As 2008 draws to a close I like to thank you for your support and your interest in Sonic Circuits. A real community has formed around our humble festival, and has grown over the years. The DC area has proven to be a receptive environment for experimental music.

Despite the current economic downturn, Sonic Circuits continues to bring you the best in experimental music that money can’t buy (rarely do you read the words experimental music and money in the same sentence). This year’s installment of the Sonic Circuits festival was the best one yet, presenting some amazing music with record audience turnouts for some of the shows. This was all done with almost zero operating budget, and hours of endless toil by devoted volunteers. To keep the momentum going, Sonic Circuits will continue to present mind-blowing music year round in addition to the annual festival planned for late September 2009. We think big, and aim high.

Recently the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities awarded Sonic Circuits a substantial matching grant for the production of the 2009 festival, setting the stage for a festival that will top all previous festivals. Much work still stands before us, and we need to secure additional funds to meet the match requirement of the grant. Institutions supporting the arts have seen their endowments vanish overnight in the past few months, further limiting our avenues of outside support. It is therefore more important than ever to show your support for experimental music programming in the DC area by making a donation. Sonic Circuits is a program of the American Composers Forum - DC Chapter, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and your donation is fully tax-deductible. Your donation will help ensure that even in these difficult times, a true alternative to the typical music fare presented in DC does not wilt, but blooms. You can securely make your donation online via http://www.justgive.org/nonprofits/donate.jsp?ein=20-0485641

On behalf of Sonic Circuits and the ACF-DC, I thank you for your support and look forward to sharing with you more music from beyond the norm in 2009.

J. Surak
Director
Sonic Circuits
ACF-DC
dc-soniccircuits.org

Excerpt from the BLUE SAUSAGE INFANT performance at the Pyramid Atlantic in Silver Spring, MD. 14december2008. A celebratory stomp for Jhan Dean Egg. Sounds & projections by Hawkins/BSI.

Sunday Dec 14, 2008
doors: 6:30pm
music: 7:00pm SHARP
$5!

PYRAMID ATLANTIC
8230 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring MD 20910
301.608.9101
located three blocks south of the silver spring metro station (red line)
Free parking in gated lot out front
INFO: www.dc-soniccircuits.org
DIRECTIONS: www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org

Mind Over Matter Music Over Mind is Thomas Stanley – Electrons, Bobby Hill – Record Players,
Chris Downing – Laptop, Keyboards, Samples. MOMMOM creates spontaneous politically charged sounds that reaches across musical genres and redraws the boundaries of mental consciousness. For this show they will be performing to the film Luma 1 by Mike Sargent.
musicovermind.org

Lost Civilizations is a project of Mike Sebastian (Tenor Sax, Saxello and Bass Clarinet) and T. A. Zook (BassCello and Misc. Instruments). Together they generate a sound akin to atmospheric free jazz.
myspace.com/lostcivilizationsmusic

Blue Sausage Infant is old school psychedelic noise rave ups brought into the 22nd century on the heels of 20th century technology.
myspace.com/iabluesausageinfant

Sunday Nov 30, 2008
doors: 6:30pm
music: 7:00pm SHARP
$5!

PYRAMID ATLANTIC
8230 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring MD 20910
301.608.9101
located three blocks south of the silver spring metro station (red line)
Free parking in gated lot
INFO: www.dc-soniccircuits.org
DIRECTIONS: www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org

Dan Conrad is the inventor of the chromaccord instrument for sub-hypnotic retinal color interaction, the wildwave sound field multifrequency-blast generator, and the veena bambeena monocord of justintonian harmonics.
http://www.chromaccord.net/

http://www.myspace.com/janelandanthony
http://www.myspace.com/microk7
http://myosound.com/

Video Love (Paris)
french electro pop+live video sampling
myspace.com/wearevideolove
Dead Violets (DC)
vocal sound art+video
deadviolets.org

DVD+CD+CDR+CASSETTE RELEASE PARTY
Sunday Nov 23, 2008
doors: 6:30pm
music: 7:00pm SHARP
$5!

PYRAMID ATLANTIC
8230 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring MD 20910
301.608.9101
located three blocks south of the silver spring metro station (red line)
INFO: www.dc-soniccircuits.org
DIRECTIONS: www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org

Celebrate the release of the lofi+scifi feature film 1,2,3 Whiteout (The End of the Light Age) DVD+CD on zeromoon. James June Schneider’s (aka Matterlink) recent film is a ‘tone poem for darkness’ and mixes amazing original vignettes with diverse archive found footage, an exceptional sci-fi sensibility and incredible soundscapes to form a blissfully imaginative and retro-futuristic creation. Set in ‘an
old-fashioned kind of future’, Veronique and an inventor (the legendary Lou Castel) are trying to bring back a ‘positive’ darkness to offset the glaring, bright, technological man-made light and ‘make
the night night again’. The film and audio were constructed to operate as independent forces which work in counterpoint. The soundtrack is composed of found, sampled, and synthesized sound as well music/songs composed for the film. The latter were created by Elmapi and AE and the soundscapes were recorded and composed by Richard Harrison and Michael Schumacher amongst others. The dvd includes 2 short experimental films created using x-rays that feature music performed by Violet.

Video Love
Hailing from Paris, Elmapi has joined up with DC filmmaker and video artist Matterlink to create a raw and hypnotizing mix- “alternating between Elmapi’s wildly original driving ‘pop-concrete’ compositions
and the sampled sounds & voices of Matterlink’s live-cinema.” The sound lays somewhere between Stereolab, Judy Nylon, and Laurie Anderson. Her last album “Arcane Electronique” was mixed by Andy Moor of legendary The Ex.

Dead Violets
They say opposites attract. In the case of Dead Violets the opposite is even truer. After years of virtual fraternization Thomas Ekelund (Sweden) and Jeff Surak (USA) realized that it was only logical to
join forces and meld their common interests in drones, surface noise, and 60s girl group pop, therefore Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words plus Violet gave birth to Dead Violets.

After producing several online and cassette tape appearances with their trademark intense low frequency dirges and bleak harmonic flourishes, Dead Violets is reemerging once again with the recent
addition of poetess/priestess Bethany Moore on vocals and incantations. As a trio the group goes even further into uncharted audio realms within their collective souls producing a hybrid of drone
pop exorcisms and sound art rituals. Tonight’s performance will include live video accompaniment.