2012SEATTLE IMPROVISED MUSIC FESTIVAL
The Seattle Improvised Music Festival is now in its 27th year of existence, making it the longest-running improv festival in the country. This year it's being held at Wallingford's Chapel Performance Space, which festival director Tyler Wilcox says is one of the best spaces for experimental performance because the location's natural environment brings a certain reverence to the music. Highlights include minimalist Japanese guitarist Taku Sugimoto, Arizona's Jeph Jerman playing only objects he found in the desert, and the festival-wide jam sesh closing out Saturday night. Shows are every night from Wednesday to Saturday, all at 7 p.m. Chapel Performance Space, 7 pm, $5–$15 donation.
GUN OUTFIT, M. WOMEN, CAIRO PYTHIAN
Gun Outfit are everything you should like about '90s guitar rock brought to life for the modern self-deprecating Northwesterner. Bred in Olympia, their bassless double-guitar attack is at once forceful and unforced, never letting J. Mascis down. The latest EP rocks a 12-string guitar—let's hope they bust that out tonight. Chanted vocals over a bed of fuzz and flanneled-out riffs could easily make M. Women the 12th-most-listened-to "grunge" band on Bandcamp. On their recent debut album, Faithful, the standout "In Meadows" also fits along nicely beside any of the Slumberland-sanctioned noisy pop. Cairo Pythian, also a product of Oly, slinks into hypersexualized gothtronic jams indebted in equal parts to Gary Numan, emotive '80s electro à la Tears for Fears, and underground orgies involving feather boas. Press materials for his 2009 debut EP, Night Errands, cite "lucid assfucking." Cairo on Cairo, anyone? META. Cairo, 8 pm, $5.
MTNS, WHITE COWARD, HAUNTED HORSES, STEPHANIE
They might be the Seattle DIY band that value the name change most, but whether they are Mountains or Mountainss or Mtnss or Mtns, the trio of shredders use controlled chaos to cast spells on the melted faces of Seattle showgoers. Drummer Dan Enders is also one of the more prolific noise musicians around. His side projects (which currently include V.D and his latest project, Ruminations, with Jamey Braden) are constantly blowing up my news feed. Seasick Halfshell Embassy, 8:30 pm.
