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

The Muffins in Rockville in 1979

It’s a somewhat ludicrous thing to say about an event that spotlights so many alienating artists, but in its 10th year, the Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music feels, well, kind of big.

This year there are veteran prog and avant-rock draws, like Magma and Univers Zero, and the noise and improv fans that the festival has traditionally drawn can look forward to two of the most notable, critically adored names in those spheres: Fennesz and Merzbow. And so it’s a marquee year for the area’s umbrella of experimental music, whose homegrown acts can now regularly be seen at venues like Bossa in Adams Morgan, Pyramid Atlantic in Silver Spring, and Orion Sound Studios in Baltimore.

But more than 30 years ago, D.C. also housed a constellation of progressive and experimental acts—a small scene that emerged but never quite flourished in the 1970s.

And then, says Steve Feigenbaum of the well-known, Silver Spring-based experimental label Cuneiform Records, D.C. punk rock killed it.

So it might be appropriate that The Muffins—an obscure, D.C.-based prog group that’s made music in the area since the mid-’70s—is headlining the first event of Sonic Circuits this Saturday. It’s a well-deserved spot. Despite its relatively under-the-radar status, The Muffins have made six challenging full-length albums; performed at numerous experimental music festivals, including at the prestigious Rock in Opposition festival in France; and collaborated with high-profile names like experimental guitarist Fred Frith.

While jazz-rock is the easiest label to apply to The Muffins’ music, no one descriptor suffices. Heavily influenced by the British “Canterbury” scene of the late ’60s and early ’70s (think early Soft Machine, Henry Cow, and more obscure practitioners like Hatfield and the North and National Health), The Muffins take this aesthetic and throw in collective improvisation, noise, and a touch of psychedelia. It’s a sound that at first impression can seem aimless and unfocused but, if you have the patience, eventually rewards.

This kind of demanding music is well in character with the progressive rock scene of the 1970s, and although D.C. was hardly a hotbed of prog, The Muffins weren’t alone. Grits (another jazz-rock band with a pair of out-of-print releases on Cuneiform) were an influence, and Muffins drummer Paul Sears lists a host of other D.C.-area groups of varying obscurity that formed at the time a loose local scene: Happy the Man, Crank, Love Cry Want, Sageworth, and Drums.

While the scene was small, it was active: Feigenbaum, 52, says he saw a number of “decent to pretty good” progressive rock bands at bars and outdoor shows. “Every bar used to have live bands back in the ’70s. That was a standard currency of the time… [but] The Muffins didn’t go over well in bars, because their music wasn’t good drinking music,” he says. “So for bands like The Muffins or Happy the Man or whoever, it was generally DIY spaces or ‘time to rent the Washington Ethical Society and do another show.’”

“Gigs were hard to come by,” says Sears, 57. “We did some university gigs, gigs in churches, coffeehouses, and a few nightclubs like the Psyche Delly in Bethesda, and Childe Harold in Dupont Circle.”

The Muffins’ DIY spirit didn’t end with gigs. The band—which also includes Tom Scott, Dave Newhouse, and Billy Swann, multi-instrumentalists all—created a label, Random Radar Records, which in the last few years of the 1970s released The Muffins’ first two official full-lengths, Manna/Mirage and <185>, and a handful of other recordings, including a U.S. pressing of the debut album by Art Bears, one of the earliest Henry Cow spinoff groups. Perhaps most importantly, Random Radar was a collaborative effort between The Muffins, Feigenbaum (who actually contributed some guitar parts to Manna/Mirage), and others. Feigenbaum helped keep the band’s music in print even after its initial demise.

That demise came in 1981, as The Muffins suffered the same fate as countless prog bands: changing musical trends and transient young members.

Feigenbaum blames punk. “It killed [the local progressive scene] dead,” he says. “You have to remember what punk did. For good or bad, punk was the great cleansing fire. It changed everything that came after. It’s very open now, but at the time, lines were drawn in the sand: Anything that existed before it was ‘bad.’ Anything that smelled of what came before was ‘bad.’”

In a punk-rock town like D.C., that seismic shift was pronounced, Feigenbaum says: “The audiences were getting smaller, the chance to be reviewed was getting smaller, and this for a band that had certainly paid some dues and had done some higher-level projects. What we were all doing was always marginalized, but by 1980 or ’81, it was marginalized and also mocked.”

Although Sears found the then-new D.C. punk scene “severely insular,” his judgment is a bit less harsh. “I thought we had more in common with some of them, and today I regret that we, or specifically I, did not try to initiate some collaboration,” he says. “We knew some of them. Tom Lyle from Government Issue was a friend of ours before he was in that band. He even set up at least two shows for The Muffins at American University that I can recall…When Fugazi hit the scene I thought I recognized a name—Canty. I knew Brendan Canty’s family back in the ’60s when he was, I’ll say, quite young!”

Regardless of the causes—and putting aside whatever a Muffins/Fugazi collaboration would’ve sounded like—after The Muffins’ split in 1981, Random Radar dissolved and Feigenbaum went on to found Cuneiform Records, which continued releasing challenging music in what Feigenbaum calls the “dark ages” of the 1980s. The Muffins found a posthumous home on Cuneiform, which reissued Manna/Mirage and <185> and has printed each of the band’s subsequent full-length recordings. This includes recent reunion albums Bandwidth (2002) and Double Negative (2004), recorded after the band reformed in the late 1990s for a gig at Chief Ike’s Mambo Room in Adams Morgan. That show happened after the band realized it still had an audience: Web reviews and retrospectives on The Muffins—an active and highly explorative Internet prog community developed in the 1990s—were almost universally positive.

Ironically Feigenbaum, perhaps the band’s biggest supporter (“They are pretty much single-handedly responsible for why I do what I do,” he says), was opposed to the reunion. “I’m a little ashamed to admit that I thought it was a bad idea, that they couldn’t do it again, that it just wouldn’t work,” he says. “They proved me quite wrong. And I’m glad. I think their work since their reformation is quite splendid and they still sound like themselves without repeating themselves.”

Since the release of their last Cuneiform full-length in 2004, The Muffins have played sporadic shows and festivals, made a short recording with members of the Sun Ra Arkestra, and are working on a new album, Palindrome. Of course, the band’s music is as unfashionable as ever, and its gigs remain few and far between, but now there’s now a thriving, open D.C. experimental music scene that exists beyond Sonic Circuits’ week of shows. In other words: The Muffins, cool or not, have young, like-minded peers.

That just leaves one problem: Sears is moving to Arizona immediately after Sonic Circuits, which means The Muffins’ D.C. shows will become even more rare. But that might be OK for a group that found a far-flung audience but few fans in its hometown. Says Sears: “We will work remotely and still play festivals.”

Photo courtesy Cuneiform Records

Sonic Circuits announced part of its 2010 festival lineup today, and the headliners may come as a surprise: French giants Magma (whose drummer and bandleader, Christian Vander, is pictured above) heads up the bill. Magma are legends in prog-rock circles, essentially creating their own indescribable genre of rock music, "zeuhl," in the early 1970s. Zeuhl has been glibly referred to as "Klingon opera," and with its martial rhythms, repetitive themes, and strident vocals that range from beautifully harmonized singing to militant chants, that's actually not bad for a two-word description. Here's our review of Magma's latest album, Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré.

While Magma and fellow Sonic Circuits band Univers Zero are generally affiliated with the more avant-garde end of progressive rock music, it's still a bit of a welcome surprise to see them appear in the lineup of what's largely been known as a noise and improv festival. Of course, for fans of that sort of thing, there's still plenty in the lineup to get excited about: notably, Austria's Fennesz will make an appearance, and Japan's Merzbow will perform with French ambient guitarist Richard Pinhas (who packed the Velvet Lounge a few years ago; also check out our review of the Pinhas/Merzbow album that came out on Cuneiform Records in 2008). On the jazz/improv side of things, the most notable name may be the prolific Italian-American percussionist/composer Andrea Centazzo.

There are also plenty of local artists rounding out the lineup, which anyone who has been to previous Sonic Circuits shows and festivals will be familiar with: Tone Ghosting, Janel and Anthony, Gestures, Insect Factory, Matta Gawa, and so on. From here, it looks like 2010's Sonic Circuits festival might be the most interesting one yet.

Creative Commons-licensed Christian Vander photo courtesy of Guillaume Laurent

Where 2007 was my love-affair year with free jazz, 2008 saw my affections turn to extreme metal in all its varied forms. The sad departure of Transparent Productions meant a dearth of interesting avant-garde jazz in the District, and I replaced concertgoing expeditions to Sangha (RIP) and Twins Jazz with rather different expeditions to places like Jaxx and various smaller venues booking the more underground kinds of metal. My passion for music tracks closely with what I'm seeing in the live setting, so it makes sense that my 2008 list is dominated by the heavy, evil stuff. (My friends—and especially housemates—didn't appreciate this so much.)

Be it metal, jazz, electronic music, free improvisation, or whatever, I've been convinced for a few years now that, industry woes aside, we're living in a renaissance period with fascinating new music being made at an unprecedented clip. Granted, I have absolutely no empirical basis for this claim, but I present the following 10 recordings as examples of the freshness of today's music-making scene...

1. One With Filth, Crowpath (Willowtip)
Pundits can quibble over whether or not “avant-garde metal” is really avant-garde in any meaningful sense, but the latest album from Swedish band Crowpath is an undeniably experimental and edgy slab of death metal. Compared to the band’s two earlier releases, it’s downright catchy and accessible, striking a perfect balance between challenging and immediately rewarding, but it’s still impossibly punishing. “Thinking man’s metal” is an overused phrase and too often refers to dry exercises in technicality, but it’s a perfect term for this recording.

Crowpath, "Cleansed In Chlorine":

2. Doombringer, Nasum (Relapse)
A more than welcome posthumous live release from these grindcore greats. Although Doombringer clocks in at a mere 23 minutes, the 16 tracks here are meatier than most albums twice the length or more. Brutal and unrelenting from start to finish, like getting punched in the face repeatedly, by a guy wearing spiked brass knuckles. You know, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Nasum, "Inhale/Exhale":

3. (duck), Buffalo Collision (Screwgun)
A collaboration between two members of the Bad Plus (piano and drums) and older free-jazzers Tim Berne (sax) and Hank Roberts (cello), Buffalo Collision straddles the line between groovy jazz and boisterous free improv. Comprised of three long, almost incomprehensible twisting pieces, this project bears Berne’s distinctive stamp, but the Bad Plus members add a wonderfully melodic tilt to the proceedings.

Buffalo Collision, "2nd of 4":

4. The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull, Earth (Southern Lord)
Classic drone metal band meets renowned jazz/Americana guitarist Bill Frisell… and the results are gorgeous. There’s little vestige of Earth’s doomy past to be found here; the new version of the band is obsessed with painting desolate pictures of rural America using extremely sparse, twangy, still heavy guitar notes. Frisell contributes a few lonely, windblown solos that take the album from good solidly into the realm of great.

Earth, "Engine of Ruin":

5. Salome, Salome (Vendetta)
The D.C. area’s best doom metal band, Salome is a simple guitar-drums-vocal band, but that lone guitarist sounds like three downtuned guitarists and a bassist all combined. The band has just about the biggest sound imaginable from a mere trio, and vocalist Kat’s memorable growls and shrieks just add to the stark, evil atmosphere.

Salome, "Black Tides":

6. Keio Line, Richard Pinhas and Merzbow (Cuneiform)
Ambient music at its best, Keio Line is a meeting of two very different but equally brilliant minds: a French guitarist and a legend of Japanese noise. The result is more than the sum of the parts, music that blends well into the background but still manages to reveal layer upon fascinating layer under a close listen.

Richard Pinhas & Merzbow, "Shibuya AKS":

7. Secular Works, Extra Life (Planaria)
What happens when you mash up rhythmically complex avant-rock with the stark, monochromatic vocal melodies of early Western music? Guitarist Charlie Looker, formerly of Zs, explores the possibilities with this new band. The album never quite lives up to the promise of its explosive opening track, but the sheer freshness of Looker’s ideas makes any of his work worth a close listen.

Extra Life, "Blackmail Blues":

8. Oneiromantical War, Wrnlrd (FSS)
Listening to this D.C.-area one-man atmospheric metal band’s latest album is akin to falling endlessly through a dark, damp abyss in slow motion. Oneiromantical War is as ugly and lo-fi as any early-’90s DIY Norwegian black metal record; “wall of sound” might be a good descriptor, but only if one imagines walls covered in sandpaper and sharp edges. Yet the overtly evil stuff is often hidden away in long, ambient drones, giving the album a nuance that the vast majority of metal recordings lack.

Wrnlrd, "War":

9. Belle Ville, Townhouse Orchestra (Clean Feed)
Second album by this all-star European quartet, led by Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love and featuring legendary British saxophonist Evan Parker. Belle Ville consists of two 45-minute long collective improvisations. Listening to it is a bit like wandering through a corn maze: you’re never quite sure what comes next, you can’t quite remember all the twists and turns, and eventually you emerge out at the end, a bit unsure of what you just went through but feeling a certain sense of satisfaction nevertheless.

Townhouse Orchestra, "Belle Ville":

10. Pitom, Yoshie Fruchter (Tzadik)
I found much of this year’s output from John Zorn’s Tzadik label a bit disappointing, but Pitom was a pleasant surprise. Imagine the loping, heavy prog of 70s-era King Crimson meets Zorn’s free-jazz group Masada, with a dash of Sonic Youth for good measure. Melody, chaos, noise, whimsy, fun.

Yoshie Fruchter, "The Dregs":

11. Twenty honorable mentions:

Holon, Nik Bärtsch's Ronin (ECM)
Studio 1, Box (Rune Grammofon)
Carried to Dust, Calexico (Quarterstick)
Traced in Air, Cynic (Season of Mist)
Incendio, Los Dorados & Cuong Vu (Intolerancia)
Hello, Voyager, Evangelista (Constellation)
V1.1, Fessenden (Other Electricities)
To Sail, To Sail, Fred Frith (Tzadik)
Street Horrrsing, Fuck Buttons (ATP)
Disgorge Mexico, Fuck the Facts (Relapse)
The Way of All Flesh, Gojira (Prosthetic)
Stockholm & Göteborg, Henry Cow (ReR)
Krallice, Krallice (Profound Lore)
Teeth, Little Women (SocketsCDR)
ObZen, Meshuggah (Nuclear Blast)
River Mouth Echoes, Maja Ratkje (Tzadik)
This Is It..., Marnie Stern (Kill Rock Stars)
Now and Forever, The Thing (Smalltown Superjazzz)
Beat Reader, The Vandermark 5 (Atavistic)
Oud Bass Piano Trio, Yitzhak Yedid (Between the Lines)