Saturday March 22 * 1pm * Free / donations * RSVP

Are you interested in any of the following: theater, building community, making new friends, board games, tabletop role playing games, improvisation, and/or trying new things? Then you would probably enjoy Live Action Role Play (or LARP)! LARP is an umbrella term for games where you physically embody a character using a huge variety of rules, props, locations, and participants. LARPs can go from as few as 2 to as many as 100s of people, and explore stories ranging from the silly and fluffy to the dark and tragic, but for now we'll be exploring some entry-level LARPS that are great for new players.

On Saturday, March 22 from 1-3 pm we're exploring the vastness of space with "Through a Great Void" by Mids Meinberg. A great colony ship has departed from Earth en route to a habitable planet, and 2-20 players will take on the role of the skeleton crew that needs to pilot and protect the ship. Together, we will navigate interpersonal conflict and mechanical mishaps as multiple generations of crew members safely guide 10,000 cryogenically frozen souls to their new homes.

This is a ticketed event (due to the limited number of spaces), but tickets are free with a suggested donation to Rhizome. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to the facilitator, Nico, at jntm42@gmail.com.

Saturday March 22 * doors at 7 music at 730 * $15-25 * TICKETS

Aliya Ultan AKA Nocturnal Cellist is a cellist-improviser/singer-songwriter from the road based in Brooklyn. Her sound has been described as “fearless”, “haunting”, “cathartic”, and “seductive”, “–both orchestral and grunge”. Growing up in a car with her mother and sister, Aliya entered music as a means of survival and escape. With a passion for collaboration and interdisciplinary art, Aliya has participated in countless projects including regular appearances with Poncili Creacion (Theater and Puppet Collective - Puerto Rico), The Heart of The Beast (Puppet Theater - Minneapolis, MN), and Yohsiko Chuma’s School of Hardknocks (Performance Collective - NYC). As an improviser, Aliya is found at the cross section of all things working with legendary bandleaders such as John Lurie of the Lounge Lizards, Douglas Ewart of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and composer-performer Tyshawn Sorey to name a few.

St Celfer, treading glitch-tronic failure, creates improvisational future-folk compositions - sound is amalgamated and congealed into a resolution of crossed and overloaded signals. In performance St Celfer embraces sensory overload in order to unlock ways of perceiving a world made narrow by the impositions of power. St Celfer (john macdougall parker), of American and Korean origin, floats between NYC, Seattle, and São Paulo where you can find drawings on the 'Space Between Points' in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MACUSP).

Founded by Andras Fekete (1956-2018), BOAT BURNING plays "maximum minimalism" -- elemental phrases played by many instruments -- to create staggering towers of densely stacked harmonics. The resulting sound combines the wide-screen sweep of classical with the sheer physical thrall of punk.

Sunday March 23 * 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 March 23 * doors at 6:30, music at 7 * $10-20 * TICKETS

Deer Scout + Pinkie Normal

Katy Pinke

Fiona Kohrman

Sad Veiled Bride

Monday March 24 * doors at 7 show at 7:30 * $15-25 * TICKETS

Lepidopterans - an all-star quartet featuring Tom Boram, John Dierker, Jason Willlett, and Toshi Makihara. Opening set by Simone Baron.

Tom Boram and Jason Willett have been playing together for almost 25 years as “Leprechaun Catering.” The Baltimore-based duo makes improvised music from electronics that is strange and dark, yet joyful and humorous. Their music reflects their influences: the outer space analog echoes of the Barron’s “Forbidden Planet” and the Solar Arkestra’s “Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow”, or the sarcastic industrial noises of Northern England’s late 1970s, or the inscrutable textural puzzles of Cecil Taylor’s “Unit Structures” or Incus’ “Company Week” collaborations, and/or the child-like plasticity of the “moogsploitation”-album era, or the vintage TV and cinema sounds of De Wolfe and Chapelle library music.

"Multi-reedman John Dierker has become a major improvisational stylist . . . interweaving concepts augmented by howling lines, injections of blues-drenched choruses and Albert Ayler-like display of energy." (All About Jazz.) A Baltimore, Maryland native Dierker has worked in a wide variety of musical settings and collaborations. Currently he is working with Quartet Offensive, Lubbock, and Microkingdom as well as freelancing in the Baltimore/D.C. area.

Toshi Makihara studied drums, percussion and improvisation with Sabu Toyozumi, a prominent percussionist in Tokyo. Since arriving in the United States in the late 1970’s he has worked with various new music ensembles as well as with numerous dance and theater companies internationally. He has also collaborated with poets, visual artists, filmmakers and performance artists widely.

Simone Baron is a polyglot pianist, accordionist, improviser and composer whose work “ego-less, genre agnostic and without expectations” (JazzTimes) engages curiously and charismatically with a broad spectrum of idioms. In 2016 Simone founded Arco Belo, a diasporic chamber music ensemble that has toured nationally.

CANCELLED

Tuesday March 25 * doors at 7pm * $20 * TICKETS

A collective turned trio, Tara Clerkin craft free-flowing psychedelia with heavy dub drums amidst woozy washes of harpsichord and synths. Influenced by the natural landscape and their West Country hometown, their 2023 EP On the Turning Ground is a mesmerising sophomore release.

“Drifting from dubby minimalism to smudged acid jazz, Tara’s stark and tuneful voice acts as the vehicle for her concise poetic lyricism. The group coalesce disparate influences into a cohesive sound, reflecting a romantic view of a familiar world.” - The Wire

The Caribbean - "They're taking Brill Building songs and writing them in invisible ink, turning jazz standards into Twilight Zone episodes, turning folk songs into clouds of fog." - PopMatters

Wednesday March 26 * 7pm * $15-35 * TICKETS

Jules Reidy’s sublime music maps the human experience in glittering constellations of sound. The guitarist is a driver of Berlin’s fertile contemporary music scene, a respected polymath whose prolific output and worldwide touring has led to performances and collaborations with myriad lauded artists. Reidy’s breathtaking recordings and magnetic performances offer a truly futuristic, singular vision of guitar music. Explorations of microtonal mysticism and alternate tunings drawn from transcendental folk and minimalism color Reidy’s playful experiments with smudged pop melodics and sampling. A wide-eyed imagination combined with technical mastery guide each work in Reidy’s extensive catalog, from solo guitar albums and collaborations with innovative peers, including recent works with claire rousay, Oren Ambarchi, Andrea Belfi and Sam Dunscombe to major commissions from institutions such as JACK Quartet and Zinc & Copper.

The Soft Pink Truth is the shapeshifting solo project of Drew Daniel from Matmos. For this show he'll be presenting previously unheard material for laptop utilizing processed chamber ensembles, focusing on explorations of texture and space. 

Nate Scheible is a DC-based experimentalist of many stripes. In 2024 he released the album or valleys and on Outside Time, which was called "a haunted symphony" by Boomkat. He will be performing new and improvised works for electronics.

2nd & 4th Wednesdays * online at 8pm Eastern * Free / donation * RSVP

A weekly guided dream-sharing hangout…. Welcome to the theater of your dreams—an inexhaustible source of images and stories that can provide entertainment and insight, and that requires no cable service and no subscription—just attentiveness and an open mind. Participants will share dreams, using a gentle, non-intrusive method for unlocking the metaphors that structure dreams (derived from the long-tested method of Dr. Montague Ullman). We’ll also talk about techniques for recalling and recording dreams, as needed.

Please click through for more details.

Thursday March 27 * 6:30 (doors) 7pm (music) * $15 * TICKETS

Verdin Brothers is a collaborative project between multi-instrumentalists Peter (St. John’s, NL), Andrew and Mark Verdin (Minneapolis, MN). Building from a foundation of steel-string guitar and upright bass, they play deranged instrumental folk music that blends elements of American Primitive guitar, traditional string band, and more.  In pursuit of the celestial monochord, they track the crooked byroads of folk and linger in its dark pockets and eerie configurations. Their last two studio endeavors, Field Guide to the Seven Spheres and Arcana, have received critical praise from outlets such as The Guardian and Minnesota Public Radio for their ethereal compositions and psychedelic soundscapes.

Liam Grant is a New England guitarist with a punk ethos, cut from the American Primitive cloth. The restless guitar explorations, modal epics, and driving uptempo rags recall the likes of Grant's pedagogue; Takoma Records, and the path that was paved by his forebears John Fahey, Robbie Basho, Peter Walker, Max Ochs, and later, Glenn Jones, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Jack Rose, and others. Prodigal Son, his VHF debut and second widely-available LP, is a portrait of an artist on the road, changing fast, recording things as they spring from the fountain. The sound here is raw—grass and dirt instead of prefab; homemade/handmade instead of high-tech, etc. There’s a visceral quality and immediacy of culture that’s being lost every day in modern life—Prodigal Son is a chance to grab some of it back.

Dann Pell is a singer-songwriter and fingerstyle guitarist from Chester County, PA who makes meditative folk music celebrating unity of spirit. The traditional and Sacred through a lens of deep listening.

Friday March 28 * 7pm * $10-15 * TICKETS

A BENEFIT FOR LA FIRE RELIEF 

JIVEBOMB - flatspot records darlings, new record Etheral dropping soon

TOTAL NADA - vocals in spanish band is from montreal .. dark and raging hardcore punk, seriously don’t miss em 

VISCOUS ORDER - some skinheads making hardcore punk 

RETAIN - hardcore ? metal?.. metalcore… Joseph is spinkicking respectfully either way  

ALL PROCEEDS GOING TO DENA CARE COLLECTIVE — “In response to the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles, which have displaced thousands of families and businesses, this collective was created to cut through the red tape and ensure aid reaches those who need it most – especially families living in Altadena and Pasadena’s historic Black communities – quickly, equitably, and transparently.”

Saturday March 29 * 1pm * $15-25 (proceeds to Rhizome) * 4401 Eastern Ave, Baltimore * TICKETS

The Afternoon Sound Cupping is a continuation of Southeastern Roastery's coffee dive into alternative methods for sensory exploration through sound. Building on the 2022 Chladni plate study, guitarists Ivan Liptak and Jonathan Blazer will swerve through sound as roaster Candy Schibli offers the cupping table for blind tastings to compare changes of sound frequency on taste perception. Experimental, informal, and open to all with an open mind for fuzzy logic neuro-exploration in coffee.

*We love you naturally. For science, we ask all attending not to wear perfume, perfumed lotions, or scented deodorant.

Saturday March 29 * 1pm * in the backyard * $15-25 * REGISTER

Itching to get creative? Come dye with me! This class will cover making and dyeing with indigo, including the basics of shibori (Japanese tie-dye).

You'll learn how to:
-make an indigo vat
-dye with indigo for long-lasting color
-tie up the cloth for a variety of beautiful patterns
-care for your indigo-dyed items

Each participant will receive 1 bandana to dye with. All other materials provided. You may bring a few additional items to dye from home. Small to medium sized items with 50% or more natural fiber content work best. In addition, wear clothing that you don't mind getting stained. Bring an apron if you wish, and rubber gloves if you have them.

Saturday March 29 * 3pm * Free / donations * Use this form to offer your skills or request an opportunity to learn new skills

We are hosting a community-driven event where neighbors can learn and share skills to navigate and thrive in today’s political environment. Skills shares like this help support resilient, empowered communities, providing practical knowledge on navigating government bureaucracy, accessing public services, and securing basic necessities. While this event is focused on Takoma neighbors, it is open to anyone interested in attending.

How It Works:
Fill out this form to offer your skills or request an opportunity to learn new skills. We will match the skills offered to the requests and invite those offering relevant services to set up a table before the event (on or around March 8). While not all skills will be needed for this event, we will keep a running list for future events, opportunities, and needs.

Saturday March 29 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

Alexis Almeida grew up in Chicago. She is the author of the chapbooks I Have Never Been Able to Sing (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018), and Things I Have Made a Fiction, which was recently the winner of the Oversound Chapbook Prize. Her first full-length book, Caetano, will be out with the Elephants in 2025, and her translation of Roberta Iannamico's Many Poems will be out with The Song Cave later this year.

Matthew Gordon is a poet and artist based in the Washington DC area. His work has been published in numerous publications including Mirage #4/Period(ical), Personal Space (Vallejo) and theplaidreview. His visual art has been exhibited at Southern Exposure, Patricia Sweetow Gallery, Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery and other venues.

every other Sunday * 10am-noon * Free / donations * REGISTER

Rhizome is pleased to announce our Youth Electronic Music Lab, for young people ages 11-18. We meet regularly to share space together while working and to give and receive feedback in a positive and encouraging environment. Our group at this point consists of some beginners and others who have experience making electronic music and are able to work independently on it. We plan to invite guest musicians periodically to share tips, talk music theory / composition, offer feedback, etc. Please bring a laptop and headphones if possible. Bring some of your own music you’re working on or would like to share.

Sunday March 30* 7:30-10pm * $5-10 * TICKETS

Jam nights are an opportunity for people to show up and create art together. Bring a guitar, sticks, sketch pad, didgeridoo, or your dancing shoes and come vibe. Amps, speakers, drum set, and microphones are provided. Featured artist: Cait Phebus @phebs.world

Monday March 31 * 7:30pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

ZZZZZZZZZ iiiiiiii

Featuring:
Geologist (Hurdy-gurdy Drones)
Zach Mason (Electronic Drones)
Maya Glicksman and Naoco Wowsugi (Double Gongs)

ZZZZZZZZZ is a transcendental sound dozing experience, weaving tones including gong baths, theremins, plant synthesizers, cassette loops, poetry, ambient drones, vinyl DJ sets and more. Drift into a nap, wrapped in experimental soundscapes. Bring a mat, blanket, and water as you wish.

ZZZZZZZZZ (ズズズズズズズズズ）は、ゴングバス、テルミン、植物シンセサイザー、カセットループ、詩、アンビエントドローン、そしてヴァイナルDJセットなどの音色を織り交ぜた、超越的なサウンドうたた寝体験です。実験的な音の風景に包まれながら、心地よい眠りへと漂いましょう。マット、毛布、水など、必要に応じてお持ちください。

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 (sax) / Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello) / PNL (drums, Norway).

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.

Saturday April 5 * 7pm * GA $25-30, Low income / student: $15-25 * TICKETS

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

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.

2nd & 4th Wednesdays * online at 8pm Eastern * Free / donation * RSVP

A weekly guided dream-sharing hangout…. Welcome to the theater of your dreams—an inexhaustible source of images and stories that can provide entertainment and insight, and that requires no cable service and no subscription—just attentiveness and an open mind. Participants will share dreams, using a gentle, non-intrusive method for unlocking the metaphors that structure dreams (derived from the long-tested method of Dr. Montague Ullman). We’ll also talk about techniques for recalling and recording dreams, as needed.

Please click through for more details.

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

Assholeparade (Gainesville, FL)

Triac (Baltimore, MD)

Pilau (Washington, DC)

Skallar (Baltimore, MD)

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 * 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 instrumetns, 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

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.

Friday April 18 * doors 7:30 music 8 * $10-25 * TICKETS

Whisper States is the solo project from multi-instrumentalist Chad Molter, best known for his work in Dischord Records bands Faraquet and Medications, and as a member of Mary Timony's bands and Joe Wong’s Nite Creatures. On September 6, 2024, Whisper States released a debut album of ten tracks informed by the melancholy chamber pop of Donovan, The Left Banke and Emitt Rhodes.

Combining 90’s indie rock, British folk and a little 70’s country, Dennis Kane has managed to find a voice that’s unique yet comfortingly familiar. A singer-songwriter and producer, Kane has long been a fixture in the DC indie scene and with his latest release, “There Is Blood In The Milk Again”, he finds love, loss and renewal amidst tumultuous times.

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.

2nd & 4th Wednesdays * online at 8pm Eastern * Free / donation * RSVP

A weekly guided dream-sharing hangout…. Welcome to the theater of your dreams—an inexhaustible source of images and stories that can provide entertainment and insight, and that requires no cable service and no subscription—just attentiveness and an open mind. Participants will share dreams, using a gentle, non-intrusive method for unlocking the metaphors that structure dreams (derived from the long-tested method of Dr. Montague Ullman). We’ll also talk about techniques for recalling and recording dreams, as needed.

Please click through for more details.

Thursday April 24 * 7pm * Free / donations * RSVP

About ten years into a routine of running every morning, the music critic Ben Ratliff realized that listening and running have something in common. Maybe a lot of things. If you like, start with the word "track." Consider that music suggests its own atmosphere, and that running is rhythmic. Remember that both practices involve moving headlong into the near future and staying aware. Keep going.

He set out to write about music in a new way--new to him, at least--in which the motion of a body through the atmospheres of his New York running routes could correspond with the motion in the music he heard through his earphones. The result, Run the Song, is a new book of interconnected essays on music, motion, criticism, the future, and the ways that cities reveal their divisions to a runner. Within each chapter, one piece of music, one run, one atmosphere. 

Ratliff will talk with the Washington Post music critic Chris Richards about running and listening, and play some of the music described in the book.

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 * TICKETS

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 * 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.

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.

Friday May 9 * 7pm * $15-20 * TICKETS

Roger Clark Miller is a guitarist, pianist, bassist, composer, singer, percussionist and occasional cornet player. He has been a band leader since 1967. His recordings have appeared on Matador, Fire, Ace of Hearts, SST, New Alliance, Forced Exposure, Cuneiform, Atavistic, Feeding Tube, Fun World, World in Sound, and others. He has toured nationally since 1979 and internationally since 1998. His career officially began in 1979 when he co-founded the influential post-punk band Mission of Burma on guitar and vocals.

For this concert, Miller will be performing compositions from his newest album on Cuneiform Records "Curiosity for Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble". He currently uses a customized stratocaster 6-string electric guitar and three lap-steel guitars on stands, two of them loaded with alligator clips or bolts, the other tuned to a post-Glenn Branca unison E. Using bass and tenor guitar strings, this melts his previous prepared piano ideas into more portable guitars, resulting in percussive grooves and bass-lines. Combining advanced looping technology with new stomp-boxes, many in stereo, he truly creates a "solo ensemble" sound.

Tag Cloud - Long-standing solo project of Chris Videll (also with THAT CLOUD), currently focused on modular synth but incorporating other electronics and occasional field recordings. Noisy ambient (or maybe ambient noise). Maximum R&D.

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.