Tuesday April 1 * doors at 7, event at 730 * $10-20 * TICKETS

An 80-minute talk and listening session surveying the immigrant performers who recorded in Lower Manhattan during the first half of the 20th century, giving detailed biographies that illuminate the context of their time and place in New York. The lives and music of immigrants from Aleppo, Baghdad, Ioannina, Istanbul, Izmir, and Thessaloniki who settled in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx and worked with Albanian, Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Syrian compatriots here in New York as well as the touring performers from Cairo and Athens who collectively provided music for their communities will be given an opportunity to be heard and felt again.

Ian Nagoski is an independent music researcher and reissue record producer in Baltimore, Maryland who has specialized for 20 years in early 20th century recordings made by immigrants to the U.S., especially musicians from the Ottoman Empire. He has made anthologies for Dust-to-Digital, Tompkins Square (including To What Strange Place: The Music of the Ottoman-American Diaspora in 2011), the Database of Recorded American Music, Mississippi Records, and his own Canary imprint which has released over 150 digital albums.

https://canary-records.bandcamp.com/

Wednesday April 2 * doors at 7:30, show at 8 * $15 * TICKETS

Curse words: Washington DC Space Nerd Party Punk. Curse Words have spent the past decade writing pop punk tunes. Their music is catchy, inspired by punk, grunge and alternative then soaked in synths.

Instagram: @curse_words

The Mostly Dead: The Mostly Dead are a post-punk band from Washington DC

Instagram: @themostlydead

steelboy: 4frenemies playing punk rock together to keep our sanity. Based out of Richmond, VA.

Instagram: @steelboyband

Thursday April 3 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

The featured short films investigate absent persons, missing knowledge, and impossible subject positions, laying bare the devastation—and enduring potential—of that which is unrealized, unreconciled, and unlived. Incorporating a range of traditional celluloid filmmaking techniques, the films enmesh the poetic and the mundane, always operating with acute self-awareness and an unswerving commitment to a forbidding formal logic.

A. Moon is a Baltimore-based experimental filmmaker working with small-gauge, “amateur” technologies and found footage whose work has screened nationally and internationally over the past 25 years. Inspired by the goals and methods of political modernism, the cinematic avant-garde and feminist filmmaking of the 1970s, her work is intended to offer a corrective to the images and narratives of commercial media.  She has been the recipient of awards from the Princess Grace Foundation and numerous film festivals.  In recent years, she has also been a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow, a fellow with the Center for Asian American Media, and the recipient of grants from Maryland State Arts Council, Baltimore City Mayor’s Office, the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation.

Friday April 4 * 7pm * $15-25 * TICKETS

Dave Rempis - saxophones
Fred Lonberg-Holm - cello/electronics
Paal Nilssen-Love - drums/percussion

This free-wheeling trio first came together at a closed session in 2009, and as any fan of improvised music can imagine, the band hit hard from the first note and hasn’t looked back since. The unabashed energy of Rempis and PNL, coupled with the electrified cello antics of Lonberg-Holm, make for a powerful listening experience that combines driving grooves with noisy textures and occasional melodic interjections. These sliding and overlapping rhythms often give the music a feeling as if a rug is slowly being pulled out from underneath the listener while the music still maintains a strong forward momentum. Reference points include the Julius Hemphill groups of the 70's and 80's featuring Abdul Wadud, Ornette Coleman's Prime Time, and the early-70's explorations of Miles Davis' electric bands.

Exhibit runs April 5 - 29
Opening reception: Saturday April 5 9 from 2-4pm
Open during all events, or email us to schedule a different time to view

Please join us for an exhibition of student work from students in the Visual and Performing Arts Department at Montgomery College.

Saturday April 5 * 7pm ***SOLD OUT***

Brìghde Chaimbeul is a leading purveyor of celtic experimentalism and a master of the
Scottish smallpipes – the bellows-blown, mellower and more emotive cousin to the famous Highland bagpipes – and she’s taken them to the global stage. A native Gaelic speaker from the Isle of Skye, Brìghde roots her music in her language and culture. She has devised a completely unique way of arranging for pipe music that emphasises the rich textural drones of the instrument; the constancy of sound that creates a trance-like atmosphere, played with enticing virtuosic liquidity.

Henbane was formed in the summer of 2023 by Kohoutek percussionist Scott Verrastro and bassist Griffin Vernor Drutchas based on the framework of 1968-1970 Fairport Convention, covering a repertoire of traditional British Isles folk ballads, lyrical gems from '60s and '70s songwriters, and original compositions. Like Fairport, Henbane aims to adapt traditional ballads to contemporary times with their own arrangements. The quintet also features vocalist Eva Sheppard, guitarist John Comune, and violinist John Coursey.

Sunday April 6 * 11am * $35 / sliding scale * REGISTER

Join Fairy Ring Fibers in this group class for absolute beginners! We will go over important crochet terms, holding your hook while maintaining tension, chaining, and completing rows of single crochet. At the end of the class, you will be on your way to making your first scarf or hat! Feel free to bring your own supplies, although yarn, hooks, and needles will be provided.

Sunday April 6 * 2-4pm * Free / donations appreciated * RSVP

Join us to connect with local organizations and activists and learn how you can make change in your community.

Sponsored by Flyers for Falastin.

Sunday April 6 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $15-25 * TICKETS

Recipient of the 2019 American Prize in Orchestral Composition, composer Wayne Horvitz performs extensively throughout Europe, Japan, and North America. In addition to creating work for his own ensembles, he has created new work for The Kitchen, BAM, Seattle Symphony, Berlin Jazz, Nocco, Vienna Radio Orchestra, Centrum, and ACT among others. He has received awards from, MAP, McKnight Foundation, the NEA, Meet the Composer, and The Shifting Foundation. among others. Narrative works include pieces centered around the life of Joe Hill, the story of the Everett Massacre, and the poems of Richard Hugo. Installation work has been presented at Ft. Worden, SAM and Arizona State Museum of Art. He is the recipient of the 2016 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award.

Washington, D.C.-based guitarist Anthony Pirog is a musician who knows no stylistic limits. Educated in jazz but enthusiastically embracing diverse forms from indie/punk-informed rock to ambient experimentation, Pirog has emerged as one of the most noteworthy artists on the 21st century D.C. area music scene, defying predictability with live appearances in myriad configurations, from solo experimental sets to his genre-defying duo with cellist (and life partner) Janel Leppin, the hard-charging instrumental rock quartet New Electric, and his avant jazz trio with bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Ches Smith. Pirog even led a performance of Terry Riley's landmark minimalist composition "In C," featuring an ensemble of 22 musicians, at D.C.'s Sonic Circuits experimental music festival in 2011. It's safe to say that no one knows precisely what to expect from Pirog, and that fact alone might make him noteworthy, but it's also helpful that he employs technology with uncommon intelligence, is guided by a surefooted artistic conception in each of his projects, and happens to possess killer chops.

Monday April 7 * doors at 7 music at 8 * $10 * TICKETS

Pink Lids (Pysch-Synth Freaks on Tour from MA)
https://pinklids.bandcamp.com/

Gerf (DC Surf Punks)
https://gerfgerf.bandcamp.com/

Powerband (DC Psych Fuzz, First Show)

Members of Sad Roach, Thee Deluxe, and many others
https://powerband.bandcamp.com/album/2020-demos

Tuesday April 8 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

LMB presents…

Spiritual Momentum - Matt Lavelle: flugelhorn, alto and bass clarinet; Dave Ross: guitar; Julius Masri: drums; Pete Dennis: bass. Matt Lavelle and Dave Ross were and still are musicians on the downtown scene in NYC. Lavelle moved to Philly 4 years ago and hooked up with Philadelphia based drummer Julius Masri and bassist Pete Dennis. We first got together under a tree by a river in Philly. The music will be aggressively filled with spiritual momentum as a broad range of musical emotions and dynamics will absolutely be conveyed with urgency.

The Alex Hamburger and José Luiz Martins Duo is a project that explores many different styles through a very interactive approach. Being from Washington DC and São Paulo and forming the group in Switzerland and then living in NYC and now the DC area, they pull from many different influences, creating a unique and inter-cultural repertoire that explores interplay in a fresh and captivating way. The duo has played all around the world from jazz clubs to concert halls; from New York to Brazil and all around Europe, always with the intention of giving the audience a unique experience that insights exploration and wonder.

Wednesday April 9 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

M. Woods (He/Him/They/Them) is a multidisciplinary artist implementing avant-garde strategies under the studio name “Disassociative Productions”. M is a first-generation US citizen, born to a Costa-Rican/Ecuadorian mother. M uses immersive time-based spectacle and constructed trances to navigate the internalized socio-political topographies of addiction, mental and physical disability, malignant nihilism, and white supremacy. M’s work deconstructs the post-911 acceleration of hyperrealism and (media)drug dependency, documenting the spread of solipsism in a media environment dominated by corporate neo-fascism.

Commodity Trading: Dies Irae, 2022, HD video, 87 minutes

COMMODITY TRADING: DIES IRAE is a cinematic document chronicling the infectious American nightmare circa 2015-2020. When properly projected, this premium grade Media Rx induces trance states, priming the audience for the infiltration of the Numb Spiral. Using hyper media collage of digital and analog sources, this Disassociative production is best taken sober and in the dark. You are already in a hallucinatory zone of pure nothingness.

Friday April 11 * doors at 7 show at 730 * $20 * TICKETS

Assholeparade (Gainesville, FL)

Triac (Baltimore, MD)

Pilau (Washington, DC)

Skallar (Baltimore, MD)

Saturday April 12 * 4-10pm * $15 * TICKETS

AMALGAMATION, a medley of interactive visual and performing arts, takes place on Saturday, April 12, 2025 at Rhizome DC, 4-10pm. The festival’s three elements include WORKSHOPS, MUSIC, and LIVE SAMPLING, with each feature’s artist lineup fiercely nonconformist.

Workshops: Local artists teach crafts, providing materials and skill sharing.
Bratz LaVey: LaVey’s Lair: The dark art of glam.
Kaleb Meyer: Mind Mapping: A lesson in form building in abstract art.
Makayla Castillo: Face Your Fear of Drawing: A Portrait Workshop.
Mother Bishop: Wire Wrapping
Rose’s Thingies: Upcycling.

Music: Disparate local bands challenge listeners to explore sound’s boundless nature.
Anxiety Monster: Goth/grudge amalgamation
Collapsing: Noise poetry
James Wolf & Raven Bauer Durham: Dissonant ambient with electronics and strings
Strawbalien: Electronic pop fused with hip hop/rap elements
Quiet Room: Grunge fusion rock with many instruments, including a dulcimer
Whiskey Girl: Spoken word performance art with bass guitar grooves

Live sampling: Local producers premiere new tracks composed entirely of samples recorded from AMALGAMATION’s music lineup.
Basic the Bassist: Hip hop
ELRIC: Soul hop hip hop lo fi
Ghost Cuentero: Atmospheric post punk

Sunday April 13 * 12:30-2:30pm * $5 suggested * REGISTER

Join our Introductory Figure Drawing Workshop and gain the knowledge you need to attend live drawing sessions! This workshop is intended for beginners to help build confidence to jump into live drawing sessions and connect with local figure drawing communities (we’ll provide a list of regular sessions in the DMV area).

To keep this budget-friendly, we'll be taking turns modeling for each other. We’ve got basic supplies covered, but feel free to bring your own!

Sunday April 13 * 3pm * Free * RSVP

Join the DC-based trans small press Lilac Peril for a free writing workshop! Less of a formal class and more of a conversation, we’ll be talking all things traditional publishing with professional literary agent Noah Rosenzweig, like: what do we want out of publishing? Who are agents and what do they do? Why is it all so confusing?? Writers of all experience levels are welcome to join, no registration required. While this workshop is intended primarily for trans, non-binary, and Two-Spirit writers, anyone is able to attend. 

Lilac Peril is a small DC press featuring and run by local trans authors and poets. We are excited by writing that addresses areas of trans experience commonly missed by the literary status quo. In addition to slinging print publications, Lilac Peril hosts a weekly writing group and free workshops across the genre spectrum. 

Noah Grey Rosenzweig grew up in New Jersey before moving to D.C. in 2017. He was an editorial fellow at Grove Atlantic and Roxane Gay Books and is a literary agent at Triangle House. His work can be found in The Columbia Journal, Angel Food Magazine, and is forthcoming elsewhere.

Sunday April 13 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $15-25 * TICKETS

Austin-based percussionist and multi-instrumentalist,Lisa Cameron (aka Venison Whirled). Using amplified/acoustic percussion and strings, she locates resonant frequencies in space to create oscillating overtones, which are then employed as sound sources for live improvisation.

Eli Wallace is a pianist, improviser, and composer who resides in Brooklyn, NY, leading his own projects, and collaborating with other like-minded artists. His work as a pianist displays a proclivity to free improvisation, incorporating elaborate piano preparations that John Lewis (The Guardian) says is "...pushing the boundaries of the prepared piano."

Shasha Chen: piano, percussions, found objects; Chao Tian: Chinese dulcimer, sibao. Premier of "fe-mute(male)" - for female performers, piano, electronics, and needles — This work perceives and uses the interior of the piano as a metaphor for the uterus, extending outward from the performer's own body, in other words, the performer’s body could also be seen as part of the “organic piano”. Premier of "women, wǒ men" - for Chinese dulcimer, percussion, found objects and voice — In Chinese pronunciation, "wǒ men" means "we." We are women, women are us. This is a beautiful coincidence. I want to use both musicians' voice and instruments, speaking, singing and improvising with selected contemporary Chinese feminist poems.

Nectar Gnome is Jenny Moon Tucker and Meg Ragan. An exploration and experiment in weaving sound through the realms. Saxophone, strings, tones and percussive textures sourced though a variety of mysterious objects, build ecstatic stories. Through play they will coax voices out of the aether.

Tuesday April 15 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $15-25 * TICKETS

Huda Asfour, PhD | Oud, Vocals, Composition | Palestine - Huda believes in the necessity of transcending borders in both life and music. A polymath with works in the fields of music, biomedical engineering, signal and image processing, and social work. She is a natural storyteller whose music, through the tenderness of her oud and the lyricism of her compositions, challenges taboos and stereotypes. An exceptional improviser who has over the years collaborated with artists spanning countries from the USA to China.

Emily Rach Beisel is a Chicago-based improviser, composer, educator, curator, and woodwind specialist whose work is celebrated for its visceral intensity and innovative blend of techniques.  Beisel’s 2023 solo album, Particle of Organs, has been described as “heavy stuff, sounds retrieved from the deeper places - the underworlds, the lightless subterranea… a raw, abrasive, oppressive, and thrilling journey (A Jazz Noise).”   Beisel's music centers on the bass clarinet and incorporates voice, electronics, extended techniques, and other wind instruments creating a complex and nuanced soundscape in which the origins of sounds are often obscured. 

Danny Kamins is an improvising saxophonist based out of Houston, TX. His current musical endeavors include playing in the Houston based groups Relative Dissonance, CARL, El Mantis, and Etched in the Eye as well as directing the jazz program at Rice University. He has also been booking shows in Houston that specialize in experimental/avant-garde music since 2016. “Kamins’ ‘cyclical’ style is filled with guttural multiphonics, piercing altissimo, and lightning fast runs that span the entire register of the saxophone.” -Juan Olivo, Byline Houston “Danny Kamins is awesome!” -Ruth Underwood

Wednesday April 16 * Doors at 6:30pm, show at 7pm * $15 * TICKETS

Dave Heumann is a guitarist, singer, songwriter, and composer based in Baltimore, MD. Known for his work as a founding member of Arbouretum, Human Bell, and many other projects, he has been active for over two decades as a bandleader and collaborator, writing, recording, and performing music in North America and Europe. While his solo sets within the last few years have often been entirely comprised of guitar improvisations, he has of late turned his attention back toward composition, with sung songs and composed pieces woven together with looped and layered threads of spontaneous guitar expression.

Blake Hornsby is an experimental folk musician based out of Asheville, North Carolina. Hornsby's work is influenced by Indian raga, Middle Eastern music, psychedelia, country blues, and Appalachian music. Audiences have described his music as a mixture of John Fahey, The Incredible String Band, The Beatles, and transcendental experiences. Others have labeled his music as 'Hallucinatory Mountain Folk' and 'Psychedelic World Folk Fusion'. Most say it's indescribable.

Kutay Sezginel's music explores the intertwined nature of tradition and innovation. Rooted in the rich heritage of Anatolian folk music and inspired by psychedelic rock, dark ambient and krautrock, he creates cosmic soundscapes layered with microtonal cultural motifs and odd time signatures. With neo-ethnic instruments like the çağlama and the electric cümbüş as his narrators, he creates stories of imaginative realms with memories of the past. His work is always evolving and reshaping itself through the spontaneity and energy of live performances.

Thursday April 17 * 7pm * $15-25 * TICKETS

Cellist Daniel Levin is “one of the instrument’s most brilliant contemporary practitioners” (The Wire). Since arriving on the New York City jazz scene, Daniel has developed his own distinctive voice as a cellist, improviser, and composer. Ed Hazell noted upon release of Levin’s first record as a leader, “Cellist Daniel Levin is a major new voice on his instrument and in improvised music.” Elements of European classical music, American jazz, microtonal and new music, and European free improvisation all figure prominently in his unique sound.

After studying saxophone at the Conservatory of Lausanne, Switzerland, where he received in 1994, a concert license (master of arts soloist) Swiss saxophonist established in Greensboro in 2010, Laurent Estoppey, devoted himself mostly to contemporary music, but performs and teaches classic saxophone repertoire and transcriptions of baroque music. Now his musical activity is divided between written music and improvisation.

Weathering is an electroacoustic duo formed by Matt Carey (clarinet, piano) and Carolyn Zaldivar Snow (modular synthesizers, baritone guitar). Their work merges field recordings from natural environments with intricate, experimental electronics, creating immersive soundscapes that evoke both organic and technological worlds.

Zaldivar Snow is a self-taught musician. Her work has appeared in Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and temporary environments, including a geodesic dome in Eakin’s Oval as part of Philadelphia quadraphonic, hydrophonic project Wooder. She leads editorial at electronic label Mystery Circles, and contributes to Tape Op Magazine. 

Michael R. Bernstein is a Takoma Park, MD based Composer, track-maker, and artist investigating the boundaries. He was formerly a Double Leopard, a Religious Knife, and Heavy Tapes head honcho. He will present a sound and light installation upstairs at Rhizome.

Sunday April 20 * 3-5pm * RSVP

Death Cafes are opportunities for people to enjoy refreshments together and discuss the topic of death. The objective is to “increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.” There are Death Cafes all over the country. What's on your mind about death and dying? Contact Death Cafe Facilitators Margaret Branch at margaret603@gmail.com or Monica Lynch at mlynch19@comcast.net.. Death Cafes are NOT therapy, grief support, or counseling sessions. Cost: Free (small donation for the space encouraged)

Sunday April 20 * doors at 7pm * $10+ * TICKETS

Please join us to help raise funds for moving expenses for a community member who has made the difficult decision to return to their country of origin due to threats made by the incoming Administration.

Gloom Merchants (RVA)
Tristan Welch (DC)
Alex Harvelle (FXBG)
We’ll get it next time (VA)
Programmed Cell Death (FXBG) 

+ poetry and live painting!

Monday April 21 * doors at 7pm, music at 730 * $25 / sliding scale * TICKETS

Rhizome DC, DC Jazz Festival, and Transparent Productions present…

Zoh Amba Sun Ensemble, a remarkable project led by saxophonist and composer Zoh Amba, will release their debut record this spring on Smalltown Supersound. The ensemble blends avant-garde jazz with spiritual intensity, featuring Lex Korten (piano), Miguel Marcel Russell (percussion), and Kanoa Mendenhall (bass).

Opening set by Mark Cisneros and Nik Francis.

Zoh Amba (Roulette 2023-24 Commissioned Artist) is a composer, saxophonist, and flutist from Tennessee. Her music blends avant-garde, noise, and devotional hymns. Before studying music at the San Francisco Conservatory Of Music, New England Conservatory and studying with David Murray in New York, she spent most of her time writing and practicing saxophone in the forest near her home. Today, her powerfully unique avant-garde music is full of folk melodies, mesmerizing refrains, and repeated incantations.

Mark Cisneros (Marcos Aurelio Cisneros) is a Washington, DC based Chicano/Indigenous American artist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser whose creative output shifts between the Jazz, punk, experimental, and improvised music worlds. Born in Los Angeles but relocated to the East Coast in his 20s. Before settling in Washington DC, he lived in Brooklyn, NY and studied as a saxophonist at the New School in Greenwich Village learning from such greats as Ahmed Abdullah, David Schnitter, Joe Chambers, and Tim Price. Though a tenor saxophonist primarily, over the past decade he has placed a dedicated focus on the Stritch. An antique straight saxophone (sibling of the Eb alto) whose modern name was coined by its most famous player, Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

Nik Francis is an improvising musician with a primary focus on the drum kit, occasionally integrating electronics and small acoustic instruments to expand his sonic palette. Through topology.systems, Francis maintains a library of his solo work and collaborative projects, documenting his evolving approach to rhythm and sound.

Tuesday April 22 * doors at 7, show at 7:30 * $15-25 * TICKETS

LOOLOWNINGEN & THE FAR EAST IDIOTS:
ARE TOKYO-BASED AVANT-PUNK, ALTERNATIVE BLUES TRIO.
WITH INKWASH PAINTING-LIKE SOUNDS & UNICURSAL RHYTHMS.
WE RELEASED 3 ALBUMS, 4 EPS, AND SOME DIGITAL SINGLES.
WE HAVE PLAYED WITH: GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR, DINOSAUR JR., LOUIS COLE BIG BAND, PINBACK, BUILT TO SPILL, GUERILLA TOSS, FELL RUNNER, BORIS, BUFFALO DAUGHTER, ZAZEN BOYS, OGRE YOU ASSHOLE, 00I00, GOAT, ALTERED STATES, HIKASYU, SHUGO TOKUMARU, NISENNENMONDAI, EASTERN YOUTH, WORLD'S END GIRLFRIEND & ANOTHER ALCHEMY.

Shadow Riot
Kamyar Arsani
Jeff Barsky
Dug Birdzell
Jerry Busher 

Join us. 

Industrial Grade Acid is the collaboration between Mic Litter and Nikolai Koppernick, who have been recording stream of consciousness improvisations with a revolving door of electronic gear for over a dozen years.  I.G.A. began as post-basement show jams between musicians and attendees in 2010, which we named and numbered as “Doses.” Our material ranges from sampled found sounds to metallic percussion, howling synths, cyberpunk junk rhythms, feedback loops, and ambient droning.

Wednesday April 23 * doors at 7, music at 715 * $10-20 * TICKETS

Water is the Sun - Adam Parks (Timber Rattle, Lightning White Bison) and Mkl Anderson (Drekka, lovesliescrushing) - There are moments of silent depth in which the winter of the scalpel of meaning and the spring of the sound-born, unleashed body look upon the world fully present. When the notes at last are heard, the ordered world is their indistinguishable score. The ritual of process is that which carries. The process of ritual is that which brings moments both transitory and immortal, apprehended by musician, seer, clairvoyant, herald; the welling tones that emanate from the crystal salt of shattered primordial sea; the melody that creeps unheard from unseen distance across the desert blaze; the hymns that blare in whispers from mountain peak and valley depth, beams of their power streaming into the ordered world, in confluence with body, voice and soul, dissolving it again and again.

Doomi Soomi is the solo project of Janet Lee, of Boston, MA. Soomi's compositions are coextensive with her surroundings: She often rehearses in nature, and incorporates these experiences into her work. Soomi's banjo, accordion, and other instruments provoke a meditation on the question of where music is to be found. An album of field recordings and instrumentation is forthcoming.

Eleanora is the solo project of Eleanor Denison, formerly of Boston, MA. A classically trained harpist, Denison balances composition and experimentation in introspective pieces. Her work demonstrates an intuitive sense of flow that finds a place for each feeling. Her latest album, Lamentations of An Bhean Sí, was released in early 2025.

Requiem are a DC-based audiovisual arts group founded in summer 2020 as the brainchild of experimental guitar player and soundscape designer Tristan Welch, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and multimedia artist Doug Kallmeyer, and established visual artist Monica Stork. Known for their immersive, cinematic and hypnotic multimedia experiences, Requiem’s core sonic identity is characterized by heavy soundscapes, deep synthetic bass, and musical percussion, imbued with an inherent emotional depth facilitating their explorations of the experiences and sentimentality of interpersonal relationships.

Friday April 25 * doors at 7, noise at 7:15 * $15-25 * TICKETS

Walde Mar is the noise alias of Luk Henderiks from Philadelphia PA. Harsh tape collage and live junk metal exploration.

Kevin Winter is an electronic musician from New Jersey. In addition to his solo practice Winter plays in the improvising ensembles ASPS and Haleta Wellins Winter Mountain as well as the Harsh Noise duo Hooper, CO. He has previously worked as 2673.

Max Eastman - PHL-psych noise tape-manipulations.

Weapons Envelope - Solo noise/power electronics workings by Emily Haugh.

Guillermo Pizarro uses field recordings, tapes, harsh noise, synths and ambient textures to achieve his cinematic storytelling through sound. He also runs Flag Day Recordings, a US label focused on promoting experimental music, harsh noise, ambient and soundtracks. Starting in 2024, Flag Day has added a production branch via Vitória Régia Studios focused on mastering, mixing and film scoring.

Numbing Agent is an analog + digital noise performer/recorder that focuses on manipulating and sequencing recordings and live sound.

Saturday April 26 * 2pm * MASKS REQUIRED * $10-15 * REGISTER

DC Dyke March invites you to celebrate Earth Day and help us raise funds for the march! A suggested donation of $10-$15 gets you the supplies you need to do some sustainable crafting. Decorate a tin can planter, fix up a clothing item at our mending station, or make a zine or collage. Feel free to bring additional supplies or your own craft and just hang out with us!

Masks will be required to attend this event and please take a rapid test before coming!

Saturday April 26 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

Holly Melgard is the author Fetal Position (Roof 2021), named one of “Artforum’s Best of 2021,” and Read Me: Selected Works (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2023), which surveys her poems, short stories, and critical essays. Prior to this, she co-edited and designed Troll Thread Press for over a decade, a dual release print-on-demand + free .pdf platform, where she self-published ten other books, including several co-authored with Joey Yearous-Algozin. Her work has appeared in Best American Anthology of Experimental Writing, BOMB Magazine, and the German journal Merkur among other places. She lives in Brooklyn where she designs books and teaches writing.

Joanna Fuhrman is the author of seven poetry books, including To a New Era (Hanging Loose Press 2021)  and the newly released Data Mind (Curbstone/Northwestern University Press 2024.). Her poems have appeared on the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, The Slowdown podcast and in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies. An Assistant Teaching Professor in creative writing at Rutgers University, she first published in Hanging Loose Magazine as a teenager and became a co-editor in 2022.

Joshua Smith is the author of By (Non Plus Ultra, 2021). His work appears in publications like Yalobusha Review, Word For/Word, and TIMBER and has been exhibited at the Grolier Poetry Book Shop and Harvard University. For more, visit jsmith.bio.

Sunday April 27 * noon-4pm * $5-10 suggested * RSVP

The DC Modular Society is a group focused on learning, teaching, and performing electronic music with modular synths. DCMS meetups are open to all with an interest in electronic music, modular and other hardware synths, and hybrid systems for creating and performing music. We encourage and support building a diverse and inclusive community—if you’re wondering if you belong—the answer is yes! No equipment is necessary to attend meetups, but feel free to bring gear if you like. Mixer and PA system provided. We frequently do informal demos of synths and electronic music techniques.

Sunday April 27 * 2pm * in the backyard * $5 suggested * RSVP

Who says creativity has to be a solo activity? Parallel play is a behavior regularly observed in children — that is, children sit next to or near each other, while engaged and focused on their own play. For adults, this is a form of quality time and can cultivate a motivating environment for creative play.

In the spirit of Parallel Play, pack and play your craft of choice during these open hours at Rhizome. Bring whatever supplies you need for your creative activity and tinker away alongside others doing the same. Folks are welcome to chit chat while they get their art on or have the freedom to focus in and get down to (creative) business.

This is a co-created space for art exploration. Parallel players will be asked to assist with setting up tables and chairs as needed. If your art form involves music, please bring supplies that you can work on with a headset or at lower volumes, as to provide space for others needing a more quiet environment. Bring snacks, water, noise cancelling headphones -- whatever you feel you need to get into your creative zone.

Parallel play will be offered on Sunday/Monday evenings 1-2 times a month, as space and organizers are available. During the winter months, we will be indoors; mask use is welcomed.

Monday April 28 * doors at 730, music at 8 * $15-25 * TICKETS

Motherfuckers JMB & Co. came together barely one year ago with a desire to create long improvisational soundscapes akin to music by German rockers Neu and Xhol Caravan (from which they adapted their name). With Geologist from Animal Collective (Brian Weitz) on hurdy gurdy, Marc Minsker on bass, guitar, harmonium, and Jim Thomson (The Alter Natives & GWAR) on percussion, this instrumental trio is preparing for their upcoming release of a debut album.

On Bull Market on Corn, New Orthodox (Nicholas Merz) makes music that responds to the American expanse with plain-spoken thought. The pedal steel player’s songs paint pictures of the fractured ideologies that shape life in this country through the melodic haze of his instrument, the comedy of his lyrics, and the surreal choreography that accompanies his performances. The music is both intimate and grand, charged and claustrophobic, taking the tools of country and spinning them out of context. Bull Market on Corn marks Merz’ debut under the moniker New Orthodox. Each of these songs takes on a different fragment of the American experience, traversing both the personal and political.

Wednesday April 30 * 7pm * $15-30 * TICKETS

Presented by Outside Time, celebrating new releases by Zosha Warpeha & Heather Stebbins

Zosha Warpeha is a composer-performer working in a meditative space at the intersection of contemporary improvisation and folk traditions. Using bowed stringed instruments alongside her own voice, her long-form compositions explore transformations of time and tonality. She performs primarily on Hardanger d’amore, a sympathetic-stringed instrument closely related to the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle.

Heather Stebbins is a DC-based composer and multi-instrumentalist whose work explores porous boundary between memory and emotion. She foregrounds cello, synthesizer, and an array of other electronics, creating music that is imbued with patience, unfolding slowly over the course of multi-movement suites.

Naoco Wowsugi is a community-engaged artist who blurs the lines between being an artist and an engaged citizen. Wowsugi's cross-disciplinary projects—including portrait photography, participatory performance, sound healing, and horticulture—explore the nature of belonging and inclusive community building.

Claire Alrich is a multidisciplinary artist living in Washington DC. A trained dancer, Claire’s art practice centers the body and the somatic experience even as it moves across mediums to include: installation, dance production, 2-D art, and sculpture. She will be preparing the performance space at Rhizome this evening with an array of colorful, translucent textiles.

Friday May 2 * 7pm * $15-20 * TICKETS

QUEERING SOUND FUNDRAISER
PERFORMANCES // SILENT AUCTION OF ARTWORKS + QUEER PUBLICATIONS

02 MAY 2025 // 7-10PM

TICKETS: $15-$20

RHIZOME DC
6950 Maple Street NW
Washington DC 20012-2014

Help us fund our expanded vision of a two-week QUEERING SOUND festival staged across the DMV during WorldPride, 23 May - 08 June.

Ari Voxx
charlee scythe
Novparolo
Boy Meets Pearl
The Constructivist Brotherhood

Silent auction for a signed copy of Tara Rodgers Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound(Duke University Press, 2010) + ephemera; Fanny Chiarello BASTA NOW: Women, Trans & Non-binary in Experimental Music (Permanent Draft, 2024); “first fire” physical poetry artwork by Greg Thomas / oo (first edition/sold out); signed copy of JS Adams The New Vocabulary/Photographs 2017-2024 (Fading Glamour, London, 2025); and March for Our Lives “Life or Death” poster.

Saturday May 3 * doors at 5 show at 6 * $15 * TICKETS

Nuvolascura - Featuring members of SeeYouSpaceCowboy, Letters To Catalonia, Ghost Spirit, Curtains and Heritage Unit, this California band unleash an absolute whirlwind of screamo fury. Mixing driving/playful bass rhythms with wild guitar-playing, mind-boggling drumming, and intensely raw screaming. One of screamo’s best.

Ostraca is a three-piece hardcore / screamo band from Richmond, Virginia, formed in 2009. They are the next phase of a band that was once known as Kilgore Trout. Honing in the sounds of the historic screamo bands before them, such as Usurp Synapse, Circle Takes the Square, and City of Caterpillar; they play an intensely dark, chaotic and dissonant style of screamo/emoviolence that harkens back to their Virginia forefathers.

Sutras - Sutras understand suffering—and how to transform it into music. The D.C.-area punk band thrives on creating driven, melodic songs that forge connections between disparate spirits.. Tristan Welch (guitar/vocals) and Frederick Ashworth (rhythm section) along with recruited live performers fuse pummeling rhythms with lush, grinding guitars, crafting a sound that is both ferocious and dreamlike.

Nesting -  A band from Baltimore. https://linktr.ee/nestingband

Deceiver / Mirror - A guitar based music-band.

Exhibit runs May 4 to May 29 * Open during all events, or email us to schedule a different time to view

Opening reception: Sunday May 4 from 4-6pm
IRAA Celebration & Open Mic: Tuesday May 6 from 6-8pm
Artist Talk & Market: Wednesday May 14 from 7-9pm
Closing Reception: Sunday May 25 from 5-7pm

Beauty Behind Bars: The Transformative Power of Art in Confinement presents a collection of evocative, poignant and beautiful pieces created by incarcerated artists, each a powerful meditation on resilience, hope, and the human capacity for change. This groundbreaking exhibit allows audiences to see beyond prison walls into artists’ lives, shaped by reflection and the quest for connection through their enduring creativity. Curated by a formerly incarcerated artist and a public defender, this exhibit strives to affirm the humanity of incarcerated artists and demonstrate art’s profound and curative roles in the lives of people who have lost their freedom. Each piece challenges stereotypes and the all too unforgiving narratives about incarcerated persons. They bear witness to the transformative and redemptive power of art, even in the most inhumane of conditions.

Friday May 8 * doors at 7 show at 8 * $10-15 * TICKETS

Fast Preacher (FL)
https://fastpreacher.bandcamp.com/

Flo Petite (DC)
https://flopetite.bandcamp.com/

Rosslyn Station (DC)
https://rosslynstation.bandcamp.com/

Thursday June 5 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

Liz Downing: Shadow Mother is psychotherapy by way of Toy Theater with voice, banjo, and puppetry. The setting is the dark, infinite land of the Id. One puppet is "Self" who speaks and the other is “Shadow Mother,” who sings.  

Emma Elizabeth Downing is an image maker, using singing/songwriting, banjoing and painting to create musical performances, plays and Toy Theater. She seeks to make good use of all of her skills, mine the universal psyche, and create art in rich collaborations. Elizabeth grew up in a small town, Alabama working in the the family Motel, singing in a Methodist Youth Choir, touring nursing homes, prisons, and childrens' hospitals. This was a formative idea of how to leave home, how to move people to tears, how to tell a story. She thought of becoming an evangelist, but instead became a painter graduating from Auburn University in Alabama. She then came to Baltimore to study under Grace Hartigan at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Here, Elizabeth joined with other artists and their collaborative efforts led to peformance art, hillbillie operas, story cycle concerts, parades and a lifetime of future collaborations.

Alicia Puglionesi and Carrie Fucile: Circles In Absolute Night is the story of descending into a cave with spoken word, live sound, and projected video. Why do we put faith in false promises and what is it like to be a rock? We will shed light on these questions.

Alicia Puglionesi is a writer, historian, and Baltimore resident. She studies the history of knowledge-making and mystery in the human sciences. Her writing, scholarly and journalistic, deals with mediumship, haunting, and memory in the American landscape. Puglionesi works as a lecturer in an undergraduate medical humanities program, as a researcher and curator, and in the production of poems.

Carrie Fucile is a sound artist who creates installation, sculpture, performance, and experimental music. Her research investigates how memories embodied in objects, architecture, and landscapes have sustained cultural resonance. The creative efforts that result interpret the effects of political power, technological shifts, and global economics on the human condition. Ultimately her work seeks to expose how traces of the past continue to live with us in the present. She lives and works in Baltimore, MD.

Erik Ruin: All That Is Solid is an audio-visual environment that layers/juxtaposes quietly transcendentalist video observations of everyday life alongside hand-drawn animations and cut paper projections. A series of reckonings with the state of the state, the self, society, the environment, the interpenetration and complicity of them/us all.

Erik Ruin is a Michigan-raised, Philadelphia-based printmaker, shadow puppeteer, paper-cut artist, etc., who has been lauded by the New York Times for his "spell-binding cut-paper animations." His work oscillates between the poles of apocalyptic anxieties and utopian yearnings, with an emphasis on empathy, transcendence and obsessive detail. He frequently works collaboratively with musicians, theater performers, other artists and activist campaigns.

Saturday June 14 * 1-9pm * outdoors, weather permitting * $50 / sliding scale * TICKETS

Tyondai Braxton & Ben Vida: Tyondai Braxton is an American composer and electronic musician who incorporates electronic and modern orchestral elements into his music, which ranges in scale from solo pieces to large-scale symphonic works. Ben Vida is an artist and composer. Recent solo exhibitions include \[Smile on.\]… \[Pause.\]… \[Smile off.\] at Lisa Cooley Gallery, New York, and Slipping Control (West) at 356 S. Mission Road, Los Angeles.

Wendy Eisenberg is an improviser and songwriter who uses guitar, pedals, the tenor banjo, the computer, the synthesizer and the voice. Their work spans genres, from jazz to noise to avant-rock to delicate songs.

Josh Dibb aka Deakin is an artist, producer & composer most notably a member of the band Animal Collective. He has released multiple studio & live albums, and as a film composer he has composed music for the films Crestone, The Inspection, Jetty & Obex.

Lucy Liyou synthesizes field recordings, text-to-speech readings, poetry, and elements from Korean folk opera into sonic narratives that explore the implications of Orientalism and Westernization.

The Caribbean (festival founders and co-hosts) is an American experimental project from Washington, D.C., composed of Michael Kentoff, Matthew Byars, and Dave Jones. Described as “minimalist/drone/Phillip Jeck-by-way-of-Carole King,” the band has been critically acclaimed for its deconstructionist approach to pop music, and its wry, literary lyrics.

Emily Robb is a Philadelphia based musician who has been part of the rock underground and experimental scenes for over a decade. She recently released her debut solo album, How To Moonwalk, created almost exclusively on guitar.

Jon Camp is a well-known-and-loved fingerstyle guitarist and composer from the Washington, DC region. He blends twang, drone, and melody into a cohesive whole that is exploratory without forsaking the hook.