Monster Planet’s fusion of group-generated spontaneous electronic music and perversely tweaked B-movie projections makes it one of the greatest and most surreal Monday-night club experiences going in this city. That it’s lasted five years is a remarkable feat for any regular event, especially one as off the wall as Monster Planet. Every edition of this audiovisual headfuck—which happens every third Monday at Re-bar—consists of a rotating cast of the region’s most adventurous laptop and synth musicians improvising before a screen full of Leo “Killing Frenzy” Mayberry’s expertly curated shlock sci-fi, horror, and sexploitation flicks. Some past performers have included Raica (Chloe Harris), David Golightly (Midday Veil, Hair and Space Museum), Kaori Suzuki, and Timm Mason (Mood Organ, Midday Veil, Master Musicians of Bukkake). The juxtaposition of the heady, immersive, and (mostly) beatless music with the garish images results in a hilarious incongruity—and sometimes sound-and-vision serendipity. It’s way more fun than any Monday night has a right to be. with Monster Planet celebrating its fifth anniversary tonight at Re-bar, I spoke to Gel-Sol and Brian Oblivion about its philosophy, history, and future.

The Stranger: Briefly—if that is possible—describe the impetus and raison d’être for Monster Planet.
Brian Oblivion: It began on a bit of a whim. Our good friend William Mempa is really to blame for starting all this. In 2010, he worked sound at the Can Can and that April they needed something to fill a Monday night. We'd all been to some of the ambient events at the short-lived Capitol Hill loft/clubhouse above Purr and Billy proposed doing a similar ambient-jam type event. I asked him if they had a projector and suggested that we play nothing but B-movies. I can't remember which of us came up with the name Monster Planet. The Can Can asked us to keep doing it on a monthly basis and we soon realized we had created something rather unique.

Gel-Sol: With Earth's resources dwindling and the human population growing, SYNPROV CORP (Monster Planet's parent company) aims to improve life by sending well-trained cadets on missions throughout the galaxy to research new worlds for their habitability, lifeforms, and resources.

How has Monster Planet changed in its five-year history?
BO: [Visuals master] Killing Frenzy didn't come on board until later in our first year (October 2010). Up until then, we just played movies on the Can Can's DVD player. One of the original founders, Numeric Response, dropped out of planning and organizing the night to focus on grad school that year, as well. July 2013 was our last mission at Can Can. We'd been growing unhappy since they'd remodeled earlier that year, and we never felt their sound system was really suited for what we did.

G-S: Our missions have become more focused and our pool of cadet talent has increased. As more and more word gets out, people realize the importance of these missions in regards to our future, and in return our community grows and learns from each other.

I always seem to arrive at Monster Planet shows while they’re in progress. How does it get started? Is one person designated the leader of each performance, or is everything just spontaneously generated? It seems like a recipe for chaos, but the shows I’ve experienced seem to flow smoothly. It’s pretty remarkable.
BO: We load in and set up at 8 with the goal of starting the music at 9. We usually manage to get things started between 9-930. There are no leaders. Most of the time, we don't synch and when we occasionally do, the master clock is a separate device that any of the performers can adjust at any time throughout the mission. We trust the participants to use their best judgment.

G-S: The missions begin organically. Once a cadet's "research station" is set up, they can begin their work and collaborate with the other cadets who have their stations up and running. Sometimes the cadets discuss ideas prior and during the mission, what frequency bands they'll use to communicate, syncing to the ship's on-board computer, etc. Keep in mind that these cadets are highly trained and have years of experience, so they can adapt to each other quite quickly.

Who conceives the themes/concepts on which you base each MP? What are the common threads?
BO: Themes/concepts are brainstormed and decided on by SYNPROV CORP's executives. Those being: Gel-Sol, Leave Trace, Killing Frenzy, William Mempa, and myself. The common thread being that we use nothing but B-movies.

G-S: Themes and concepts can range from Earthen holidays, seasonal concepts, tribute nights and current events. For example, our fifth anniversary falls on 4/20 this year, so you can expect a rather dank mission to a lush, green planet.

What are the qualities you’re looking for in Monster Planet players?
BO: The ability to pay attention to what the other participants are doing, and exercise restraint. The will to be weird. We try to pull from a very wide spectrum of influences and disciplines.

G-S: A cadet's first priority is to LISTEN. It's a fundamental skill that takes years to master, but if you know how to listen, everything else generally falls into place.

MP lineups tend to be very white-male-oriented. Is it challenging to diversify for a night like this?
BO: Honestly, yes. We have made an effort to involve more female performers and there have been several ladies that have performed numerous times. Raica (Chloe Harris) has been a returning guest as well as Pulling Out the Light (Briana Jones), Kaori Suzuki, Joy Von Spain, Expert System, Mel Sky, Nico Tower, Cindy Desmarais, and others. However, the fact is that the ratio of men to women that seem interested in participating is a bit skewed. Maybe some more of our female fellow weirdos will start to find us after this interview.

G-S: SYNPROV CORP aims to be as inclusive as possible with Monster Planet. We need all the help we can get for research, and being exclusive would only hinder future missions. I think one of our challenges is that white-male humans are the main demographic for learning and using the research equipment, and as a result, the scene has a boy's club mentality. We have had some very talented female humans on our missions, and we hope to include more women for future missions. Our world cannot afford to be exclusive with sex, race and other alien species.

Can you recall any moments where everyone entered an unprecedented, sublime zone that surprised all the musicians involved? Where you all levitated, figuratively or literally?

G-S: Our mission at the debut DAT festival last year in Missoula was pretty incredible. I felt like the audience was on the same wavelength as us. Missions generally hit a few sublime zones within each performance, but lately they have become more frequent. The beautiful thing about our cadet pool is that they all seem to get it.

What changes, if any, do you foresee in Monster Planet’s future?
BO: We want to get our live stream dialed in better, so more people can tune in from beyond Seattle. We're working to get more of the recordings online this year. Every show for the last five years has been recorded, so we're sitting on a mountain of audio that we're extracting the best snippets from. We're also really behind on creating a YouTube presence.

G-S: Re-bar is Monster Planet's home base, so obviously we're going to keep the monthly missions going, but we'd like to play more satellite missions. During Earth's Summer months, we'd like to play more festivals, but we're up for most missions, especially if mission organizers want to collaborate with us.

We also thoroughly record these missions and release the more valuable data via places like Bandcamp and Soundcloud. We're hoping to increase the frequency of these releases, and ultimately would like to release physical copies of the best research via Annual Report. I would prefer to release the Annual Reports on vinyl, but SYNPROV CORP has a tight budget. We'd also like to see the Monster Planet concept spread to bases in other cities. That way, we could "trade" cadets for more specialized missions, and give cadets the ability to learn and grow with new experiences. These new alliances would strengthen SYNPROV CORP's mission to understand our universe.