Nestled on the local music calendar between the Bumbershoot and Decibel festivals but far to the left of both aesthetically, Debacle Festival looms menacingly on the horizon. Organized by Megabats member Sam Melancon, it maintains a much lower profile than both events (you will search in vain for a Debacle-dedicated website) and its lineup tilts further into the margins than either, making it the logical successor to the late, lamented Wooden Octopus Skull fest. Amid the noise subversives and abstruse experimentalists dotting Debacle's agenda (which looks wholly satisfying, almost exhaustingly so), a handful of Data Breaker–friendly artists will appear. Let's spotlight a few of them here.

Seattle's Dull Knife (Garek Druss and Adam Svenson, with additional fortifications from Peeesseye's Jaime Fennelly on this date) traffic in malefic drones augmented by forlorn guitar arpeggios. It's as if they took the general atmospheres of the darkest bands on 4AD and Factory Records and then processed them through the more abrasive inclinations heard in the work of artists on the Touch and Editions Mego imprints. The results are both unnerving and terribly beautiful—and beautifully terrible.

L.A.'s John Wiese is an insanely prolific producer and collaborator (Merzbow, Sunn O))), Wolf Eyes, etc.) probably best known for his work under the deceptive Sissy Spacek handle. His work typically exhibits a staggering dynamic range; his arrangements are patterned to derange and shock, and his frequencies are geared to stun. You never know what you're going to get with Wiese—but you know it will surprise, brutalize, and give your ears whiplash.

Another sure highlight should be Rene Hell (American musician Jeff Witscher), who's released one of the year's finest albums, Porcelain Opera (Type; www.type records.com). At its best, the disc generates the sort of eldritch, mutated ambience that Coil honed to a black art in the '90s and '00s. Nearly everything in Rene Hell's sound world is craftily distorted to subtly disturbing or uplifting effect. This type of thing often comes across as hammy and ham-fisted—like soundtracks to either crap horror flicks or mushy new age infomercials—but Witscher displays a refined hand at the controls, guiding his tracks into deep kosmische atmospheres as well as those aforementioned chthonic realms, with nary a cliché.

The rest of Debacle's bill—including Stag Hare (the true successor to German ambient- rock deities Popol Vuh), Yellow Swans' Pete Swanson, Brain Fruit, Megabats, Thunder Grey Pilgrim, Du Hexen Hase, and Matt Carlson—looks intriguing, too.

Rene Hell, John Wiese, Dull Knife perform Sat Sept 18, Black Lodge, 7 pm; Debacle also happens Fri Sept 17, Josephine, 8 pm and Sun Sept 19, Josephine, 5 pm; www.gift tapes.com/blog/2010/08/debacle-fest.