Sound Ideas

Bagato saw that Transparent had been using the GWU room regularly for shows, thanks to the support of Peter Fraize, director of the school's jazz studies and leader of his own jazz trio. "Transparent was bringing Matthew Shipp, William Parker and all these people from New York, Joe Morris from Boston," says Bagato, who adopted the Transparent principle by which all ticket money (usually $10) goes straight to the artists. Hopefully, the low price encourages the curious and the risk-takers.

"The general public may perceive this music as difficult," he concedes, "but when you go to these shows, you can see the people playing the music and feel the energy of the music and get something emotional out of the music. Live, it becomes very real and more understandable, even if you're not used to it."

The next Electric Possible event is Oct. 2, with Matt Weston, a free-improviser who uses trap-kit percussion and electronics; the Cutest Puppy in the World, a free-improv quartet using a variety of sound sources; Jakuta & Carl (Joe Jakuta sings, Carl is his laptop); and Bagato guesting as Tone Ghosting. For information, visit http://www.panicresearch.com/ , which offers information on Electric Possible, a number of local experimental ensembles and other Bagato projects.

TECHCLUB

For years, Derek Morton has been a tireless promoter of experimental electronica, both creatively (he's half of Mikroknytes with John Coursey) and as organizer through Techclub of special events such as Pedal Fair ("for inventors or people wanting to do portable electronic music, people experimenting with GameBoys, renegade software people, homebrewed software and music production") and Open Minijax, an electro/improv version of singer-songwriters' open mikes. The latter ventures are intended to build community among like-minded artists and musicians. At a recent Black Cat event, Morton says, there were "20 different acts, from techno to free-form electric improv. And you got to see people from the basement that never got to play out, ever."

Morton, who discovered the joys of improvised sound manipulation and laptop art in the mid-'90s, tours with a laptop and Audiomulch software, processing live events. Thanks to the Internet and a special Web-based computer application called Visitors Studio, Mikroknytes last year engaged in a three-continent digital audio-visual jam with England's Sawtooth and Australia's Stalker, the whole thing mixed and projected on a wall, on the spot. For upcoming Techclub events, visit http://www.techclub-dc.com/ .

BLK W/BEAR

J. S. Adams, who works under the sound-art pseudonym BLK w/BEAR, performs Saturday at 2 at the Warehouse Theater as part of the 13th annual Arts on Foot festival. Adams does turntable installations and laptop compositions, digitally sampling and looping vinyl recordings and "dead media" such as Voice-o-Graphs (those 25 cent two-minute arcade recordings) and Recordio discs (DIY recordings popular in the '30s and '40s). At Warehouse, he'll offer an audio-visual improvisation, "The Seventeenth Periodicum," based on the periodic table of elements, using five turntables and getting help from local cellist Doug Poplin and bassist RH Bear from the New York industrial noise band Bile.

Last Sunday, folks watching the Discovery Channel docudrama "The Flight That Fought Back," about the final moments of United Airlines Flight 93 before it crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, heard several tracks from the album "Wish for a World Without Hurt," a poignant meditation on 9/11 and its aftermath done last year in collaboration with the Discovery film's scorer, Mark L. Beazley.

THE CAUTION CURVES

On Friday, the Caution Curves will participate in the Black Cat's (1811 14th St. NW; 202-667-7960) 12th anniversary party with such bands as Citygoats, Les Trois Malheures, Eyes of the Killer Robot, Facemat and others. It's not really a genre-focused show, more of a celebration featuring Black Cat employees and their bands, including laptop musician Rebecca Mills. A few years ago Mills began composing "organic sonic landscapes" ("whatever that means," she says with a laugh) with her laptop and samplers. Last year, she was introduced to singer-guitarist Tristana Fiscella, and though they'd never practiced together -- much less heard each other's work, Mills and Fiscella gave a spontaneous performance at the Warehouse Next Door and found that their mutual musical interests augured well for the future. Eventually, they brought in drummer Amanda Huron, who'd played in several local punk bands, and formed the Caution Curves.

"Amanda and Tristana improvise what they do around loosely based song structures, and we trade off vocals -- nonsensical vocals, yelling and yawning and screaming and other ethereal-sounding noises," Mills says, accurately explaining the very odd sound of the self-titled EP released earlier this year and produced by Derek Morton.

NEW MUSIC SALON

The New Music Salon, operated by the Washington chapter of the American Composers Forum, kicks off Friday with a performance by PulseOptional, a North Carolina-based chamber group with electric guitar, bassoon, oboe, violin, piano and percussion. Their motto: "not the same old new music!"

The ongoing New Music Salon series is at the Patricia M. Sitar Center for the Arts in Northwest Washington. The community arts education facility's new theater seats 80, and Jonathan Morris, director of the American Composers Forum's local chapter, is looking forward to staging the whole season there.

"It's beautiful, with a grand piano and nice recording equipment," Morris says, adding that the venue's size is probably just about right for new music. "We choose small venues because we anticipate having fairly small audiences. If we get 40 or 50 people out, that's tremendous."