September 22-27, 2009 - Washington, DC

The Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music was initiated by the American Composers Forum (ACF) to provide DC's music and art communities with the opportunity to sample experimental and avant-garde electronic music, with an emphasis on improvisation and artistic use of new technologies.

Now heading into its ninth year, the Washington DC chapter of the ACF has expanded the scope of the festival to include electro-acoustic compositions, free jazz, noise rock, electronic drone and experimental folk, as well as live video and film programs, presented year round.

Sonic Circuits seeks to foster the spirit of collaboration through the diversity of participating artists, and its varied programming appeals to arts enthusiasts of all types.

Archive for March, 2009

Free Improv FREAKOUT! April 4 @ Pyramid Atlantic

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Saturday April 4, 2025
doors: 8:00pm
music: 8:30pm SHARP
$7!

PYRAMID ATLANTIC
8230 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring MD 20910
301.608.9101
located three blocks south of the silver spring metro station (red line)
Free parking in gated lot out front
INFO: www.dc-soniccircuits.org
DIRECTIONS: www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org

Michael Thomas Jackson has been creating and recording music since 1985. He has been involved in fully notated composition, free improvisation, avant rock, concrete and electronic music, performance art and everything in between. He has worked with tape, found objects, analogue synthesizers, prepared guitars, various percussion, all manner of sound processing, electronic feedback systems, turntables, voice and extended techniques on the clarinet. Michael has played as, in, or with many fine projects and people including Eugene Chadbourne, Rompecabeza, Spool Ensemble, Viktimized Karcass, Alien Planetscapes, Choptsicks, Cobra Clutch, Cephalic Index, The George Steeltoe Ensemble, Brian Osborne, Chris Phinney, Martin Klapper, Rafael Flores, Isolation, Flutter, Jerry’s Finger, Truncheonette, Projexorcism, Skoweyajeed, Katsu Itakura, Carl Howard, Bruce Eisenbeil, Quien Es, Thomas Dimuzio, Dave Fox, David Prescott, Pat Lawrence, Ian Davis, Scotty Irving, New Loft, Zan Hoffman, Hal McGee and O.N.E. Michael is currently active performing, recording and releasing music through the Primecuts Recordings imprint, raising a daughter and being poor.
http://www.microearth.com/jackson/

Layne Garrett, is a member of The Cutest Puppy in the World, proprietor of The Lighthouse, and master improviser, guitar picker, and musical carpenter.
http://www.questionthetruth.com

Vector Trio is a project designed to explore freedom and possibility in three voices, contextualized by cultural disharmony. Vector Trio began life in 1996 as Vector, an improvisational avant-garde funk septet. In 2002 Vector became Vector Trio. The musicians began making use of electronics, including looping devices and effects processors, to expand the possibilities of the trio. Their work to date is showcased in their all-original CDs-Plot Twist (2004), Live in DC (2005), Paths Unknown (2006), and Nomina (2009). By 2009 Vector Trio’s sound had mutated into a noisy dark electronic mélange of loops, corroded trumpet lines, bowed cello cacophony and a dense mix of percussive mayhem.

scott forrey - trumpet, loops, electronics, metal things
gary rouzer - NS bass cello, loops, electronics, found objects
marshall hughey - drums, handsonic, landscape percussion

www.vectortrio.com
www.myspace.com/vectortrio

Recognized as a incredibly creative and innovative guitarists and improviser, Michelle Webb is a electrifying and original guitarist. A restless collaborator who constantly seeks the most diverse and personally challenging contexts for her music, Webb not only produces and contributes to a large number of recorded projects, she performs frequently throughout the USA with several regular groupings as well as solo guitar concerts and concerts of freely improvised music with a host of diverse instrumentalists. Michelle Webb has helped unfetter the guitar from the conventions of genre-bound techniques, but her instrumental virtuosity is always deployed in the service of deep and immediate personal expression. Likewise, she has developed a highly individual style from an uncommonly varied range of influences that include traditional blues, East Asian, Classical North Indian and Turkish music, free jazz, free improvisation, American steel-string guitar, rock, jazz fusion and 20th century classical. Webb has built an ever-mounting reputation as a very talented musician and composer. Solo CD releases under Michelle Webb’s name include: Dotsavant,(2000) Screams from the Ceiling,(2000) Prepaired Guitar Works (1997), Michelle Webb Live (2005) and Figures at the base of a Crucifixion (2006). She composed music for the film Hospice and screen play Vincent directed by Ken Forestal and Silent Movie directed by Michael Torrez.
http://www.myspace.com/michellewebbmusic

Janel & Anthony & Violet trio return once again to coax spontaneous music out of their instruments of cello, guitar, junk, and loads of effects pedals.
www.myspace.com/janelandanthony
zeromoon.com/violet

March Music Madness! @ Pyramid Atlantic

Friday, March 6th, 2009

Saturday March 21, 2025
doors: 7:30pm
music: 8:00pm SHARP
$8!

PYRAMID ATLANTIC
8230 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring MD 20910
301.608.9101
located three blocks south of the silver spring metro station (red line)
Free parking in gated lot out front
INFO: www.dc-soniccircuits.org
DIRECTIONS: www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org

Making music on the fringe since the underground movement ignited in Russia in the beginning 80s, Alexei Borisov has developed an impressively diverse body of work as a member of NIGHT PROSPEKT, F.R.U.I.T.S. and VOLGA, among many other projects.

Born in Moscow on December 7, 1960, Alexei Borisov graduated the Moscow State University where he had studied History and Arts. His controversial performing career (as a guitarist) began in the CENTER new-wave group, in 1980. Next year, he formed the PROSPEKT mod-band. And re-loaded it in 1985 as the shifting NIGHT PROSPEKT with then-partner Ivan Sokolovsky. After the actual dissolution of the band in the beginning 90s, he surfaced then in the “noise reconstruction and techno acoustics” duo F.R.U.I.T.S. with Pavel Zhagun (also known as PIEZO) and in various short-lived art/noise/industrial acts like JOINT COMMITTEE, ATOMIC BISQUIT ORCHESTRA and SEVER.

Being left with little possibility of finding a label to fund and promote his most radical projects, Alexei Borisov with his old-associate, an experimental Finnish sound-sculptor Anton Nikkila established in 2000 their own N&B Research Digest label.

Among other Borisovs’ collaborations are the joint projects with the performance-group “North” (Russia), KK Null (Japan), Jeffrey Surak (USA), Leif Ellgren (Sweden). Borisov also collaborates with the video-artist Roman Anikushin, multimedia-artists Aristarh Chernishev and Vladislav Efimov and also with Olga Subbotina, Moscow theatre director. Lately Borisov prefers solo music career. He also works as a DJ in clubs and on radio and contributed as a journalist to some Russian (”Bulldozer”, “Ptjuch”, “Fuzz”, “Downtown”, “man’Music”, etc.) and foreign (”B’Mag”, “Technikart”) magazines and newspapers.

http://www.myspace.com/alexeiborisov

http://www.nbresearchdigest.com/borisov

Violet - beautiful muzak from DC. CD release party!
http://zeromoon.com/violet
myspace.com/microk7

White Suns - Post punk noise.
http://www.myspace.com/whitesuns

302acid - genre obliteration
http://302acid.com

Les Rhinocéros - free jazz improv
http://www.myspace.com/lesrhino

the missus - electrosexpop! get down!
http://myspace.com/missypo

Tone Ghosting - Carnival sideshow americana experimentalia
http://panicresearch.com/tone-ghosting.html

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