In a mere four years, Ground Hum has risen from an experimental multimedia festival at makeshift warehouses with infrastructure issues and strictly local performers to a full-fledged Happening™ at a legit venue (Washington Hall) with international artists. That’s due to organizers Hans Anderson, Bobby Azarbayejani (‘nohup’), and Alex Markey (Archivist) being savvy electronic musicians with deep roots and connections in the Northwest rave scene—plus crucial 4Culture grants.
Azarbayejani views Ground Hum’s lofty mission as a recontextualization of rave’s “fantastical, transformative experiences that emerge over the course of a single night. You leave those events with a sense of community, of being transported somewhere outside of ordinary life, and the feeling that a different world is possible. A lot of us first encountered that translation when we went to Corridor (2016–2018) and wanted to carry that same ethos forward.”
Markey elaborates, saying Ground Hum “is essentially about Deep Listening, in the sense of the concept developed by Pauline Oliveros. Listening as an active, engaged process as opposed to passively hearing. I think the concept extends to our installation and performance art pieces, too. We’re trying to create this… multisensory experience that draws people into an alternate reality and keeps them there for the duration of the evening.”
This year’s lineup includes mercurial Dutch IDM producer upsammy, NYC bassoonist Joy Guidry, whose unearthly, beatless music hits you like a ton of feathers, and Kirkland ambient-music legend Raica, whose two 2025 releases stand as her most inventive and emotionally resonant works. The fest’s booking policy, Markey says, centers on “people whose work is engaging on that deep emotional/intellectual level that could have people listening thoughtfully to a 45-minute or one-hour set without talking. Ground Hum artists create their own worlds and invite our audience to enter and explore with them. We’re looking for that ability to create a suspension of disbelief and really draw people in.” Azerbayejani adds, “That goes for visual artists, too. Gia Valente is our lead curator for visual art, and their focus is on art that feels like it is bringing you into another world.”
The Ground Hum crew are also proud of the workshops, which happen in Washington Hall’s Lodge Room from noon to 3:30 pm on March 7. (Admission is free and open to the public.) “We’re really excited to be expanding the programming,” Azarbayejani says. “The first is by duo i+eo, who will be presenting a workshop titled ‘Worldbuilding & Live A/V For Performance,’ which will touch on using experimentation and collaboration to bring a visual identity to a music performance. The second is ‘Performance-oriented stochastic MIDI sequencing’ by Bay Area artist CAMI FLAGE, who will be sharing the research and development of Quartermaster, her custom stochastic sequencer.”
Don’t let all this highfalutin talk spook you. Markey exclaims, “Ground Hum is fun! I think a lot of people think of ‘experimental electronic music’ or ‘performance art’ as pretentious or elitist, but we’re just a bunch of goofball music and art nerds, and I think that comes through.”
Ground Hum happens March 7 at Washington Hall, noon–11 pm, all ages.
