For densely made noise-pop—at least the local kind—you can't do better than tonight's bill at the Black Cat, featuring local duo Screen Vinyl Image, Fredericksburg compatriots Ceremony, and local upstarts Silo Halo. Down the street, DJ Name Names (that'd be Ian Svenonius) is spinning at Cafe St. Ex. It's moombahton night at U Street Music Hall. All solid options!

STORYTELLING

Wetherbee would have you go to tonight's Story League story-off at Busboys & Poets. 9 p.m. $10.

FASHION

The avant-garde Norwegian variety! First a lecture, then a reception and fashion show. At the Corc at 7 p.m. The event is full, but if you line up at 6:30 p.m. you might get in.

D.C. heads: One of those songs is a live version of Screen Vinyl Image's "Too Much Speed," which comes on the heels of the noisegaze duo's sophomore album  Strange Behavior, reviewed in our pages last week.

Download the comp here, stream it here, or listen below.

COMPILATION by Fan Death Records

Chris Klimek leads the section with his reviews of Arena Stage's freewheeling production of You, Nero, in which the disastrous Roman emperor is coronated as something of a pansexual glam rocker, and Signature Theatre's Hairspray, a take on the John Waters-inspired musical that features jocular WETA host Robert Aubry Davis in a dress. Marcus J. Moore reviews the new record by D.C. hip-hop's best humble-bragger, yU, while Ally Schweitzer listens to the sophomore LP from D.C.'s only noisegazers, Screen Vinyl Image. Tricia Olszewski reviews two films about disturbed ladies that will eat at your patience: Young Adult and A Dangerous Method. And in One Track Mind, Lindsay Zoladz chats with Pree about the indie-folk band's Hawthorne-inspired song "Lemon Tree."

Strange Behavior ships on CD next week. The vinyl version is out in January. Take a listen to "Revival" and "Night Trip" below.

LISTEN: Screen Vinyl Image – "Revival"

Screen Vinyl Image – "Night Trip"

MUSIC

Kurt Vile and the Violators' latest record, Smoke Ring for My Halo, is their most low-key and pensive release, but live—at least judging by the last time the group played in D.C., last November at the Black Cat Backstage—they get heavy and mystical. Don't request "Freeway"; we wouldn't want Vile to start resenting his breakout anthem and drop it from his setlists. With Woods, White Fence, and True Widow at 7 p.m. at Rock & Roll Hotel. $16 advance, $18 at the door.

Danish metal! Rarely a bad thing, if, you know, it's your thing. Volbeat at 6:30 p.m. at 9:30 Club. $25.

Whatever they're doing—gothy shoegaze, gloomy electro-pop—Arlington's Screen Vinyl Image makes music that is equal parts oppressive and pretty. This goes for their music videos too. We eagerly anticipate this band's forthcoming full-length. With The Prids and Brief Candles at 8 p.m. at Black Cat Backstage. $10.

Update! Subterranean A has Alex Bleeker & the Freaks, the jammy, mellow project from the Real Estate member, at 8 p.m.

BOOKS

Speaking of oppressive and pretty: In his new book Beijing Welcomes You, Tom Scocca (Deadspin's managing editor and a former WCP staffer) chronicles how the Chinese capital has been transformed into what the superpower hopes to present as a beacon of openness—even as the city remains alien and mysterious. From the press blurb: "Scocca talked to the scientists tasked with changing the weather; interviewed designers and architects churning out projects; checked out the campaign to stop public spitting; documented the planting of trees, the rerouting of traffic, the demolition of the old city, and the construction of the new metropolis." Trippy! He speaks tonight at 7 p.m. at Politics & Prose. Free.

FILM

Nerds with protest signs! Revolution OS documents the open source movement. 8 p.m. at Artisphere. $6.

INSERT ROCK LOBSTER JOKE HERE

The B-52s play the zoo! At 7 p.m. $65 if you're not a member of Friends of the National Zoo.

Local noisemakers Screen Vinyl Image are still at work completing the follow-up to their 2009 full-length Interceptors, but they have a new video "Stay Asleep," a track from the new album that plumbs the duo's dancier side.

The as-yet-untitled new record also features tracks like "New Visions" (Arts Desk-approved!) and "Tomorrow is Too Far" (which we haven't heard, but can only assume finds newer and more exciting ways to shatter eardrums).

Bonus: Screen Vinyl Image's recent split 7-inch with like-minded new new waver Rude 66 is now in stock on the band's website.

Screen Vinyl Image's next show is Wednesday, Aug. 10 at the Black Cat.

Tomorrow, No Love Lost is taking over Brightest Young Thing's temporary 14th Street space, vitaminwater uncapped LIVE, for a night of DJ sets and live music: Locals Screen Vinyl Image and Phonic Riot are opening up for New York's Martial Canterel, a Xeno and Oaklander side-project whose new album You Today is spooky and quite solid. I asked Gray and Anderson to make their best case for cold wave, and a transcript of our GMail-conducted chat, condensed and edited, is below. They spoke about cold wave's appeal, why it's perfect music for the making of unholy babies, and why, apparently, I'm a shoegaze fanboy. It was fun.

Washington City Paper: To start, explain the kind of music you play at No Love Lost. What is minimal synth and cold wave?

Denman C. Anderson: I'd say it's the early exploration of electronic music from roughly the mid to late '70s through the early '80s.

Sean Gray: I think what makes synth-based music in general interesting is how for me it pretty much presents itself as some sort of emotionless platform due to the technology it uses, and try to create emotion.

DCA: It was pared down, very raw in its own way, and would, in many ways, go on to become "new wave" in the mid '80s.

SG: I never really view what we do in terms of coldwave/dark whatever. To me there is a feel with this synth-based music that lends itself to a sort of idea that the offshoots will have something in common. I also think what we do lends itself to the idea that DJing doers not need to be dance-based so much as it can be based on the dynamics of the sounds.

WCP: Is that a new idea? The listening-based DJ night? Do people, um, dance at No Love Lost?

SG: To me it's somewhat of the same idea. I think people can dance, sure; much if not all of what we play is pop. But instead of it being this grand narative of like, "Here is the catchy part," a lot of it when I DJ is mostly the feel of the songs

DCA: Yeah, we definitely have some random tracks, for instance, Dive's  "Dark Room" is really early industrial, but Jesus fuck I love that song. The opening beat to In My Rosary's "Short Dance" takes me to that place where unholy babies are made.

WCP: What are the sound's offshoots? Cold wave or whatever may be a nebulous aesthetic, but there seems to be a cohesive revival going on.

DCA: Yes, while it started several years before that, it caught steam three or four years ago with Pieter [Schoolwerth] from Wierd Records running his night and label out of NYC.

SG: I mean, I've always felt a connection to say something like Babel 17 and, say, whitehouse.

DCA: In many ways, his fascination with what was more or less a loss era of music not only brought to light some amazing sounds but also allowed groups such as Xeno and Oaklander and Frank (Just Frank) (who we just played with in N.Y. at Wierd) to imagine their own versions of those sounds today.

WCP: Are their lyrical themes you see across the genre? Does that even matter?

SG: I honestly think lyrics are a joke. They could be talking about elephants for all I care. To me it's more about the feel of what we play.

DCA: I mean, you could easily guess a lot of it. I think I wrote a piece about how Cold Wave formed at the apex of what would be the "post-modern" and used the word "misanthropic" a lot.

WCP: It is kind of dance music for misanthropes

SG: I think the one thing about this kind of music is that its extremely serious, but for me I try not to present it that way. I mean right now i am listening to Feu Ma Mere, just before that I was listening to The Frogs. I think it's really fucking easy to get pegged into this NU GOTH or Grave wave bullshit.

WCP: Would you play The Frogs at No Love Lost?

SG: Sure, they can do it all synth-style.

DCA: I mean, Sean I are both into dark goth themes, and I'm super off my rocker with sinister types of metal, and having the inverted crucifixes on my shoulders and all, but this music is less like that, and more utilizing the coldness of electronic sounds to express the disconnects between everything from romantic partners to people disconnected from the world.

WCP: You were saying that it's sort of the opposite of witch house and all that other bullshit, but you can see where people might conflate the two?

DCA: Ah! You said witch house!

WCP: Well, it had to happen.

DCA: Here's what's funny, "cold wave" was really the monolithic buzzword for a while, and prepped to launch big. Little did we know that witch house was right around the corner. It seemed to have just crushed the momentum of this scene, and, in fact, a lot of nights across the country that started as cold wave, and were akin to what we do, now have all jumped over to witch house.

WCP: Cuz the kids like it?

SG: I really don't know what witch house is. I just also learned how to use Twitter. So take that for what you will.

DCA: Don't lie, Sean.

SG: I know oOoOO. That's really it. I think the idea of witch house being a pure Interenet-meme genre is interesting. Without, say, soundcloud, last.fm, etc. it wouldn't really exist.

DCA: I've seen oOoOO DJ before, and it was hilarious, because the crowed left until he untransposed the tracks, thereby being left with terrible '90s pop music.

WCP: Why pair Screen Vinyl Image and Phonic Riot with Martial Canterel?

SG: Well, Screen Vinyl Image to me aren't a shoegaze band, as some here like to peg them. I think they have more in common with what we do, whats going on with Wierd, etc. than people here think. It's really easy to see those Jazzmasters and say, "Oh, I get it, they like MBV!" To me, I always thought they sounded more dark than that.

DCA : They are two bands that share our aesthetic in many ways. Phonic Riot certainly has a darkness to them.

WCP: You brought up that disconnect between emotion and synthetic instruments. But I feel like Screen Vinyl Image is the opposite: The vocals are really subdued while the music (the guitars, especially) is where the emotion is.

SG: That's a typical shoegaze fanboy thing to say. Go listen to the Rude 66 split or the new 12-inch.

WCP: Haha. Caught me, I guess.

SG: Their peers in Ceremony, Ringo Deathstarr or whatever...I think Screen Vinyl Image has postioned themselves into something much more. The way they operate has much more in comon with, say, Xeno and Oaklander or something. I think the singles that are coming out, or say the Fan Death one, kinda show the guitars are taking much more of a back seat. Instead of being this blissful shoegaze band, I think them layering synths has really put them in a different place thantheir peers.

WCP: OK, wrap-up time. Make your pitches. Why should people come tomorrow?

SG: I think what we are doing really is different from what really is going on in D.C. I dont think its a bold statement to say what we are doing and presenting with the DJ stuff or shows we put on is nothing like anything else in D.C.

DCA: Well, first off, whatever you're into, all three bands put on amazing sets. I back Sean's statement. Not as a bold proclamation but as a fact.

SG: I think there is a segment of people that want a DJ night that isnt aboutgetting your fucking photo taken with a shitty rail drink in your hand and some girl that's way out of your league.

DCA: Haha, yeah, I'll take care of that on another night. That's not what I do at No Love Lost. It's something in some ways deeper.

The Cassettes, at NASA apparently

An irregular roundup of local releases on vinyl.

The Cassettes, "I've Been Gone Far Too Long" 7-inch: The first release from the Northern Virginia steampunkers in two years, this three-song 7-inch is unusually self-aware for the group: "In the last world/we said our words/and now we're here again," sings frontman Shelby Cinca in "I've Been Gone," a slow-burner that achieves spaciness via mandolin. The next song, incidentally, is called "Far Too Long." Conceptual! (Flannel Gurl Records; digi version has a bonus track, "Australia")

Screen Vinyl Image, "Siberian Eclipse" 7-inch: I first wrote about the B-side of this release, "New Visions," a year ago, and it was one of my favorite local tracks of 2010. After many months of delay (production problems? label-related karmic issues?) it's finally out. The A-side, "Siberian Eclipse," is spooky and serrated and it moves, but I like Screen Vinyl Image the most when its noise gets blissful. More stuff like "New Visions," please. (Fan Death)

Hume, "Inverse Fireworks" 7-inch: Hume's excellent Penumbra LP from last year had a bunch of loose, soul-skimming ragas and one tight psych-pop single; on this latest 7-inch, the band manages to be loose and concise at the same time. Thoughts are repeated for a few bars then never revived; there's a great moment where frontman Brit Powell laughs a line instead of singing it. Also, the video for "Inverse Fireworks" proves there's no reason a shabby garage in Columbia Heights can't be trippy as balls. (Sockets)

Local? Got some new vinyl? Let me know.

The most notable is Sockets Records' Bluebrain, who will be releasing a vinyl-only—and D.C.-only—7-inch with two sides. We've described the A-side, "The Pull," and B-side, "The Push," as, respectively "smooth but anxious" and ranging "from glitchy to lounge-like to totally Tron-appropriate." But there's an unexpected C-side, which is revealed only when the A- and B-sides are played simultaneously; the package is quite fitting for the cerebral fraternal duo.

Also available from Sockets will be a tape of children's songs from Edie Sedgwick, which we described as a "split between catchy, repetitive tracks like 'Boom Boom Baby' and an ethereal, somnambulant B-side designed to put a child to sleep."

Travis Jackson of Windian Records also sends word that "the Windian Caravan will be parked on 18th Street NW. We will have all of our singles and other swag," while Fan Death Records notes "If it makes any difference, the new Screen Vinyl Image 7-inch just came out in time for Record Store Day."

As for local record stores themselves, here's a rundown of what some will be doing to partake in the festivities (the full listing also appeared in this week's dead tree edition of Washington City Paper):

• Crooked Beat: Though the store won’t have the much-coveted Big Star release, it’ll have more than 200 other exclusive titles available—in addition to grab bags filled with promotional materials for the first 75 customers in line (five of ‘em will have a $25 gift certificate). Noon to 10 p.m. 2116 18th St. NW.
• Smash: Special releases like the Bad Brains 7-inch will be in stock, and Pabst Brewing Co. will be providing beer and swag. Says a Smash employee: “There will be a party atmosphere.” 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 2314 18th St. NW No. 2
• Som: To help man the crowd in the tiny 14th Street basement, not one but two Som employees will be on hand. Noon to 9 p.m. 1843 14th St. NW.
• Red Onion: At press time, Red Onion’s plans were still in flux, but there should be “snacks and treats for the kids,” says owner Josh Harkavy. Noon to 8 p.m. 1901-B 18th St. NW.
• Melody: The store is “definitely participating” and will be open regular hours. 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. 1623 Connecticut Ave. NW.

For more coverage of the rabid vinyl collector's favorite day, see the ever-enthusiastic Vinyl District. And, Click Track reports, a map of local stores created by graphic designer and Crooked Beat employee Holly Tegeler is available—should you get lost somewhere between 14th and 18th streets NW looking for that elusive Bad Brains 7-inch.

You probably know Nick Cave and his murder balladry, but his earlier work with The Birthday Party veers close to No Wave at certain moments and captures a more raw, unsettling sound. "Nick The Stripper" ought to put you in the mood to celebrate gloom and your own world-weary disposition.

Having made clear his penchant for taking drugs to make music to take drugs to, Jason Pierce can always be relied on for spaced out heaviness. Considering the fact that he technically died twice in 2005, it's fair to say he's been through some pretty dark times, as well. Spiritualized's "Come Together" should get your black makeup flowing.

Local duo Screen Vinyl Image sure loves its guitar pedals. "Fever" showcases the band's foggy, thick, melancholic sound at its finest. They might not dress like Robert Smith, but head over to the Galaxy Hut tonight and you'll catch the band performing some heavy, drugged-out songs that the king of eyeliner would surely enjoy.