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 July, 2009

Jasper TX, Anduin, Extremities @ Pyramid Atlantic July 12

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Jasper TX, Anduin, Extremities

Sunday July 12
Doors 630pm Music 7pm 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
DIRECTIONS: www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org
INFO: dc-soniccircuits.org

Jasper TX
Gothenburg, Sweden http://myspace.com/jaspertx

Miasmah, Kning Disk, Fangbomb, Fenetre, SMTG Limited

Besides being one half of the post-rock duo De La Mancha, Jasper TX’s Dag Rosenqvist has released a number of carefully drafted and very well received solo recordings with labels such as Miasmah, Kning Disk, Fangbomb, and Lampse. His work is primarily guitar driven soundscapes covered in layers of drums, voices, organs, toy pianos, field recordings, and effects. Comparisons have been made to artists such as Fennesz, Aidan Baker, and Machinefabriek, with whom Rosenqvist has done two collaborations. In 2009, he followed 2008’s “Black Sheep” album on Miasmah with a new record titled “Singing Stones” on Fangbomb and the collaboration with Anduin on SMTG Limited. This will be Jasper TX’s first ever US dates.

Anduin
Richmond, Virginia http://smtgltd.com/anduinore

SMTG Limited

Anduin’s Jonathan Lee creates dark, pulsating ambient electronics soaked in layers of synths, samples, and field recordings. He has collaborated with a number of international artists including Svarte Greiner, Jasper TX, Stephen Vitiello, Noah Saval, Xela, Gareth Davis, and his own experimental band Souvenir’s Young America. His live shows and gallery instillations include a variety of self-made sets, collected props, and hidden lights. In 2009, he has 3 new releases: a live collaboration EP with Svarte Greiner, “The Bending Of A Light” LP with Jasper TX, and a new full length titled “Abandoned In Sleep,” all of which are on SMTG Limited.

Extremities is a new group composed of Pat Gillis (TL0741) and Scott Feeney (Scrap Heap). They make noise. http://www.hc3music.com/tl0741.html http://oceanbase.org/scrap/

Eli Keszler, Ashley Paul, Silvum @ Pyramid Atlantic July 7

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

Eli Keszler, Ashley Paul, SilvumTuesday July 7
Doors 730pm Music 8pm 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
DIRECTIONS: www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org
INFO: dc-soniccircuits.org

eli keszler

Using drums, along with crotales, bells, bowed metal, strings, Eli creates a unique whirlwind of sound that balances sparse droning harmonics with intense, fast, free rhythms. He has performed, recorded or collaborated with artists such as Jandek, Phill Niblock (performed a new work of his for bowed crotales and saxophone), Roscoe Mitchell, Loren Connors, Charles Cohen, Anthony Coleman (appearing on his New World Records Release), Aki Onda, Bryan Eubanks, David Linton, Steve Pyne (Redhorse), Greg Kelley, Ashley Paul. Eli has performed at venues like The Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), Irving Plaza, Merkin Hall, Issue Project Room, The Stone and The Knitting Factory (NYC and LA), and countless bookstores, basements, and small galleries around the US and Europe. He has released solo CD’s and cassettes on REL as well as labels such as Rare Youth (debut solo LP, Livingston), Reverb Worship and Something on The Road.

“…fantastic LP of austere solo percussion and dark matrixes of strings from this past collaborator with Jandek, with aspects of Scelsi and Dumitrescu, , Keiji Haino and Biota.” -david keenan (volcanic tongue, wire magazine), on eli’s solo LP “livingston”

“It’s hard to envisage that this music has been made by just one person ..especially on parts of Untitled, where the music slowly builds..the slower more textural sections are particularly striking: bowed cymbals, bells and fender rhodes give track 2 a chamber music intimacy.”

mike barnes, wire magazine August 2007

ashley paul

Ashley Paul plays reeds, unique string instruments, electronics and sings. Her dream-like music juxtaposes aggressive, sustained high pitched blasts, floating vocals, clattering strings and bells, cry-like saxophones and is somehow tied together by oddly melodic songs. In the past year she performed with Loren connors, Aki Onda, Joe Morris, and Greg Kelley, premiered a new work by Phill Niblock for soprano saxophone and bowed crotales (written for her and Eli Keszler), performed as part of the US premiere of Mauricio Kagel’s masterpiece ‘Der Schall’ at Merkin Concert Hall in New York and was heard in a live feature on wzbc’s Rare Frequency. Additionally, Ashley performs regularly with Anthony Coleman in duo, trio and on his recent New World Records release, plays duo with Eli Keszler and has recently begun performing solo, sharing the stage with Thurston Moore, Mats Gustaffson, Chris Corsano and others.

“An entirely impressive collection of alvin lucier / horatio radulescu-lineage difference tones, discordant euro-style free improv, and rattling, almost no-wave esque exercises …a form destroyer if there ever was one ; highly recommended !!!”

Keith Fullerton Whitman mimaroglu music sales

“Album of the column from this newcomer…DOL is an intriguing hybrid, merging long-form tones with primitivist DIY clatter and Improv dissonance. Paul handles the mutually antagonistic idioms with aplomb and a winning mixture of accuracy and rawness.”

-wire magazine November 2008

links/sounds: http://www.myspace.com/elikeszler http://www.myspace.com/ashleygpaul http://www.relrecords.net/catalogue.html http://www.relrecords.net http://www.myspace.com/elikeszler

Silvum

“I’m always trying to focus and clarify where I am going with my sound works to generate the most honest creations possible. Like anyone, I am inevitably influenced by many things (to view that as negative is utopian), but never want those influences to overcome my expression. In the spectrum of my goals, there’s no point in recreating what has already been done (I have no problem with stylistic explorations of established styles or approaches in other artists / genres), and I am always realizing that my works can be easily classified (I’m not destroying any boundaries). While sound revolution is not the point, I do want to create something as “true” and refined as possible, something that is me, or more practically a part of me: a mood a sensation, a memory. An alchemy where I take the standard elements and generate something unique.”

http://www.myspace.com/silvum

Sponsors of Sonic Circuits