Swiss embassy, with a group of artists that will make you feel like you're at the Hirshhorn.
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