It was a full weekend of avant-garde sound gigs in the city, with January Hunt / Parasite Nurse / Omei / Drumloop & Scant on Scholes St on Saturday, Robbie Wing / Mark Cetilia & Eric Wong / Iris Our at Figure 8 Recording on Monday, and this in between. It was the only one I was able to make it to, but it was more than enough to take in. It was the second in an ongoing series organized by Stepien and Kieran Morris (Negation) at Stone Circle Theater, the after-hours arts space alter ego of Ridgewood Presbyterian. It’s always a pleasure to attend shows there; it’s a nice change of pace to sit in the pews and see artists play facemelting sets in front of a full stained-glass fixture, even if gets chilly during the colder months.

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NEGATION closed out the first installment of the series back in May, so to switch it up he played first this time. Those who have had the honor of witnessing one of Morris’s sets (they’re few and far between, and sometimes not even then) know that each is unique, exhaustively prepared and adapted to the given atmosphere. His last was powered by a rare sampler-based approach that yielded one of his most impressive performances yet, so I was eager to hear what he came up with this time. Though it was back to the tried-and-true modular setup, Morris played an especially reserved piece, beginning with a stripped-down sine drone and rumbling sub bass. The way he sowed crawly, feeler-like textures that eventually took the stage in a signature stereo-jumping cut-up web was mesmerizing. The end was abrupt, to the point that it seemed like he might have cut it short, but still excellent.

BERGSONIST, the moniker of Selwa Abd, is a name I’ve heard but I’d never seen her play. A quick skim of her formidable discography led me to expect some techno-ish rhythmic electronica, so I was pleasantly surprised at her free-flowing electroacoustics. After a distorted chant-sample overture Abd transitioned into an extended meditation on tactile sounds that sounded like processed field recordings, lots of synthetic trickling and shuffling that gradually became more organic, but always threatened by harsh electrical hum and buzz. As the slow fadeout brought everything to a close, I realized I’d been in a sort of trance with no idea how much time had passed. The near total darkness probably helped in that regard. Great stuff.

It was lovely to finally meet LA-based phenom ELLEN PHAN after many years of online correspondence. It was her first time playing in the city since 2017 and it did not disappoint. She cut a striking silhouette against a bath of deep red light, a color scheme that made her performance seem all the more hellish. Much of her previous work is very pure, neutral glitch, not sterile by any means but also not imbued with a particular emotional slant. This, on the other hand, was vicious and confrontational, drawing brutal force from dense spectrum distortion and punishing, machinic repetition. We had talked about the work of contemporary and fellow Angelino Sunik Kim before the show, and I feel like I heard some influence in the intentional momentum disruption and stubborn circuitousness. A highlight was the use of voice samples from her young son, an uncanny moment of harrowing irreality. A spectacular set that I’ll be thinking about for a while.

The collaboration of KIRAN ARORA & MADELINE STEPIEN concluded the night and was the best set I’ve seen from either artist, clearly well composed and representative of each of their styles. There were times at which you could discern the two strands, writhing and rearing peripherally, and then there were times when they would weave together in a single mass of heavy digital noise. The challenge of making visceral computer music—a pursuit that interests both Arora and Stepien—is processing and structuring your material in such a way that it transcends the tradition’s inherent abstraction and becomes a grounded, truly physical experience, and they definitely achieved that here. Here’s hoping a CD is in the works.

August 14th was another joyous evening in New Brunswick, New Jersey, which is quickly establishing itself as a hot spot for any touring noise acts to stop through on the east coast. Considering the enthusiastic attendees and diverse local talent pool available for these shows though, this comes off as no surprise. As a result, acts of both the new and old guard are able to use this intimate basement setting as a proving ground to show their stuff to a rather open-minded but critically thinking crowd. So when Midwest noisecore legends Penis Geyser announced they would be touring in celebration of their twentieth anniversary, booking them a show in Hub City was a no-brainer.

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First act of the night was FRICKER, who I would put into contention as modern noise’s best kept secret anywhere. The unique blend of digital soundscape smashing and crude feedback that he brings to the table can be tailored to just about any sound system that he comes across, which leads to each live experience being different from the last. Given the grimy nature of Ferren Mall’s sound system, I figured the crowd would be in for something on the crustier side of his material. Indeed, I was right on that front. Fricker spared no room for intricacies, and immediately summoned churning rumble grumble to suck the audience into a vacuum of unforgiving sound. The feedback drone that started the set eventually gave way to more variety in the chopping of digital samples, but never once lost its harsh backing. It seems like there is not a single sound system that this red-headed prince can’t conquer, and the audience seemed to think so, as much feedback I heard after was that this set made the travel and admission price alone feel worth it. With a bar set that high, things could only go up from there.

When it comes to performances I take part in, I try to often gauge how the audience is feeling about things both during and after the set. With EVIL BONG, this task is never really that hard. Being showered in a sea of audience laughter and “fuck you” cries gives you a good idea of where your performance stands. With 6 members to this unit, every full band blast came closer to sounding like harsh noise wall than perhaps a noisecore band would sound. Between takes, microphone feedback would shriek like a drunken sailor beginning to hurl as song titles that took shots at New Brunswick, the audience, the bands playing and more came out of the mouth of their jackass drummer (side note: that guy really is a jerk). By the end of the set, with the audience in a frenzy, several members of the band just began to throw themselves directly at the audience. Hey, if hurting them emotionally won’t break their spirits, why not try physically?? By the time the band finished their crowd-pleasing closer, “Fuck Scronch,” there was simply nothing more they could do than to cheer and submit to the power of Evil Bong. Much like the film series this band was named after, audiences can’t help but find entertainment in the horror of this performance.

To simply shower praise towards PENIS GEYSER would not be enough to describe the masterclass their performance was. While most seasoned attendees of noise shows expect short sets, nobody was expecting just 90 seconds from this touring unit. It’s 20 years of the band, you would be more than understanding if they wanted to play a long set. Nope; 90 seconds and it’s off the stage. But in that time, the band managed to whip the audience between blasting frenzy, tense restraint and dadaist rock n roll deconstruction that would have left the most seasoned of touring acts in absolute disbelief by how disciplined the trio were in their attack. While the blasting noisecore is what most of us came for, I found myself more intrigued by the moments in between, when drummer Mikeal VanCleave would gently tap on his kit while the string slinging duo of Brad Griggs and Charlie Mumma would treat their guitars as anything other than traditional songwriting. Strings were detuned, slapped around, beaten and mangled. The frenetic energy of these actions sounded closer to someone rattling their cabinet around than actually attempting to play anything musical. And when it all finally came to an end, it wasn’t bombastic. The band simply stopped playing whatever interlude they were in the midst of and started breaking their gear down. The audience cheered for an encore. I heard “One more! One more!” cried out repeatedly (what would even be “one more” for this band? Certainly not a song). Finally, one attendee walking out said “nah, it was perfect” and left. I couldn’t have said it better myself; a phenomenal band that could go on for another 20 years and probably still be as good.

The new blood of New Jersey closed the evening’s happenings, as SPLOOGE RECEPTACLE came out with a table full of gear and the enthusiasm to inject their own brand of reckless abandon onto the audience. For those maybe not in the know, this group serves as the house band for New Jersey–based record label, NJMA, which has taken on the mantle of all things absurd and limited-edition in the Garden State. There are too many projects and releases to even begin listing the “essentials,” but Splooge Receptacle is where all these insane minds come together to celebrate the power of all things noise and core. Members were switching between duties on the mic, guitar, drums, electronics, etc. Really, if someone felt like they wanted to play something more than another member at the moment, they made the switch off occur. Similar to the Evil Bong performance from earlier, Splooge also engaged in their own form of audience antagonizing, as members crashed into the crowd while raging out through the wall of sound. Even when sound was not always perfect (sorry for providing a bad cable, team), their reckless abandon carried the set a great deal. With each passing set this group does, I become more and more excited at the prospect of where their sound can go. This group will be a name to look out for in the coming years if your listening diet tends to lean towards the more lo-fi ends of noisecore and shitnoise.

So with the final blastbeat sounding off, the crowd took the streets, wandering off to who-the-hell-knows until the next show. Maybe some went to the nearest eatery available. Personally speaking, I went off to the Edison Diner for some late-night nachos with the Penis Geyser crew in tow. But maybe some walked away from this one thinking of how inspiring it could be to see the most chaotic and shittiest sounds performed so excellently. I know plenty that are still buzzing days later from the whole affair.

It’s not often that I make it down to the DMV, but this was unmissable. I’ve been wanting to check out Rhizome for years now, and as luck would have it my good friends recently moved to Takoma just a few blocks away on the other side of the Red tracks, so I was able to feed two birds with one seed. I knew the renowned city-funded arts space was a plucky old house in a rapidly developing neighborhood, but the actual sight of it standing stubbornly in the shadow of enormous copy-paste residentials was striking. Rhizome maintains an eclectic curatorial schedule that I gather only becomes more so as time goes on; what began as a humble spot for improvised music and visual/performance art now also hosts, well, stuff like this. Also on display was Selena Noir Jackson’s exhibition Faces of America. The show was tightly run (started at 7:30 and was over by 10, a dream of a Sunday night) and drew a modest yet devoted crowd. Wonderful vibes that have me already thinking about my next trip south. Free DC!

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AS SURVIVING TOTAL has an ambitious and detailed conceptual focus based on loss as both a personal and legal phenomenon (the latter encompassing “litigious judicial practices” and “the quantitative measure of pain”). I only know this from their bio; the music itself didn’t incorporate any samples, just straightforward slow-paced noise, raw and rumbly, riding right on the edge of harsh. It was well-paced, and while I got the sense that it’s a newer project, they had great control over a stripped-down setup. They dodged predictable inflection points in favor of letting things continue organically, which sometimes felt aimless, but mostly satisfying.

VASTERIAN, named after the Ligotti story “Vastarien” (unsure of the significance of the misspelling), was another local I was unfamiliar with. My pre-gig research turned up a recent tape described as “hypnotic, lo-fi radio noise,” leading to expectations that were immediately subverted when the set launched straight into maxed-out meathead power electronics, complete with copious beer-chugging. After the initial shock wore off I was prepared to be bored, but the execution was so solid and energy level high enough that I was thoroughly entertained. As someone who loves the textures of shortwave, so I’m always happy to see one on a table, even if it ended up getting drowned out. I think I overheard that this was their first live appearance; impressive if that’s the case.

LUSTRE CHANTANT was another surprise. A duo comprising sound artist and instrument-builder Max Hamel, whose solo tapes I like a lot, and Chris Griffiths, who booked this show as well as many others at Rhizome, they’re named after a mythologized “singing chandelier” designed by French scientist and inventor Frederik Kastner. The material itself is an attempt to approximate what this lost instrument may have sounded like. Tonight that manifested as a quiet electroacoustic set on the upper floor of the space, structured around small motorized gadgets and minimal electronics. There were somatic aspects too: Hamel bowed a piece of scrap metal while Griffiths rubbed shrapnel on the floor with his foot. Lovely stuff that reminded me just as much of Fornnordiska klanger as it did Rie Nakajima or Takamitsu Ohta.

This was my third(?) time seeing MAX JULIAN EASTMAN play and he continued the trend of constant improvement. His haphazard arsenal looks like a electronics store bargain bin but boils down to a simple combo of source tape playback via deck and walkman plus mixer, and the racket it makes is larger than life. The oddball free-associative stumble pays homage to his mail art heroes, but it’s delivered with a unmistakable harsh ethos. It was during this set that the PA started getting pushed to the max (intended) and you could feel the crunch shaking your bones. I especially liked the repetitive barking with the walkman pressed against his mouth, which gave the proceedings a shambolic, Dilloway-esque lurch.

PSYCHIC SENSE ORGANS were the main draw and they did not disappoint. A brand new initiative formed by two of the best and brightest in harsh noise—Brad Griggs of Heat Signature and Action/Discipline fame, Joe Wang a.k.a. Outdoor Horse Shrine—capped off their inaugural mini-tour with a brutal split-stereo that brought the house down. Having seen both of these guys perform multiple times, it was a treat to see their distinct approaches meld. Griggs deployed his tried-and-true mic feedback assault with plenty of screaming to support as Wang forced piercing shrieks and squeals from his trusty mixer. At first the two halves ebbed and flowed independently, but as the artists settled in they began to respond to each other. By that time, however, someone got a bit overzealous with the table-rocking and the legs kept collapsing, so I got lost in the mosh until one of the power strips got switched off. Still grateful to have had six minutes of brain-liquefying bliss, and I’m eager to dig into their tour tape.

The latest event in musician/artist Benjamin G. Scott’s guerrilla curatorial series Blind Spot ended up being one of the most memorable gigs I’ve attended in the city. Though ordinarily focused on visual art openings in unassuming public spaces such as subway stations, bathrooms, and parks, Scott’s project provided the perfect platform for this evening of outdoor programming that blurred the already shaky boundary between performance and sound art. As dusk settled in, a modest crowd gathered on Weehawken, a street known for its bygone buildings and its place in waterfront gay culture as well as being the shortest in Manhattan (it comprises a single block bounded by Christopher to the south and W 10th to the north).

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BENJAMIN G. SCOTT knelt over a large cardboard sheet in the middle of the sidewalk with a boxcutter and tape measure, marking and cutting the material into squares at a scrambling yet deliberate pace. Adding an extra layer was the playback via small bluetooth speaker of what was ostensibly the audio of a previous instance of the same action. The two timelines, past and present, unfolded in tandem, sometimes clashing and other times syncing up in a satisfying way. It eventually became clear that the objective was to build a cubic box out of individual panels and packing tape, inside of which Scott placed the speaker before sealing it in. It seems that practice indeed makes perfect, because this time the assembly was completed more quickly; the last few minutes were spent listening to the rest of the recording, slightly muffled from within its new container. Though I do love the raw simplicity of cardboard sounds (Partly Zombish’s August Cake and the Cardboard Sessions tape comes to mind) and the immediacy of manual process, this awkward coda was my favorite part.

SHOTS were joined by the legendary YAN JUN for the second time, following a set at Providence’s Apartment 13 gallery back in 2023. The pairing is a no-brainer based on their respective bodies of work, and if their first collaboration was proof of concept, the remarkable synergy on display on this cool, cloudy night was a realization of full potential. Daniel DiMaggio and John Friberg, two-thirds of the trio, extended their usual location-spanning setup to every nook and cranny of the block: a small speaker affixed to the awning of the historic Market House remnant at 6 Weehawken squawked out birdsong and emergency sirens, Nakajima-esque gadgets whirred under trees and between parked cars, mystery feedback sliced through the air this way and that. Friberg posted up with a pile of electronics behind a beached carriage bicycle, while DiMaggio was more mobile, at one point rounding the corner onto Christopher to tug at the gate chain of an abandoned storefront. Yan was also always on the move, setting up his chair at various places on the opposite end of the street to vocalize and make hand gestures. It was a joy to amble around the haphazard network of miniature events. A highlight was seeing a small crowd crouched around something on the ground and wandering over to reveal an upside-down coffee cup vibrating on a motor—and then it was over, and we were on to the next wonder. The decentralization ensured that no two attendees had the same experience, even though everyone witnessed the same performance. Beyond the superficial similarities of Shots’ and Yan’s approaches, the unifying essence that also served as bedrock for this open-ended meeting is their shared intentionality. No matter how random and/or inscrutable an incident might appear, it was meant to be so. Such purposefulness produces a fascinating energy, an energy that joined disparate parts into a single web of sound, etc. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.

If you’re as picky as I am, the state of weirdo venues in New York leaves a lot to be desired. Most gigs I’ve attended have either been at overloud, underlit, beer-soaked bars or underloud, overlit, too-clean galleries, both of which have financial advantages for those who take up the often thankless task of booking. Then there are the rent-outs, unrelated sites that make their digs available for use on evenings and weekends, inevitably with hefty overhead. And there’s always the option of someone’s cramped studio or a risky outdoor post-up. But scattered few and far between are the truly dedicated spaces, which tend to not last very long (an exception being the Living Gallery, alive and kicking since 2012). All of this is why it’s so exciting to have something like INTERCOMM. Their manifesto does the job of explaining what it’s all about (the only thing it fails to convey is how cool the in-house reading library is). The show last night could have been mediocre and I probably still would have had a great time, but it ended up being one of the most kickass bills I’ve been witness to in a while. Let’s get into it.

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SPAGHETTI HUMAN BEING, a young Tokyo-based artist gracing NYC with their presence until summer, kicked it off with a high-octane laptop set that gleefully fucked the boundaries between computer music, so-called “deconstructed club”, and extreme dance music like gabber and industrial hardcore. Armed with only a controller, SHB bounced and writhed around the stage area as both preloaded sample tracks and live-processed glitch noise tore through the PA at ear-splitting volume. The mercurial mix of blast and beat immediately had the energy in the room surging, and even though it went on just a bit too long, no one could deny that it was a fitting start to the night.

BENTLEY ANDERSON brought a more patient, focused presence with some loop-heavy, effects-laden extended guitar drone. I’ve seen the established performer and Decontrol operator around at events before, but we’ve never had the chance to meet. I enjoyed the hypnotic layering of feedback and overtones, most of which was driven by various percussive interaction on the body and pickups. Comparisons to 90s Kiwi legends danced in my head, but Anderson’s approach is more active and immediate. The progression was careful and controlled, never fully boiling over yet always satisfying. Low-key but loud.

Things heated up with an explosive first meeting of KA BAIRD and SAM NEWSOME, two accomplished artists who have made radically different but equally significant splashes in the city’s free music scene. I haven’t had this much fun with an improv set in a long time, and it was clear the musicians were having a blast too. Both made use of so many bells and whistles that in other hands would have been distracting, but in theirs it was dynamic, exciting, and hilarious. I doubled over laughing when Newsome scrambled to swap out his handfuls of plastic tubing for a pile of metal mixing bowls as Baird belted nonsense operatics into their overcooked rig. The frenzy of absurdist interplay culminated in a closing of the conduit, with Baird sticking the mic in the bell of Newsome’s soprano sax as he shredded away with abandon. The applause was almost as loud as the performance—well deserved.

Maine’s id m theft able needs no introduction. For me, it was his inclusion on the bill that made the gig unmissable, and the rest of it being excellent was just the cherry on top. It’s one thing to hear Scott Spear’s virtuosic vocal contortions on his multiple decades’ worth of recordings, but it’s quite another to see him do it firsthand. All those years of honing his craft comes through in Spear’s effortless deployment of both his sprawling tabletop setup and his larynx. Each intense burst of surrealist sound balloons from molecular origins into something huge and harrowing, whether it’s a micro-industrial drum solo with chopsticks or a deafening duet with not one but two of Queen’s most insufferable singles. Concluding with the gloriously anticlimactic plink-plunk of billiard balls spun around a circle of thrift-store cups and mugs, it was everything I could have wanted. Also picked up …l…e…t…t…i…n…g…s…, a triple-tape set of “prepared rain” recordings that I’ve had my eye on for a while (order it and other goodies here).

This was my second time at Triest, the first being the James Emrick / RM Francis gig a few weeks ago. It’s primarily a DIY gallery, and while the bright, cold lighting probably works during the day when there’s also natural light to supplement it, the experience of walking in when it’s dark outside is pretty damn cursed. The vibes warmed up a lot once the fluorescents shut off and a sole yellow lamp lit the small but comfortable space.

STAR is a project most people are at least aware of. Sam Franklin’s enigmatic analog rituals have an unusual crossover appeal: though a lot of the praise I’ve heard has come from friends in the noise sphere, and the releases that haven’t been produced via in-house imprint I Am Elegant have come out on heavy-hitting labels like White Centipede and Hospital, the crowd for this show seemed more on the improv/sound art side of things. (It’s strange to even separate the two, but no one can deny they feel very separate in New York.) I’ve never seen him play and have only heard a few tapes, so I was unsure what to expect setup-wise, and yet I wasn’t surprised by the simplicity: a minimal array of two cassette players (one deck, one Walkman), a stomp controller, and a mixer. The ease with which Franklin operated the system gave the impression that he’s been working with it for some time. The set immediately settled into a freeform drift of overlapping loops and organic feedback, with milestones marked by the addition of a vocal mic and a small melodica. It started to meander once the latter came into the mix, but ended strong with a satisfying final rally cut off by a sudden killswitch flip.

KIERAN DALY, who’s on a mini-tour right now that will conclude with a set with frequent collaborator Sam Weinberg at Figure8 tomorrow, has been making some of the most interesting, and often baffling, improvised (etc.) music in recent years. His recent aptly paired splits with kindred spirits Luciano Maggiore and Ashcircle are great examples of his humbly radical approach. The familiar silhouette of an Epiphone SG set the tone for a memorable solo performance full of stuttering, stumbling monophony. I sometimes feel a bit gaslit by an audience’s stone-faced silence when confronted with some of the more ridiculous strains of experimental music—I was the only one laughing my ass off during the (excellent) RM Francis set—but that was thankfully not the case here. The comedic timing of Daly’s dissonant waddles was perfect, and he even cracked himself up a few times. Even putting aside the hilarity it was an enthralling combo of technicality and clumsiness, all of it intentional. The legacy of Derek Bailey is alive and well; there’s nothing so thrilling as being gathered around a single devotee of the guitar as they push the iconic instrument to its most absurd limits.