Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center has had a busy week. With three shows curated by the Sonic Circuits crew in four days, the cozy Silver Spring gallery has given experimental music fans in the District plenty of opportunities to get their fill. Thursday’s performances by Fast Forty, Area C, and Mem1 provided a pleasant bookend to the week, exemplifying how the ongoing Sonic Circuits series continues to highlight the breadth and diversity that the “experimental” umbrella encompasses.

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Every year there’s always tons of records that deserved more time, that flew under the radar or just got lost in my stacks and/or hard drive. Here’s a few that I thought were worthy of sharing:

U.S. Girls: Live On WFMU

U.S. Girls is Megan Remy. She plays through messed-up keyboards and loves the sound of a messed-up drum machine. Her myspace page claims she’s from Philly. Her music comes from no place. Imagine Bruce Springsteen as a avant-goth kid bellowing through a messed-up microphone. Remy makes noisy anthems for people who hate noisy anthems. [She also does a lot of covers including a dirty version of a Springsteen tune]. This set is a live one done for the famous New Jersey station. I found it as a download on a message board. You can find it on WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. The blog claims she’s from Chicago. Does it matter?

The blog does have a pretty damn good summation of the U.S. Girls’ set up and sound:

Packing nothing more than a reel-to-reel tape deck, a mic, and 2 stomp boxes, U.S. Girls delivered a maelstrom of classic pop filtered through something unknowable and kinda crazy, I don’t know what it is.  I’ll indulge the facile “A meets B” thing by saying imagine Phil Spector covered by The Conet Project

Listen to her version of the Dave Clark 5 song “Bits & Pieces”:

Read More “Music 2008: A Few Forgotten Favorites” »