Update: I asked Hawkins for any extra information he could provide about the Qwartz awards. Here's what he sent:

I'm not entirely clear on the details myself, but it looks like the entire event covers three days and includes awards-presentation, live performances and a marketplace for labels & musicians to sell wares, network, etc. There are some youtube clips online of previous Qwartz events and it looks incredible.

Hawkins added that the nomination gives him and Jeff Surak—who performs as Violet and also founded Zeromoon Records, which released Negative Space—"a fine excuse to bring the gear and do a mini Euro-tour ... It would be my first time playing over there, so it's great fun."

The film opens with a nameless protagonist (True Blood's Lindsay Pulsipher) emerging from a bloody car wreck in a world she doesn't recognize. Or does she? The scene's use of “Pomp and Circumstance” is the first indicatation that Reader's vision is one of unrelenting incongruity, an attempt to achieve the oft-kilter ambiance of oddball auteur David Lynch. It doesn't have to make sense if it's creepy, right? The Oregonian even goes so far as to repurpose some of Lynch's aesthetic hallmarks: long shots of highway, obtuse dialogue (“these trees have a code”), and a desolate woodland setting. This would be forgivable—if not particularly memorable—had Reader bothered to sketch out a story as oppossed to employing directionless stock characters by way of Mulholland Drive. Incomprehensible hillbillies peeing Gatorade? Check.  Meanicing middle-aged women laughing uncontrollably? A must. The less said about the man in the fuzzy green costume, the better. Young directors take note: If one must follow in Lynch's distinct path, Inland Empire is not the film to emulate.

The actors hardly fare much better. Underneath a cloak of corn syrup, Pulsipher squeaks her distress but is mostly as dazed as the audience. “I can't even remember fucking nothing!” she screeches upon entering a kitschy abandoned home. After 81 minutess, it's hard not to envy her

The film screens at 11:50 p.m. at Artisphere. $8.

Washington City Paper: Over the past 30 years, from Albuquerque to Zürich, your Haters have performed some 400 times. And yet, this is your first time going to Washington. Why so long a wait? Something Reagan said?

GX Jupitter-Larsen: Ha, don't get me started on Reagan! But no, there is no real reason actually. My life on the road just always pointed me somewhere else. Funny that I should get to perform north of the Arctic circle in Norway before I even get to visit our nation's capital. Such is life.

WCP: After so many years on the road, you’ve finally set up shop in Los Angeles. Given the vapidity of Hollywood, one would think the noise scene there similarly shallow. To be fair, there’s The Smell and Not Not Fun Records, but of all the places you’ve gone, I’m wondering why L.A.?

GX J-L: Forget about the silliness of Hollywood; you can’t take any of that seriously. There's so many great and creative people in Los Angeles. Damion Romero is probably the greatest noise artist of all time, anywhere. You actually haven't been to a noise show until you’ve seen him live. But then, there's artists like amk, Geoffrey Brandin, John Wiese, and Joseph Hammer who all do some pretty awe-inspiring noise. Artwise, you have excellent creative spaces like Machine Project, The Museum of Jurassic Technology, and the Center for Land Use Interpretation. Groups like The Institute for Figuring will definitely make you think. For myself, personally, there's a kind of psychical emptiness to the place. I like that. It's easy to be left alone, easy to hear yourself think. Los Angeles is the closest thing to an urban desert you're ever going to find.

WCP: Any parallels then with Washington, D.C. — the oft-cited “Hollywood for ugly people?” I know they’re from Miami, but To Live and Shave in L.A.’s Tom Smith was in D.C.’s Peaches of Immortality.

GX J-L: I've never heard that "Hollywood for ugly people" thing before. That's pretty funny. But really, self-loathing only serves your enemies.

WCP: Tell me about the call Sonic Circuits head honcho Jeff Surak made to get you to come play the District. (Well, Silver Spring, anyways.)

GX J-L: He told me Sudden Infant was performing. And there was no way I was going to miss that!

WCP: Speaking of Surak, he just put out the fourth volume of his all-Beltway District of Noise compilation. Vol. 3, though, was a record of 100 locked grooves. As someone who’s cut more than a few locked vinyls, what is it about that medium that so entices noise’s message?

GX J-L: Noise fans love all discarded things, be it an unwanted sound, or an obsolete technology.

WCP: You’re recorded with almost every card-carrying member of the noise scene, many of whom have played the Sonic Circuits Festival prior. Live, Haters has swelled to a power-tool trio including Paul Dickerson and Bob Ferbrache. What’s the collaborative process like for the music you make?

GX J-L: I just like collaborating because it always leads me to a conclusion I doubt I would have reached on my own.

WCP: At the same time, however, there have been Haters gigs where you, yourself, didn’t even show up.

GX J-L: OK, so there's two answers I could give: the funny one, and the serious one. Both are equally true. I guess the funny one is, in my way of thinking, just because I didn't have the money to psychically get somewhere shouldn't stop me from actually performing there. Just because I couldn't get there, that shouldn't stop me from "being" there. Something like that, anyway. Otherwise, at the time I did these so-called non-performances, I really did think of them as a means of getting to touch the substance of nothingness. This was back in the early ‘80s; I was young and quite obsessed with the idea that nothing-at-all could still be a psychical thing. Just not one which was either concrete or abstract.

WCP: Likewise, you’ve never been afraid to break the fourth wall between you and the audience.

GX J-L: The best thing about the early punk of the ‘70s was that the audience was a bigger part of the show then most of the bands were. In my own performance art, in the ‘80s and ‘90s, I tried to keep that dynamic—by using inside agitators to lead the audience to riot. That was a wild ride, let me tell you.

WCP: The Haters remain notorious for their, how shall I say, idiomatic offerings. I’m thinking of already classic pieces like the amplified-calculator-on-an-open-fan of Dirwyn. Will we witness one of these oldies, or do you have a new goodie up your tat sleeve?

GX J-L: My current performance is entitled Loud Luggage / Booming Baggage, in which an amplified suitcase gets to be the centerpiece of it all.

WCP: Alone, you’ve developed some rather complex theories of how you think noise should be experienced. Here, I’m speaking mostly about your “polywave” and “totimorphous.” Care to explain, in layman’s terms?

GX J-L: The funny answer would be to forget about metric conversion; we're talking about GX conversion. The polywave is my own personal alternative to the inch. The serious answer is that any nation, any culture, keeps its participants in line by having them unconsciously believing in, and acting upon, certain things. The power of any culture is in its ability to automatically direct the actions of its participants, without the participants actually realizing it. Any nation, or culture, forces its participants to conform to a master narrative, as if its story was the only one worth telling. Well, I have my own story to tell. That's where the polywave and totimorphous come in. They are the inches I use to measure my life.

WCP: You’ve stated before that you never really intended to be a noise artist; sound was merely a way to signal the beginning and end of a performance. Known primarily for your sounds now, have your intentions changed?

GX J-L: Personally, art has never been about making a statement. It's been about going on a journey. I may have started at one location, but I've since moved on.

WCP: It’s no secret that your own politics swing left—hell, the entire Haters oeuvre could be described as downright anarchic—so what’s your take on the recent Republican debate? Might we hear a Red Line ode to Rep. Bachmann on Friday?

GX J-L: Republicans are the real anarchists here, with their self-fulfilling prophecy of government as the problem. Republicans have a long history of slashing taxes so the government's ability to fund basic services is greatly curtailed. They then cynically campaign that they are the only ones that can fix the very problems they, themselves, created.

The Haters headline the 2011 Sonic Circuits Festival at Pyramid Atlantic on Friday. Also on the bill: Les Rhinocéros, Valentina Vuksic, Elena Aitzkoa, Infant Factory, and Rind (Doug Stailey & Beau Finley). 8:30 pm. $12.

Leading this assault on easy listening is Jeff Surak, the soft-spoken but always ardent champion of Sonic Circuits. Since the first festival in 2002, Surak has continued to bring the brightest stars in the experimental firmament down to D.C.: Merzbow, Faust, Jandek, Matmos, Tony Conrad, Phill Niblock, Rat Bastard, and so on. But Surak the curator is also a creator called Violet; here his “Incapacitated by the Sun” is a steady, minimal drone, like one of Merzbow’s monoliths spiked with a nip of Mr. Bastard’s fuzz.

Meanwhile, Blue Sausage Infant’s “Gemüsemaschine” is pure kraut—feisty, filling, and highly fermented. In his recent review of BSI’s first-ever long player, Negative Space (put out by Surak’s Zeromoon imprint, no less), City Paper’s Joe Warminsky noticed the same precision-engineering care of guests Jeff Barsky on guitar and the motorik percussion of Jason Mullinax. And since D.C. is kind of a small town, both Insect Factory (Barsky) and Pilesar (Mullinax) show up on District of Noise Vol. 4, as well. I’ve long sung praises of Barsky’s unique textures, and I’ve been nodding in assent to Mullinax’s jams since our college days at the University of South Carolina. That said, their contributions (“Slow Bloom” and “Spider Bait,” respectively) sound more deliberate, more mature than anything I’ve yet heard from them. As Surak’s festival programming confirms, experimental music has a canon now, and the work of Chester Hawkins (a.k.a. Blue Sausage Infant), Barsky, and Mullinax are gunning for inclusion.

Of course, experimental music is often precisely that. Many times, the results fail to yield anything qualitatively good. I could do without the forced collaboration of TL0741 and Anthony Pirog on “Busy Bees.” Individually, I like both very much (in fact, I’m quite eager to hear what Pirog does with Terry Riley’s indefatigable In C at this year’s festival), but this meeting does neither party any favors. Likewise, I’ve heard better from Pirog’s other partner in crime, Janel Leppin. To be fair, we don’t see any visuals from her “Music for a Film, The Recipe,” so it’s hard to judge too harshly. Then again, Music From the Film’s “Animal Friends” succeeds because it’s playtime narrative let’s us make up our own. After all, not all experiments are serious experiments.

It maybe be a little early to call—like most releases of its ilk, the District of Noise compilations need time to percolate—but I think Borborites’ “Sunrise in an Opium Den at the End of the World” is my favorite cut. There’s a forward motion to its tainted slab of synth and treatments that compels an active listen. Just as Thomas De Quincey learned to appreciate the subtleties of opium, there’s plenty of nuance to Borborites’ sun-baked apocalypse.

Progressive rock has been a niche genre since it largely receded from public consciousness in the late 1970s. Like any niche, it has a small base of insanely dedicated fans, and Romantic Warriors, a documentary airing in the D.C. area several times over the next few days, is a paean to those devotees.

It's easy for prog fans—even casual ones with little exposure to the scene's surprisingly prolific underground—to enjoy Romantic Warriors. There are interviews with key figures in the current scene, including locals like Silver Spring's Steve Feigenbaum (owner of Cuneiform Records, which ironically prides itself on publishing outre music well outside prog's traditional genre confines) and Baltimore's Mike Potter (owner of Orion Sound Studios, which regularly hosts live performances by obscure prog and avant-rock bands). There's a fair amount of recent concert footage from a diverse range of obscure bands, as well as some excellent archival footage of British '70s stalwarts Gentle Giant. Those already into the music will eat it all up.

But Romantic Warriors lacks a cohesive narrative. Even for someone intimately familiar with the modern prog scene, the film feels like a pastiche of interviews and live footage rather than a truly well-crafted examination of the genre, its history, and its future. The documentary kicks off with a brief but surprisingly well-done timeline of prog as a genre; new fans and neophytes will find it quite useful, while old fans will doubtless delight in having more fodder for interminable debates about genre boundaries and whether or not such-and-such band "is really prog." But after that intro, the filmmakers jump to interviews and footage from the major U.S. prog festivals, and there is no obvious rhyme or reason to how the coverage is ordered.

Non-prog fans may also be confused by the documentary's unusually diverse set of performance footage. There are "traditional" symphonic prog bands such as Maryland's Deluge Grander, whose music evokes the grandiosity attempted by the classic '70s bands; there are jazz-rock fusion bands like Italy's DFA; there are bands that draw from a vast array of folk musics, like Mexico's Cabezas de Cera and Japan's Qui; there is the wonderfully understated solo instrumental music of Virginia's Rob Martino; there is even a bit of the uncategorizable avant-garde in Chicago's Cheer-Accident. The filmmakers' dedication to the truly underground part of the prog scene, and their decision to emphasize the current scene rather than focus on classic bands, is commendable. For existing fans, who understand why all these different bands fit into the same genre, it's wonderful to see a spotlight on the dark corners of the prog world. The uninitiated may just find it disjointed.

With all that in mind, Romantic Warriors is far from entirely incoherent. There are several themes that will be familiar to a fan of virtually any niche genre: prog as an outcast genre, prog as a labor of love on the part of both musicians and fans, prog as an international and vastly diverse scene, and, predictably if somewhat problematically, prog as a superior art form compared to more mainstream music. It's fascinating to hear various Important People weigh in on these issues, usually unprompted. We get some insight into what Feigenbaum considers strong sales figures (hint: the numbers are not huge), some interesting tidbits about how promoters at such festivals as NEARfest and ProgDay choose their lineups, and some quotable (for better or worse) gems like Gentle Giant's Gary Green saying, "We have to understand that [Top 40 music] is not music, should not be considered music, because that is fashion."

What we hear over and over again in these interviews is the sense that prog, ideally, is separated, but not completely isolated, from other forms of music, including the mainstream. Prog plays by different rules, but at the same time draws influences from everywhere it can, creating a rich and delightfully internationalized scene that—at its best—revels in the mixing of the old and the new. While I do wish the filmmakers had given a bit more attention to the bleeding edge of experimental music—they were present and filming at the first Avant Fairfax, for instance, yet that festival receives no coverage in film's the final cut—I respect that they needed to draw the line somewhere.

The end result isn't perfect, but Romantic Warriors, as a labor-of-love film about a genre that truly is a labor of love for everyone involved, is an illuminating peek at an eccentric underground scene. For anyone who has been involved in the scene to any extent in recent years, that's certainly good enough.

The film airs tonight on WHUT-TV at 10pm, and four more times between through Tuesday, May 24. Check the film website for the additional air times.

There was an article in The New York Times’ arts section this past Sunday that I only just got around to reading—but have become completely enchanted with. The story is about pop-up arts performances that are occurring in cities around the country, courtesy of the Knight Arts Program, which is part of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The video above (which, by the way, has been viewed 31 million times) gives you a sense of what it’s about: unsuspecting shoppers/coffee drinkers/diners are caught off balance as seemingly “normal” people suddenly burst into song in the middle of a public space. The people, of course, are professional artists—opera singers, symphony musicians, and the like—who give a high-quality performance to a charmed audience. The upshot? Excitement, a feel-good vibe, on-the-spot contributions, and that holiest of holies, increased ticket sales for conventional performances. Everyone lives happily ever after.

To their credit, mainstream performing arts organizations are making use of the flash-mob concept, something that's been growing in popularity over the past five years. Whether or not you believe that arts audiences can be boosted with a quick fix like this one, it’s hard to deny the appeal of bringing really good art to potential consumers who haven’t yet had the opportunity to discover that they like it. That’s the long term payoff, but to me at least, the biggest plus is the delight factor—adding an unexpected arts experience to someone’s quotidian routine.

The Knight Foundation doesn’t operate in Washington, so don’t expect to see these mini-performances occurring in this city anytime soon. But how cool would it be if someone else initiated it here? Imagine: you’re shopping for kale at the Dupont farmers market when suddenly a soprano with the Washington National Opera pipes up with a romantic aria. Or you’re perusing shoes at Tyson’s and realize, looking to your left, that the entire Washington Ballet is doing jetes and pirouettes near the food court.

What the world needs now is more batshit-crazy, uncompromising auteurs. David O. Russel has the diva-esque ‘tude and David Lynch the vision, but neither comes close to Matthew Barney for sheer pomposity. His five-part magnum opus, The Cremaster Cycle, is an elusive cinematic treat and for one week only, E Street Cinema will be screening it in three (relatively) bite-size segments. Although the National Weather Service is calling for a beautiful holiday weekend filled with sunshine and temperatures in the mid-70s, those interested in watching an experimental film where Norman Mailer plays Harry Houdini are unlikely to spend much time outdoors, anyway.

Here at Arts Desk, we wanted to celebrate Mr. Barney’s restless independence by interpreting The Cremaster Cycle in the most experimental of mediums: twitter. Just because Barney refuses to release his work on DVD doesn’t mean we can’t dumb it down to spite him! Starting this Friday, I will be live-tweeting my impressions with all the pointed insight 140 characters have to offer. (Live from my living room, that is; I got hooked up with screeners.)  Finally, audiences will receive coverage that does this complex work justice. Follow us @cremdelacremWCP, or watch the madness happen after the jump:

How did you spend your summer vacation? Minimalist composer Richard Chartier spent his in the basement of the Museum of American History. For three months, starting in June, Chartier recorded the "Grand Tonometer," a four-octave instrument built by German physicist Rudolf Koenig from 1870 to1875. Recording each of the instrument's 660 tuning forks from strike to decay was a painstaking process, one that required Chartier to do daily battle against noisy ventilation systems and women clacking down halls in high heels.

In a live performance at the Hirshhorn tonight at 7 p.m., Chartier will mix those recordings with sounds from other 19th century instruments in the debut of his new composition, "Transparency."

"I come from a digital music background, so I'm used to working with sounds that are very precise sine waves," says Chartier. "These tuning forks are very precisely tuned, but there's a physicality about them...There's a warm feeling to the sound. At the same time, it's unsettling."

Unsettling is also a good description for Chartier's music, which denies listeners the familiar foothold of melody and rhythm. Instead, Chartier's pieces use sustained sounds that change ever so slightly over long periods of time. The reward for patient listening: a heightened awareness of the inner structure of sound.

Chartier's goal, incidentally, is similar to that of the Grand Tonometer's inventor. Koenig used the instrument to demonstrate the concept of beat frequencies—the pulsing you hear when two pure tones that are very close in pitch are played simultaneously. The physicist toured Europe with his instrument, attending society gatherings and trying to persuade audiences that sound is a wave rather than a particle.

At his performance, Chartier won't be lecturing about physics. He will, however, be working with sounds from real instruments for the first time. The final product, says Chartier, may be more approachable than his previous, purely digital, work.

"It's more musical, in a way," he says. "It has a linear, almost narrative, flow."

That said, audiences may have trouble focusing on the minimalist composition for its full 50-minute run time. Chartier's advice: "Just kind of let it flow over you. Just zone out. I have had people fall asleep during my shows before. As long as they don’t snore, I'm fine with it."

A Grand Tonometer

Tomorrow night, arguably the biggest, bestest Sonic Circuits festival yet ends with a bang at La Maison Française. This year's festival has seen a huge variety of local and (inter)national acts playing all around the D.C. area, drawing people from all over the country and even the world. Saturday's final show is a real treat, featuring a band that will probably never play in the United States, much less the D.C. area, ever again: Univers Zero from Belgium.

If the name isn't ringing any bells, you're not alone. As we've said in previous coverage of this band, Univers Zero toils in a nearly invisible netherworld between the spheres of popular and "serious" music. Despite its obscurity, Univers Zero is among the key figures behind a uniquely Francophone style of chamber rock music and, much like Magma, who headlined Sonic Circuits' first weekend, the group essentially created its own genre. Univers Zero's style defies glib description, if only because any such attempt makes it sound like the worst kind of cheesy prog-rock imaginable. A reasonable point of comparison might be with the so-called "post-rock" bands that tend more toward the abstract, like a more complex, ensemble-oriented version of Rachel's.

Univers Zero in 1979

This month, Cuneiform Records issued an expanded, remixed and remastered version of the band's sophomore album from 1979, Heresie. Widely known as Univers Zero's darkest album, Heresie is a record that prog nerds like to blast from their stereos on Halloween just to freak out unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. That it gained this kind of reputation while relying almost entirely on acoustic instrumentation (harmonium, oboe, bassoon, violin, and viola figuring most prominently) is particularly impressive, although it's likely that this stems solely from the first seven minutes of the opening 25-minute beast "La Faulx." The track starts as formless noise, which slowly coalesces into a dark wall of sound punctuated by a series of vocal roars reminiscent of death-metal howls years before that style of vocal came into fashion.

After that, the band's strategy changes abruptly from horror soundtrack music to intricate chamber music. What keeps it firmly in rock territory is the drumming of Daniel Denis—a true artist behind the kit whose doesn't keep time so much as he drives the music onward and upward, his insistent rolls somehow striking a balance between classical percussion and rock 'n' roll propulsiveness. Over the course of three long tracks ("Jack the Ripper" and "Vous Le Suarez en Temps Voulu" clock in at 13 minutes apiece), the ensemble works its way through chamber music that is sometimes melodic, sometimes noisy, usually dark, and always compelling.

This reissue features gorgeous, clear sound with remarkable definition of the instruments, a new sound that is particularly revealing when it comes to Denis' drumming. It also contains a 12-minute bonus track, "Chaos Hermetique," penned by guitarist and original group member Roger Trigaux (who soon after Heresie's release left the band to found the equally fantastic, more overtly rock-oriented chamber ensemble Present). This track is a fascinating archaeological find, and actually sounds more like proto-Present than a true Univers Zero track, featuring much more straightforward rhythms and a largely linear compositional form. In fact, hardcore Present fans will likely recognize a few passages here and there that have appeared in Present compositions recorded as recently as 1999. Even without the excellent new remix and remaster, this reissue would be worth a look just for this bonus track.

But Heresie came out over 30 years ago. The version of Univers Zero that plays tomorrow at La Maison Française will look and sound quite different; modern-day UZ makes liberal use of electronics and electric instruments, in sharp contrast to the early band's reliance on acoustic instrumentation. Like many bands of the era, Univers Zero went on extended hiatus starting in the late '80s, before reforming in the late '90s with a more rock-oriented sound. The instrumentation became more electric, and more importantly, compositions became more concise, even with some traditional song forms popping up here and there. That said, Univers Zero's music has remained complex and challenging and Daniel Denis' drumming is as fascinating as ever.

What's more, in a musical landscape where there's nothing new under the sun, Univers Zero and the few bands that have explored similar territory (present and other chamber-rock groups like Art Zoyd, Shub Niggurath, Aranis and so on) are pioneers in developing an intelligent hybrid of Western contemporary classical music and modern rock. These bands all seem to be concentrated in France and Belgium for some reason, and it's a rare treat to have one of them in North America.

Photos of Univers Zero courtesy Cuneiform Records

Back in 2007, French ambient guitarist Richard Pinhas, accompanied by longtime collaborator Jerome Schmidt on electronics, played to a packed house at the Velvet Lounge. Tomorrow, Pinhas returns, this time at La Maison Française with another collaborator twiddling knobs (or staring at a laptop screen): Masami Akita, better known as Merzbow. This kicks off the final weekend of this year's remarkable incarnation of Sonic Circuits.

The average vaguely curious music listener has probably heard of Merzbow, but who's this Pinhas guy?

He's has been active for over 30 years; fans of obscure prog-rock know him as the leader of Heldon, an electronic rock band whose prolific 1970s output started in Fripp/Eno territory and ended up somewhere much closer to King Crimson. Even before Heldon's eventual demise (their final album, Stand By, was released in 1979), Pinhas embarked on an equally fruitful solo career, one that has only picked up in recent years. In 2008, Pinhas and Merzbow released their first collaborative album, the remarkable Keio Line, which we gave very high marks. Now comes the sophomore effort from this duo, Metal/Crystal, out this month on Silver Spring's Cuneiform Records.

Oddly, the record is credited solely to Pinhas, although it contains contributions by Merzbow, Wolf Eyes, and a host of musicians formerly from Heldon and Magma, including bassist Didier Batard and drummer Antoine Paganotti. The presence of a rhythm section on Metal/Crystal immediately lends this album a very different feel from its predecessor. Much of the first disc of this two-disc set feels more like late-period Heldon than Keio Line; accessible bass lines and clear rhythms give the three long tracks on disc 1 a fairly straightforward electronic rock sound. For those hoping for more of the same subtle yet nuanced sonic wallpaper of Keio Line, this might be disappointing; however, those folks might get more mileage out of disc 2, in which 40 minutes pass before there is any sign of a rhythm section.

In fact, "Hysteria (Palladium)," the 28-minute first track of the second disc and perhaps my favorite on the whole album, swings all the way to the inaccessible side of the spectrum, featuring lengthy high-pitched squalls with Merzbow's trademark throbbing noise percolating underneath. It's a far cry from the thumping rhythm of parts of the first disc, but it's a welcome change of pace and a sign that even with literally hundreds of records under their collective belts, Pinhas and Merzbow still have interesting things to say.

It should definitely be worth the time and money to listen to them speak in their particular languages of noise tomorrow night at 8 p.m. With the help of a firmly placed set of earplugs, of course.

Photo of Richard Pinhas courtesy Cuneiform Records