Over the past few years, the Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music has heightened its profile. The mayor endorsed the festival, NPR took an interest in D.C. noise music and those highlighted local gems appeared on bills with acts of international renown like Magma, Faust and Merzbow. Additionally, some crossover acts like HEALTH and Fennesz broadened the appeal of the festival.

This year, there are still international acts and heavy-hitters from outside of the area, but Jeff Surak & Co. seem to have taken a different approach. Rather than try to bring in as many acts as possible, or even as many big names as possible, Sonic Circuits is trying to curate special collaborations specifically for the festival. Some of those collaborations are between artists that usually perform solo (such as Insect Factory and Blue Sausage Infant) and others combine different disciplines (such as music and dance). Also, due to either geographic separation of the performers or the nature of audience participation, there’s a high chance that most of these performances will never repeat.

The festival kicked off last night with one such performance. STYLUS, a recordplayer ensemble helmed by JS Adams, followed up last year’s Kennedy Center show by providing a live soundtrack to two silent experimental films, Emak-Bakia and Lot in Sodom. Ten people manned the turntables during Emak-Bakia as the sounds of free jazz and classical albums combined with hissing and skipping that perfectly matched its visual counterpart. During Lot in Sodom, two STYLUS members, Janel Leppin and Doug Poplin, stepped out from behind their turntables to play cello parts, giving the soundtrack a more sinister edge.

With that, here is our (now) annual comprehensive guide to the 2011 Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music, which officially kicked off last night.

THURSDAY

Where: The Mansion at Strathmore
When: 8:00 p.m.
How much: $12
Who: Okkyung Lee (improvisational cello)
Violet + Annette Krebs (electro-acoustic underwater ambience)
Unmediated: Movement + Sound – Sharon Mansur + Daniel Burkholder (dance) with Cory O’Brien, Luke Stewart, Paul Neidhardt (music) (exactly what it sounds like)
Music from the Film (percussive, meandering unmelodious whimsy)
Come Together: The multi-discipline aspect of the Unmediated: Movement + Sound makes the show an appealing draw. However, the other collaboration will be between festival organizer Jeff Surak and German noise artist Annette Krebs.

FRIDAY

Where: Pyramid Atlantic
When: 8:30 p.m.
How much: $12
Who: The Haters (noise meets conceptual art…this time with luggage)
Les Rhinoceros (the harsher project with more instruments from the same guys involved in Connect the Dots)
Infant Factory (electroacoustic ambience)
Valentina Vuksic (computer programmed experimentation)
Rind (Doug Stailey & Beau Finley) (ambient cello and guitar)
Come Together: Blue Sausage Infant’s Chester Hawkins has cited Insect Factory’s more low key ambience as an inspiration for his most recent recorded work. This will be a fun opportunity for two local noise stalwarts to perform together.

SATURDAY

Where: Veteran’s Plaza
When: 5:00 p.m.
How much: Free
Who: Long-time Sonic Circuits mainstay, guitarist Anthony Pirog conducts “In C,” the 1964 minimalist composition from Terry Riley. For the uninitiated, “In C” consists of 53 short phrases (half-a-beat to 32 beats) meant to be played in order, with a one musician playing the “C” note repeatedly (hence the title). From this point, Pirog gets to take liberties in directing which musician plays which phrase and when the piece will end. The fourteen musicians involved are Pirog (on guitar), Janel Leppin (on cello), Jocelyn Frank (on oboe), Aaron Martin Jr. (on alto sax), Rob Muncy (on tenor sax), Kenny Pirog (on pitched percussion), Rebecca Steele and Erin Flynn (on viola), Daniel Barbiero, Kevin Pace and John Steel (on acoustic bass), Carrie Ferguson (on glockenspiel), Larry Ferguson (on vibraphone), and Leo Svirsky (on synth).

Where: Pyramid Atlantic
When: 7:00 p.m.
How much: $15
Who: Sudden Infant (spasmodic vocals meets harsh crackling electronics)
N Ensemble (Bjornar Habbestad on flue, electronics noise, Nicholas Field and Will Redman on drum kits, John Dierker on sax, Marc Miller on guitar and Jeff Carey on…the usual?) (noisy collaboration from both acoustic and electronic sources)
Prehistoric Horse (electric improv trio)
nine strings_trio + movement (local jazz improv meets modern dance)
Safe, Fast & Effective
Rinus Van Alebeek (cassette tape field recordings )
Ezramo (limit-testing classical vocals and instrumentation)
Jack Hertz (organic and electronic sound manipulation)
Come Together: The second collaboration of music and movement of the festival, the Nine Strings Trio (which includes a flute and saxophone in addition to the strings of the double bass and cello) will be joined by dancers Page Ghapery and Ken Manheimer.

SUNDAY

Where: Veteran’s Plaza
When: 3:00 p.m.
How much: Free
Who: Layne Garrett, another Sonic Circuits veteran, will be curating the Silver Spring Sound Machine. This appears to be the audience participation portion of the festival. If you bring anything that makes noise, whether it’s a cassette recorder or a scrap of wood, Garrett will add it to his resonant sound sculpture and the finished product will be pushed through Silver Spring. Garrett is no stranger to collective noise-making as he previously organized a recording in a tunnel so the finished product should be intriguing and of course, different than anything he’s done before.

Where: Pyramid Atlantic
When: 7:00 p.m.
How much: $15
Who: The Voltage Spooks (cello and guitar meet analog hissing and many effects pedals)
John Butcher (saxophone improv)
Janel Leppin, Samita Singha & Julia Ulehla (cello and vocal collaboration)
Jesse Kudler & Ian Fraser (computer generated and analog noise)
Barn Owl (ambience meets eardrum bursting black metal)
Come Together: Vocalists Samita Singha and Julia Ulehla have constructed some raggas about the time of day and some vocal compositions that draw from both Ulehla’s southern heritage and Singha’s background in Indian classical music. Locally based cellist Leppin will be backing them on a few of those songs.