Welcome to Plugland: Sonic Circuits

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THAT D.C. PRODUCED musical innovators such as Duke Ellington and Bad Brains helps explain the city's growing global status as a leading laboratory of experimental music.

Such a feat is due in no small part to the Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music, an annual celebration of outsider music and sonic rebellion, now in its ninth year.

In recognition of the city's bourgeoning experimental buzz, Mayor Adrian Fenty issued a formal statement this year praising Sonic Circuits for exposing the city's creative communities to "electro-acoustic composition, free jazz, modern classical, noise rock, electronic drone and experimental folk."

Precisely put.

While there is much to savor in this year's fest, much is being made of the event's big finale Sunday featuring '70s Krautrock legends Faust, which will close out the festival alongside new and notable noise-rock unit Health from Los Angeles.

Formed in 1969 in Hamburg, Germany, Faust brings three decades of propulsive abstract pop and all-out inventiveness to the District for the very first time. The obscure rock group helped push the boundaries of popular music as part of the same influential West German music scene that also produced the likes of Tangerine Dream and Can.

Closer to home, and equally as esoteric, lo-fi Texas folkie Jandek performs Saturday. Renowned for his obscurity but appreciated for his "atonal" blues style, Jandek plans to play with a backing band of other Sonic Circuits artists.

Homegrown exploratory sounds abound most nights, highlighting the area's dedicated year-round experimental music community. For them, the yearly marquee event provides inspiration to keep the creative juices flowing.

"Sonic Circuits kicks my butt back into seeing that not everything has been done before," says Pat Gillis, who performs improvised electronic soundscapes as TL0741. "The impact bears a bigger bruise every year."

Festival organizer Jeff Surak, who performs heavy drone music as Violet using found objects and strange homemade instruments, has a unique vantage point.

"The festival is the culmination of yearlong foreplay ... an explosion of creativity and sharing, networking and collaborating with like-minded spirits from around the world," says Surak. "It's a party!"

Most of the artists involved would probably urge listeners to forget everything they have heard before and listen to their music with a fresh set of ears.

Says local noisemeister Blue Sausage Infant (born Chester Hawkins): "It requires a suspension of one's expectations and extending trust to these mad scientists while they take you on a unique journey."

It also requires understanding that what one hears is not always a finished product. "The goal with my own music is to create something that's only half-finished, and to leave enough air and unsolved questions in the mix so that the listener becomes fully engaged and finishes it themselves, internally," says Hawkins.

Putting it more bluntly, Cory O'Brien, aka Myo, likens his performances to "a game of trial and error that may result in a moment of irreplaceable wonder or total crap."

While area experimenters are emboldened by a shared spirit of musical adventurism, they are doubly invigorated when joined by their creative cousins from around the globe.

Connections will be made on Thursday night at the Embassy of Switzerland with artists from Zurich-based imprint Domizil. The label's head honchos Marcus Maeder and Bernd Schurer, joined by three of their colleagues, will let the ones and zeros do the talking, and that could mean everything from sweeping sound structures to minimal sound environments.

Montreal's Tim Hecker (pictured) embraces maximalist, emotive soundscapes using both acoustic and electronic instrumentation. On Saturday, Hecker promotes his new full-length, "An Imaginary Country," which resonates with saturated sounds and shines like a bright gaseous star.

Friday features free jazz heavyweights Evan Parker and Ned Rothenberg, who go horn to horn in a duel for skronkiest saxophone. Local favorites Janel and Anthony will open the show and ably prove that experimental music (guitar and cello) can embody pure beauty.

» Various venues; through Sun., $50 festival pass available.

Written by Express contributor Johnathan Rickman
Photo courtesy Front Porch Productions