“Wasn’t he just here?” you might be thinking. Well, yes, but the last time famed free-jazzer Peter Brötzmann played the Velvet Lounge, just a few weeks ago, he wasn’t backed by a rhythm section straight out of the extreme metal world.

Full Blast sees Brötzmann in a trio with electric bassist Marino Pliakas and whirling dervish/drummer Michael Wertmüller. Pliakas and Wertmüller both indeed have metal backgrounds, and if you can imagine a grindcore band going full tilt with Brötzmann wailing mercilessly on top, you’ve got the right idea. Since I can’t make tonight’s show, I caught this trio last night at the Windup Space in Baltimore, and, just like two years ago at The Red Room, it was a show of epic proportions. Full Blast builds tension relentlessly, and while the music ebbs and flows, the overall feeling is of being swamped underneath an exhilirating wall of sound.

If Brötzmann and Wertmüller are obvious focal points, the crashing waves in this sea of noise – Brötzmann because he’s Brötzmann and Wertmüller because he is absolutely one of the most amazingly dextrous drummers I’ve had the pleasure of watching – Pliakas is the undertow: dangerous, unpredictable, rising with unexpected ferocity at various points in the music. Seeing the trio together in action is a revelatory experience, and this is pretty much mandatory if you’re a fan of free jazz, noise-rock or extreme music. And if you found Brötzmann solo a bit too much to handle, Full Blast is more accessible, even if simultaneously more extreme.

Full Blast plays at the Velvet Lounge tonight; PRV Trio and The Undisco Kidds are opening. Doors at 7:30, show at 9, $12, don’t miss it.

Check out some more photos from last night’s show after the jump. Full gallery here.

At the Windup Space, a brand-new free improv trio calling themselves Matta Gawa opened. This trio included guitarist Ed Ricart, pictured below, who will also be playing tonight as one-third of PRV Trio.

The solo was classic Brötzmann, requiring great intellectual energy to penetrate his harsh, often shrieky tone for the melody and pace (”rhythm” isn’t quite the right word) of his tenor/alto/soprano saxes and clarinet. The clarinet was a particularly intense tune, Brötzmann running his fingers up and down the (much simpler than a saxophone) keyboard, hard—as if sanding down the burnished wood—and blowing with such force that he was audibly grunting.

Brötzmann’s ferocity was impressive…but honestly hard to take in a large (nearly 60-minute) dose. Without an accompanying ensemble, however chaotic, it’s hard to stay with his many twists and turns; my mind wandered, and I looked at my watch more times than I care to admit.

So, when Brötzmann called intermission after the solo, I decided to get a recharge — and headed over to 1905, in 9th Street’s Little Ethiopia corridor. D.C. trumpeter Joe Brotherton was playing his regular Thursday gig with his Cricket Fusion Quartet, featuring bassist Oliver Albertini, James Brown veteran Mousey Thompson, and 19-year-old tenor saxophonist Elijah Balbed — already one of the scene’s hottest up-and-comers. They were starting Art Blakey’s “Moanin’” when I came in, then moved back to their usual 100% improvised tunes. The solos from all four were killer, their interaction edgy and dramatic; the audience was rapt and the staff were delighted. “They’re playing some different shit tonight,” I heard the bartender tell one of the waiters. “I like it!”

Thus re-oriented, I ducked back out of 1905 and back to the Velvet Lounge just in time to see one of the most transcendent sets of free group improvisation ever performed in this town. Largely drawn from Verrastro’s large experimental collective Kohoutek, Chromatic Mysteries created an atmosphere of alien psychedelia in which Brötzmann was a natural fit: two additional saxes, guitar that wandered mostly through the lower registers (and had more than a little freaky noise from a console of pedals and electronic equipment), and drums and percussion (marimbas, mostly). The sync between the three saxophonists was uncanny, but the whole ensemble’s ability to listen to and follow each other was astonishing and as rewarding on the surface as in penetrating.

Perhaps this second set would have been just as good had I not gone to 1905, but it was nonetheless a refreshing, stabilizing experience. So a hat tip to Brotherton and his band – it ain’t easy to compete with a monster like Peter Brötzmann. You guys held your own without even trying.