Exhibit runs October 1-31
Opening celebration Saturday October 4, 1-4pm
Open during all events, or email us to schedule a different time to view

On a rainy day at BWI Airport, Baltimore artist Fred Merrill is reading a soggy thrift-store copy of Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception. It’s a fitting image: Fred’s world is one where everyday reality slips into something weirder, wilder, and more alive.

In Fred’s reality, corporations become detailed micron illustrations of telephone monsters with tendrils and tongues, Barry Manilow deserves an altar, and sculptural creatures bend and blend into the landscape. There’s the sounds too– atonal harps built from scrap wood and found objects like shark teeth, guitars with hands and feet. A self-taught artist, everything is medium.

Near the UMBC campus, Fred’s home has long been a haven for students to play house shows, install any art they can imagine, and take up residence in a massive collection of thrifted books about sea creatures and photography. Much like Rhizome, this space is cooperative and runs on creativity.

For the month of October, Rhizome will house Creatures from a Door to Perception, a selection of work spanning several decades. This show celebrates not just Fred’s work, but the energy and spirit of grassroots creative spaces across our region.

Come hang out! Fred’s noise project, Electric Cabbage, will reunite for an improvised performance. There’ll be homemade instruments for an open group jam session, plus a photographic slideshow by Fred himself. Light snacks and drinks will be served.

Workshops on DIY instrument building and collaborative sound-making will pop up throughout the month—stay tuned for details.

Friday October 3 * 7pm * $15-25 * TICKETS

Join us for a night of solos and duos from four transcendent improvisers!

KEVIN MURRAY (drums, NYC) and WILL GREENE (guitar + sax, CHI) have collective resumes that include recordings and tours with John Zorn, William Parker, Joe Morris, Chris Pitsiokos.  They play with bands as varied as Tredici Bacci (progressive italo-pop), Trigger (noise-metal) and Fake Pollacks (alt-rock). Murray and Greene are both members of legendary NYC outfit, PEAVEY. They are currently on a nationwide tour supporting every album ever recorded. 

Majid Araim is an Iraqi-American multi-instrumentalist, composer, educator, curator, visual artist, researcher and a fixture of the Atlanta improvisation and new music communities. Majid's prolific work as a composer focuses on resonance and dynamics, experimental approaches, and is oriented towards the natural world and reimaginings thereof.

Simone Baron is a polyglot pianist, accordionist, improviser and composer whose work “ego-less, genre agnostic and without expectations” (JazzTimes) engages curiously and charismatically with a broad spectrum of idioms.

Saturday October 4 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

Come join us for an evening of two electro-acoustic sets on violin and toy pianos, featuring music by Karlheinz Essl, Benjamin Oliver, Eve Beglarian, Missy Mazzoli, Bobby Ge, and Kenji Bunch. And participate in a community experience of Terry Riley's In C with toy instruments! 

Patrick Lin, violin, grew up in Fargo, ND. He is now a member of the U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own” and is stationed in the Washington, DC region. His varied career has also included performances with the 8-Bit Big Band, Jeremy Zucker & Chelsea Cutler, and The Eagles. An avid educator, Patrick frequently collaborates with the Washington Musical Pathways Initiative and DC Youth Orchestra Program and has taught masterclasses at University of Miami, Florida State University, Southeast Missouri State University and National Orchestral Institute.

Dorothy Chan is a DC-based toy pianist, improviser and sound artist, whose work invites listeners to hear the extraordinary inside the everyday. Drawn to the toy piano for its playful childlike wonder and its quiet act of redefinition, she explores how small instruments and playful gestures can reveal deeper meaning and reimagination—a reminder that we are more than what the world first sees. A passionate advocate for new music, Dorothy enjoys exploring experimental repertoire, and creating intimate sound worlds and programs that are responsive yet intimately reflective. She is a co-founder of creative studio Chromic Duo (CAG artists) and the chamber collective ensemble mise-en, and has premiered hundreds of new works. Her performances have been heard at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, the MIT Museum, and festivals across Europe and Asia.

Sunday October 5 * 12-4pm * Free * RSVP

Open mic

Featured Act: Yemi Sol

Vendors: 8bundant Jewels (Jewelry) / Brownie's Boutique (clothing & shoes)

All Ages (13 y/o & under must have a chaperone)

Sunday October 5 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $13 advance, $15 day of * TICKETS

Red Brick Presents

GOOD FLYING BIRDS (Indianapolis)
https://goodflyingbirds.bandcamp.com/track/erics-eyes-2

JANITORS (DC)

WORLD RECORD (Baltimore)
https://worldrecord2.bandcamp.com/album/the-away-team-ep

Monday October 6 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $15-30 * TICKETS

Presented by Outside Time. Season Pass for all four Outside Time shows in Fall 2025 available HERE.

Neti-Neti is the lo-fi ritual music duo of Matt Evans (drums/electronics) and Amirtha Kidambi (vocals/electronics) that formed amidst their mutual experiences surrounding grief after the death of loved ones. Neti-Neti, translated as “It is not this, it is not that” from Sanskrit, is a contemplation on the nature of reality, life, death, birth and rebirth extracted from the Hindu text of rituals The Upanishads.

Nik Francis is an improvising musician with a primary focus on the drum kit, occasionally integrating electronics and small acoustic instruments to expand his sonic palette. Layne Garrett plays prepared guitar and found object percussion in the long-running improvising duo Weed Tree and myriad other ad hoc formations. Sarah Hughes’ music is intuitive and genre-liberated while displaying an unquestionable command of her instrument and musical vocabulary. Nate Scheible has performed and recorded in a variety of bands and ensembles spanning multiple genres over the past 25 years. His background is largely based in improvisation on drums, electronics, and analog tape.

Max Hamel is a craftsperson, musician, artist and instrument maker with diverse practices ranging from professional fine violin luthiery to handmade live electronics. Their performance work builds upon a foundation of circuit bending, feedback, touch and chaos, delighting in subtlety, pliable gesture and flippant ambiguity.

Tuesday October 7 * 7pm * $10-15 * TICKETS

Evil Sword To experience Evil Sword is to run through the forest with a pack of feral children as your guide, their motives unclear. Will they ambush you in a thicket and steal your trinkets? Or lead you laughing to hidden wonders? The bass lines lurch like a lumber cart careening downhill surrounded by a swarm of bells and whistles, and out of dark hollows echo haunting chants of life and death.

Katie (Magician) Macyshyn (they/she) is an artiste and play practitioner. Their collaborative new media art creates communal rituals exploring alienation and reconciliation. Macyshyn holds a BFA from the Corcoran College of Art + Design. They have been featured in performance art festivals, DIY venues, and galleries such as Transformer DC, MoCA Arlington, VisArts, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

Suburbanabuse is happening in this slough.

Wednesday October 8 * 7pm * $15 * TICKETS

Sensor Ghost
Luke Stewart
Aaron Leitko

Thursday October 9 * doors at 7, music at 730 * $10-20 * TICKETS

If Gus Englehorn didn’t exist, one of his songs would have to invent him. A former pro snowboarder reborn as a nomadic psych-pop prophet, Englehorn has lived a rollercoaster life that reads like one of the fantastical fables that fill his songbook. Gus's latest album The Hornbook magically transmutes the entire history of 20th-century rock ‘n’ roll—’50s golden oldies, ‘60s garage spunk, ‘70s glam flamboyance, ‘80s indie transgression, ‘90s lo-fi weirdness—into an alien transmission from the future.

Mia and the Argonauts - A new quartet from Washington, DC featuring all teachers from Jackson-Reed High School, formerly known as Wilson. Singer-songwriter Mia Chu on guitar and vocals, with James Kelly (Boys Club) on lead guitar, Marc Minsker (MFS JMB & Co.) on bass, and Tom Murphy on drums.

Overtime ZZZ is the leftfield, guitar pop solo project of PJ Brownlee (Art Sound Language, ex-Plums).

Friday October 10 * 7pm * $15 * TICKETS

As a multi-instrumentalist and producer, Asher White’s auteurish pop vision is vulgar and transcendent: marrying skittering noise with swooping strings, lively banjo with blasts of feedback, dissonant flutes with elegant bossa nova. Since the early 2010s she has developed a sprawling discography that spans experimental drone, tropicalia, noise rock, and folk. Her heartfelt and compulsively inclusive aesthetic is often informed by her transness, her Jewish spirituality, and her ongoing negotiations with hedonism. Her music runs in parallel to her work as a visual artist and writer; her first book was published by Atlantic Filtration Systems in 2024.

Cathartic and cerebral, Richmond, VA quartet Hotspit offers a penetrating style of music with dense layers of emotion and resonance. This sound roots itself in the fully explored genre of alt-rock while also reaching upward for something more to add to its venerated tone. The band lands upon an expansive sound that helps decipher the enigmatic nature of everyday emotions that haunt our lives.

Rosslyn Station is Guinevere Tully, an anti-folk artist from Herndon, Virginia. Recorded cheap and released for free, her songs reach gently into past hurts and present despair for something kind to share. She sings about heartbreak, depression, and dysphoria with softness and sincerity in the stubborn hope that you'll sing along.

Sunday October 12 * 3-5pm * RSVP

Death Cafes are opportunities for people to enjoy refreshments together and discuss the topic of death. The objective is to “increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.” There are Death Cafes all over the country. What's on your mind about death and dying? Contact Death Cafe Facilitators Margaret Branch at margaret603@gmail.com or Monica Lynch at mlynch19@comcast.net.. Death Cafes are NOT therapy, grief support, or counseling sessions. Cost: Free (small donation for the space encouraged)

Sunday October 12 * 7pm * $20-25 * TICKETS

Transparent Productions presents... Byron Asher and Tomas Majcherski (reeds), Matt Booth (bass), and Doug Garrison (drums).

Sonic Chambers Quartet is a new formation co-led by New Orleans-based clarinetist and saxophonist Byron Asher and New York City-based saxophonist and clarinetist Tomas Majcherski and performing original music that sits at the nexus of new composition and free improvisation. The multi-instrumentalists and composers have known each other and performed together for over 10 years, primarily in the New Orleans music scene, though their collaboration on this project began in 2023. In addition to their shared experiences as musicians, their connection is deepened by strikingly similar life paths prior to meeting – including past work in avant garde theater and formal studies in philosophy and religion. Their music is richly informed by these experiences, grounding their collaboration in dialogues around improvisation and composition, performance, art and collectivity. In the group, they are joined by North Carolina-based bassist Matt Booth and veteran New Orleans drummer Doug Garrison. Their debut record Kiss of the Earth was released in April 2025 on 577 Records and hailed by Dave Sumner of Bandcamp Daily as "wonderful, wildly melodic and a rhythmic dynamo."

Tuesday October 14 * doors at 6:30, screening at 7 * $10 * TICKETS

Local DIY directors showcase their spine-chilling 5-minute horror flicks. 

Musical accompaniment by Sonic Eddy, Mike Galperin, and other special guests.

Wednesday October 15 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $10-20 * TICKETS

Glowhazel is the solo project of Arlington-based mountain dulcimer player Thiel Secrist, in an attempt to queer the boundaries between traditional music and experimental soundscapes.

Cyrus & Oz blurs the lines between left-field electronica, bedroom folk-pop, and experimental noise ambience in a musical style that is mellow, playful, and endearing.

James Wolf is a DC-area composer and musician. He has played violin, guitar, and keyboards in many groups over the last 25 years, including The Orchid, Fern Knight, Phoenix Auto Group, Laconic Chamber. and Air King.

Iliana Yare creates soulful, immersive ambient music with her harp and effects.

Thursday October 16 * 7pm * $15-30 * TICKETS

Join us for a night of outward-bound music celebrating the release of Broadsides, the new album by Berlin-based sound artist and composer Weston Olencki. The album is the first LP release on DC-based label Outside Time. Each artist's work speaks to concepts of tradition and innovation in striking, unique ways. Olencki will perform work from Broadsides, Pneumwrights (Alma Laprida, Jamal Moore, and Samuel Burt)  will improvise, and niki afsar will perform a composition entitled "baraye nika (for Nika)". 

Presented by Outside Time

Season Pass for all four Outside Time shows in Fall 2025 available HERE.

Friday October 17 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $15 * TICKETS

Chris Ryan Williams is an improviser, composer, and artist based in Brooklyn, NY. His work spans electroacoustic composition, improvisation, and performance installation, investigating resonance, memory, and the thresholds between interior and exterior sound.

Truculent is the moniker for Philadelphia guitarist Dan Timlin. Since 2016 Truculent has developed his sound by blending melodic rhythmic guitar compositions with field recordings and found sounds to create atmospheric soundscapes.

Broommaker began as Teething Veils in 2006 in Washington, DC, playing occasional live shows at places such as the Montgomery College Planetarium and their own living room at 611 Florida Ave, becoming more active about six years later. They have played live for audiences in 48 US states and the District of Columbia, and two Canadian provinces

Drone City Tyranny - D.C. Tyranny is a new collective born from Tristan Welch, Gangstalker and other collaborating musicians. This is our first action.

Saturdays: August 30, September 13, October 18, November 8 * 10am - noon * Free / donations * RSVP

Come join us as we plunge into The Fire Next Time, a collection of essays by James Baldwin, as we read to each other in community (or just listen!). Each week we'll pick up where we left off in the previous meeting, but please feel free to join in on any of the days we hold the book club. We'll take time to reflect and discuss what we've read, making this the ultimate, casual, zero-homework book club.

Saturday October 18 * 11am-4pm * offsite at MLK Library * LINK

As part of the fall exhibit at the MLK Library, D.I.Y. in the District: Celebrating D.C.'s Artist-Run Spaces, the community art space Rhizome DC presents a two-day D.I.Y. appreciation festival.

All day on Saturday, October 18 and Sunday, October 19, join us for cross-genre sound, experimental storytelling, improvised movement, artmaking, and more—a full-spectrum celebration of DIY experimentation in Washington, DC.

Each event reflects a different aspect of the DIY ethos—from sound and movement to memory, improvisation, poetry, and community organizing. It centers Black, queer, and immigrant contributions to DC's independent arts landscape and invites participants to both remember and reimagine cultural space in a rapidly shifting city. Presenters will include D.C. art scene legends Topper Carew, Bill Warrell, WPFW’s Katea Stitt, and Capital Fringe’s Julianne Brienza, with music by the Ensemble Volcanic Ash and much more. Click through for details.

Saturday October 18 * 1pm * Free / donations * REGISTER

On Saturday October 18 from 1-2:30 pm, we'll be playing the appropriately spooky Fork Creek Almanac by Alex Dodge and Matt Jent, a game about regret, small-town gossip, and the inevitability of death. 2-20 players will take on the role of a ghost in the small Appalachian town of Fork Creek on a night when the veil between worlds wears thin, allowing them to interact with each other and recover lost memories of their lives. The tone is contemplative but not necessarily scary, and we can adjust for any and all player tastes. If you're a fan of the Death Cafes run here at Rhizome, this might be a game that interests you!

Saturday October 18 * 1pm * in the backyard * $15-25 * REGISTER

Itching to get creative? Come dye with me! This class will cover making and dyeing with indigo, including the basics of shibori (Japanese tie-dye). You'll learn how to:-make an indigo vat-dye with indigo for long-lasting color-tie up the cloth for a variety of beautiful patterns-care for your indigo-dyed itemsEach participant will receive 1 bandana to dye with. All other materials provided. You may bring a few additional items to dye from home. Small to medium sized items with 50% or more natural fiber content work best.. In addition, wear clothing that you don't mind getting stained. Bring an apron if you wish, and rubber gloves if you have them.

Instructor: Sophie Kanter: www.thebluesti.com/

Saturday October 18 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

tire x silver x theresedreaming - Tire is Emily Vaughan Brown, a visual artist originally from Washington, DC. Silver is James Elliott Shelton, guitarist and composer from Newport News, VA. Their newest releases on cassette and CD will be available at the gig. They will be joined here by Chay Arrington Theresedreaming on "butchered sax". Chay is an experimental sound collage artist from Newport News, Virginia running lustmurder records. They're coming up from Richmond, Virginia.

Argyle Torah is the Philadelphia-based duo of Aaron Pond and Thomas Patteson. Aaron Pond is a hornist and curator. Since 2014, he has dedicated himself to improvisation and oral composition, developing a voice defined by the kaleidoscopic use of wind instruments, multiphonic singing, and rich tones. Running through all Pond's projects is the belief that ritual is a catalyst for communal connection, a model for a better world to come. Thomas Patteson is a musician, writer, and teacher. He plays keyboard and saxophone in a number of groups, including Argyle Torah (with Aaron Pond) and the 52nd Street Planetary Ensemble.

In this musical context, Fanoplane is an improvisational project focused on projecting the infinite gifts of the Muse. Fanoplane’s seed was planted in a duo performance byBob Boilen and Ted Zook. Following that, Bob sat in for a couple of performances with the Lost Civilizations experimental music project, then several performances with Heterodyne.  Fanoplane’s performances are unscored, unrehearsed and improvised extemporaneously on the spot.

Sunday October 19 * 1-5pm * offsite at MLK Library * LINK

As part of the fall exhibit at the MLK Library, D.I.Y. in the District: Celebrating D.C.'s Artist-Run Spaces, the community art space Rhizome DC presents a two-day D.I.Y. appreciation festival.

All day on Saturday, October 18 and Sunday, October 19, join us for cross-genre sound, experimental storytelling, improvised movement, artmaking, and more—a full-spectrum celebration of DIY experimentation in Washington, DC.

Each event reflects a different aspect of the DIY ethos—from sound and movement to memory, improvisation, poetry, and community organizing. It centers Black, queer, and immigrant contributions to DC's independent arts landscape and invites participants to both remember and reimagine cultural space in a rapidly shifting city. The energy will build to a powerful improvised performance, where an all-star lineup of musicians comes together to explore the themes of memory, place, disappearance, and emergence. Click through for details.

Monday October 20 * 7pm * $15-25 * TICKETS

phipps pt. - lovage sharrock /// jon leidecker (wobbly) - somewhere between precise song craft and free improvisation, acid folk and ambient electronics.

MC Schmidt & Obie Feldi -  M.C. Schmidt of oddball sampling pioneers Matmos and Obie Feldi, a member of bruising post-everything duo Two Weeks. The duo's debut collaborative tape John of Dust is out on E2-E4.

Tom Boram is a Baltimore native, multi-instrumentalist, performer and artist. Tom will play a solo acoustic set on harpsichord. His harpsichord music uses mathematical and/or experimental tunings to spin webs and streams of dissonant and complex melodies, tone clusters, and intense barrages of sound. He also incorporates his history studying jazz and Hindustani music into his playing. He is a founder of the long-running High Zero Festival of Experimental and Improvised Music.

Tuesday October 21 * 7pm * $15 * TICKETS

S-L-U-G WORLDWIDE ENTERPRISES PRESENTS…

FROM GREECE 
CHAIN CULT
dark post punk, melodic gritty foreboding 
check out their newest record harm reduction 
https://lavidaesunmus.bandcamp.com/album/harm-reduction

FROM PHILLY 
EX - TRADITION
post punk / goth from philly, 4AD record heads and fans of the gothy anarcho punk style a la flowers in the dustbin rejoice
Just dropped their record apocalyptic silver, highly recommend you check it out 
https://ex-tradition.bandcamp.com/album/apocalyptic-silver

WITH LOCALS
VICIOUS ORDER
skinhead style madball sound
https://viciousorder.bandcamp.com/album/demo-25

SECLUSION 
dc style 
https://seclusiondc.bandcamp.com/album/no-recourse-demo

Thursday October 23 * 7pm * $15-25 * TICKETS

Transparent Productions presents…

Michael Sarian’s ESQUINA is a cinematic, electro-acoustic project blending jazz improvisation with modular textures and ambient soundscapes. Shaped by Sarian’s Armenian heritage and Argentine roots, the music explores identity, dislocation, and ritual through long-form compositions and extended trumpet techniques. Out now on by Greenleaf Music, ESQUINA invites listeners into a bold, immersive experience that pushes jazz into new territory. Michael Sarian (trumpet), Santiago Leibson (keyboards), Marty Kenney (bass), Nathan Ellman Bell (drums).

Washington DC-based ¡FIASCO! was first assembled in 2016 building a unique repertoire of sounds and materials rooted in droning folk songs, jittery hip-hop grooves, grunge, and punk rock. Throughout years of club gigs, experimentation with original and re-imagined repertoire, and growing sophistication with electronics and effects, combining a jazz form with rock aesthetics and attitude, ¡FIASCO! built a following and a sound uniquely their own. Andrew Frankhouse (sax), Nelson Dougherty (guitar), Steve Arnold (bass), Keith Butler, Jr. (drums).

Friday October 24 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $15-25 *TICKETS

Martin Bisi is an original No Wave and Post-Punk producer from New York City who has been part of its musical history for the past four decades.

Rip Room - Once described as “dance music for people who don’t like to dance,” Rip Room prefers the humble designation “dance music for people who like to dance … but are also bummed out”.

Quattracenta is a three-piece art rock band from Baltimore, MD, who draw on post punk and no wave influences to create cathartic and meditative songs about mortality and longing.

Saturday October 25 * 9am-6pm * $60-100 * REGISTER

Calling all writers who need time and space and no distractions! Whether you are just starting a project, thick in the middle of it, or needing to finish it, come spend one full day with other writers at RhizomeDC. You will have your own table and space to throw papers and books on the floor, and lots of quiet. Space will be shared but not tight (if you’ve been to Rhizome, imagine two people in each room, each with their own table). Coffee, tea, snacks, lunch, provided. Wine or beer at the end of the day. Phones will be squirreled away by Rhizome’s own squirrels. For an extra fee, we won’t give you the wifi password. (Just kidding; we won’t give it to you for free.)

Featuring:
-an inspiring space (old house, big windows, beautiful art)
-delicious vittles you don’t have to plan yourself
-enforced quiet with designated talking times
-one whole day of focused work!

The Rhizome Writers Collective knows how hard it is to enter that writerly trance/get sh*t done. We’re here to facilitate the magic!

Sunday October 26 * noon-4pm * $5-10 suggested * RSVP

The DC Modular Society is a group focused on learning, teaching, and performing electronic music with modular synths. DCMS meetups are open to all with an interest in electronic music, modular and other hardware synths, and hybrid systems for creating and performing music. We encourage and support building a diverse and inclusive community—if you’re wondering if you belong—the answer is yes! No equipment is necessary to attend meetups, but feel free to bring gear if you like. Mixer and PA system provided. We frequently do informal demos of synths and electronic music techniques.

Sunday October 26 * 4:30pm * $25 / scholarships available * REGISTER

This is an in-person workshop on the basics of vocal feminization: raising your pitch, shifting your resonance, and sustaining your trained voice. It'll be interactive, so come prepared to try the exercises in a judgment-free setting. Instructor: Jessica Austin

Scholarships available - please email info@rhizomedc.org

To find out more about me or schedule private lessons, visit my website: https://thetransjessicaaustin.com/

Sunday October 26 * 7pm * OFFSITE at Tonal Park * $25-30 * TICKETS

Transparent Productions presents…

Adam Rudolph (handrumset, electronic processing, thumb pianos, mouth bow, bamboo flutes, glockenspiel, gongs, vocal, percussion)
Kaoru Watanabe (taiko, Japanese percussion, noh kan and fue flutes, electric koto, vocal and electronic processing)
Alexis Marcelo (piano, electric keyboards, kalimba, melodica, percussion)

Composer, improviser, and percussionist ADAM RUDOLPH has been hailed as “a pioneer in World music” by the NY Times and “a master percussionist” by Musician magazine. Rudolph has released several albums as leader and has also recorded with musicians Sam Rivers, Omar Sosa, Wadada Leo Smith, Pharoah Sanders, Bill Laswell, Herbie Hancock, Foday Musa Suso, and Shadowfax. Acclaimed composer and instrumentalist KAORU WATANABE'S work is grounded in traditional Japanese music while imbued with jazz, improvisation, and experimental music elements. ALEXIS MARCELO is a New York City-based pianist whose musical journey began with classical training at the Harlem School of the Arts. As a Black Latino artist Alexis was highly influenced by the vibrant musical landscape of New York in the 80’s and 90’s.

Sunday October 26 * 7:30pm * $5-10 * TICKETS

Jam nights are an opportunity for people to show up and create art together. Bring a guitar, sticks, sketch pad, didgeridoo, or your dancing shoes and come vibe. Amps, speakers, drum set, and microphones are provided. Featured artist: Kira @kirakimora

Monday October 27 * 7pm * $15-20 * TICKETS

Montreal producer and musician Kee Avil crafts deconstructed songs that fuse guitar, voice, and electronic production with avant-pop, glitch, and experimental folk sensibilities. She has toured extensively, including Les Nuits Botanique, A Colossal Weekend, Pop Montreal, Sled Island, Ruhrtriennale, Le Guess Who?, and supporting artists such as Xiu Xiu, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, SUUNS and Big | Brave. In 2023, she released Crease Remixed EP with reworks by claire rousay, Ami Dang, Pelada, and Cecile Believe. Her new concept album ‘Vapor’ will be released throughout 2025-2026.

Shadow Riot - Kamyar Arsani / Jeff Barsky / Dug Birdzell / Jerry Busher /// Join us. 

NEON GRLZ - Electropunk multimedia performance artist Susie DeFord uses video, field recordings, drum machines, & guitar to create connection & bring light to the struggles within herself & the world.

Wednesday October 29 * doors at 7, show at 730 * $15-30 * TICKETS

Presented by Outside Time. Season Pass for all four Outside Time shows in Fall 2025 available HERE.

Saxophonist, composer and improviser Cole Pulice traffics in shimmering, otherworldly beauty. On Land's End Eternal, their first album for Leaving Records (releasing May 9th), the Oakland-based artist expands their compositional palette beyond signal-processed saxophone to include layers of electric guitar and lush choral arrangements. The result is a prismatic collection of pastoral chamber jazz in six parts.

Heather Stebbins is a DC-based composer and multi-instrumentalist whose work explores the porous boundary between memory and emotion. She foregrounds cello, synthesizer, and an array of other electronics, creating music that is imbued with patience, unfolding slowly over the course of multi-movement suites. Her new album, On Separation, was released by Outside Time in May.

Lispectre is Jonathan Williger taking baby steps into the sonic unknown. Tools and methods are variable, but always outward bound. JW is the proprietor of the Outside Time label and show series.

Thursday October 30 * doors at 7, show at 8 * Free / donations * RSVP

Show may contain adult themes.

Friday October 31 * doors at 7, movie at 7:30 * In the backyard * Free / donations * RSVP

Please join us for a Halloween screening of Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922). We will watch a 16mm print courtesy of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore. Live improvised soundtrack, musicians tba.

Sunday November 2 * 12-6pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

this performance is durational, this performance is immersive, this performance is an ode to impermanence, this performance is a simmering soup, this performance is a dance, this performance is a concert, this performance is an art installation, this performance is repetitive, this performance is experienced over time, this performance is experienced briefly through the window, this performance is haunted, this performance is a house, this performance is a body, the performance is repetitive, this performance is a haunted house

this performance lasts 6 hours. Entry is available every 30 minutes. Come and go as you like. Stay for the whole time or just breeze through. Go have lunch and come back. Watch through the window. Take a nap in the yard. Shift your perspective. There is no right way to experience it and there is no way to experience it all (but you can try…..if you dare!)

this performance is directed by Claire Alrich in collaboration with a multidisciplinary cohort of artists (see below) and is funded by a WPA Wherewithal grant. 

performers: Emi Kawashima, Jadyn Brick, Faryn Kelly, Katie Magician, niki afsar, Patricia Mullaney-Loss, Allison Grant 

Musical direction: Maya Renfro (with more to be announced!)

Tuesdays November 4 - December 9 * 7:30pm * $60-100 * REGISTER

Fieldwork is a non-directorial feedback method that supports the development of new work without the pressure of producing a finished product. Participants meet weekly to share works-in-progress and exchange objective, artist-to-artist feedback in a studio setting, guided by an experienced peer-facilitator. The session culminates with an opportunity for participants to share work in an informal showing.

Fieldwork is for creators of all types! [solo performing artists, writers, composers, choreographers, playwrights, multidisciplinary artists, poets, painters, vocalists…and more!] Honed by artists around the world for over 30 years, Fieldwork has been an incubating space for DMV-based artists for 20+ years. The Field/DC is a member of the international Fieldwork Network.

6 sessions plus a Public Showing on December 16. Class size 6-8 people plus facilitator.

Wednesday November 5 * doors at 7, music at 8 * $10 / pay what you can * TICKETS

Gusher (Richmond No-Wave Art Punk)
https://gusher1312.bandcamp.com/album/kiissiiiing

Slot (Baltimore Industrial Pop)
https://slotmp3.bandcamp.com/album/limbo

Saafewaay (DC Evil Corp Punk Muzak)
https://saafewaay.bandcamp.com/album/thank-u-4-shopping

Thursday November 6 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

After successful forays into the visual arts, the CIA began to infiltrate “Easy Listening” music around 1959. They secretly funded many favorite artists as a way to bolster American global dominance & replace European classical music with Muzak. Many "Easy Listening" artists reflected American colonialism in their Hawaiian or Polynesian imagery. The CIA saw potential for weaponized sound in Erik Satie’s Vexations, an infamous piano piece that repeats a simple phrase 840 times, requiring 3 days to perform... One member of the Edith Piaf Fan Club (a romantic graffiti collective) with a toothache is turned into ethereal gas by a dentist. An X-Ray tech tries to break the news, and now investigative journalists are searching for the missing records. As human dogs walk the inverted world, only the Living Newspapers, swaying like trees in a park, have the chance to remember the whole story on their paper pulp bodies.

‍Matthew Thurber is a cartoonist and filmmaker based in NYC. He is the author of 1-800-MICE, INFOMANIACS, Art Comic, Looking For The Cat. He has performed at the Serpentine Gallery UK, Hammer Museum LA, and had a 2 person drawing show with William Wegman in 2017. Thurber’s films Fleegix (2019), The Sea Masons (2021), and Vexations (2024) are feature length narratives on 16mm, manifesting as performances. Mrs William Horsley is a cinema “band” in which the films, made in a role playing game process, are projected in ritual performance.

Saturdays: August 30, September 13, October 18, November 8 * 10am - noon * Free / donations * RSVP

Come join us as we plunge into The Fire Next Time, a collection of essays by James Baldwin, as we read to each other in community (or just listen!). Each week we'll pick up where we left off in the previous meeting, but please feel free to join in on any of the days we hold the book club. We'll take time to reflect and discuss what we've read, making this the ultimate, casual, zero-homework book club.

Sunday November 9 * doors at 630, show at 7pm * $15 * TICKETS

“For 15 years the trio of Ak’chamel has built a solid reputation as a compelling stage project. Wearing nightmarish costumes and engaging in hallucinatory “rituals”, their singular sound comprising desert-scorched psychedelia, post-apocalyptic shamanism, and lo-fi ritual-folk is as unique as the physical theater of their live performances.”Hichestan
A coined word by Persian poet, Sohrab Sepehri, meaning “land of nothingness.” If you are looking for me, find me behind the land of nothingness. Guided by multi-instrumentalist, Kamyar Arsani (Faraway Ghost, Shadow Riot), Hichestan was born from periodic collaborations with ambient doom keyboardist, Zinoosh Farbod (VORRH, Phantom Scimitar), and psychedelic bass player, Francois Smith (Phantom Scimitar, Iritis). Blending Sufi mysticism with a bellowing ambient drone of interwoven synth and bass, Arsani resurrects Sufi poets and Persian mystics through poetry and mastery of the daf (frame drum).

Derek Monypeny sees his musical mission as adding to and expanding on what he calls the "desert continuum;" the psychedelic sirocco swirl of desert-based stringed instruments played with utter abandon by musicians the world over. Derek is a former member of the bands Oaxacan (Oakland, CA), ALTO! (Portland, OR), and Sir Richard Bishop's Freak Of Araby Ensemble. He has an ongoing duo project with Bryan Hillebrandt, OAE (Oakland Afternoon Ensemble). He has performed and toured with artists such as Bill Orcutt, Mike Watt, Jozef van Wissem, Lau Nau, Arrington de Dionyso, and many others.

Friday November 14 * 7pm * $20-25 * TICKETS

Transparent Productions welcomes back William Hooker (drums) with a trio featuring David First (guitar) and James Ilgenfritz (bass).

William Hooker (drummer, composer and poet) has created works that range from jazz and "new" music to experimental genres. He has released over 80 CDs as a leader. William’s latest releases are A Time Within: Live at the New York Jazz Museum, January 14, 1977 and archival recording with Alan Braufman and David S. Ware and The Ancients with Isaiah Collier and William Parker. “Recognized as an iconoclast, and one of the most innovative musicians and drummers of his generation, William knows no genre bounds and ceaselessly searches for new forms of music, always with the intent to inspire.” - THE WIRE

David First has always been fascinated by opposites and extremes. He has played in raucous drunken bar bands, semi-legal DIY basements and in pin-drop quiet concert halls with classical ensembles. First’s performances often find him sitting trance-like without seeming to move a muscle, unless he is playing with his psychedelic punk band, Notekillers, at which time he is a whirling blur of hyperactive energy. He has been called a fascinating artist with a singular technique in the NYTimes, and a bizarre cross between Hendrix and La Monte Young in the Village Voice.

Composer and bassist James Ilgenfritz is recognized in the New Yorker for his “characteristic magnanimity” and his “invaluable contributions to New York’s new-music community." His 2019 album You Scream A Rapid Language collects recent chamber works, and features Pauline Kim Harris, Conrad Harris, William Winant, Thomas Buckner, Kathleen Supové, Margaret Lancaster, and Joseph Kubera, and was noted in The Wire for its "glint of mischief" and ability to "foreground the performative and gestural elements of music making."

Saturday November 15 * 4pm * $25 / scholarships available * REGISTER

This is an in-person workshop on the basics of vocal feminization: raising your pitch, shifting your resonance, and sustaining your trained voice. It'll be interactive, so come prepared to try the exercises in a judgment-free setting. Instructor: Jessica Austin

Scholarships available - please email info@rhizomedc.org

To find out more about me or schedule private lessons, visit my website: https://thetransjessicaaustin.com/

Sunday November 16 * 3-5pm * RSVP

Death Cafes are opportunities for people to enjoy refreshments together and discuss the topic of death. The objective is to “increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.” There are Death Cafes all over the country. What's on your mind about death and dying? Contact Death Cafe Facilitators Margaret Branch at margaret603@gmail.com or Monica Lynch at mlynch19@comcast.net.. Death Cafes are NOT therapy, grief support, or counseling sessions. Cost: Free (small donation for the space encouraged)

Sunday November 16 * 7pm * $15-25 * TICKETS

Dave Scanlon writes austere songs and continues a series of "counting" compositions focusing on intonation and measurement. Scanlon has performed with Jason Ajemian, David Behrman, Otomo Yoshihide, and numerous others. Scanlon will be performing selections from Greenland Shark, an album written about the North Atlantic fish, Somniosus microcephalus. In addition, he will perform "Monochromatic Pool", a piece written for guitar and narrator about the exoplanet Proxima Centauri B.

Brett Naucke is an American experimental composer and visual artist from Chicago, IL currently based in Asheville, NC. Naucke's sonic output has been primarily focused on marrying an ever-evolving practice of synthesis with conceptual narratives. He was a member of the legendary Avant-art collective ONO from 2012-2017, and has been a collaborator both live and in recording for acclaimed acts such as Ryley Walker, Bitchin Bajas, Tortoise, Pulse Emitter, Cloud Nothings, TALSounds, Bill MacKay, Matchesse.

Natalie Chami (TALsounds) is a Canadian-born Lebanese American musician and educator based in Alexandria, VA. Known for her work in drone, ambient, and improvisational music, she blends vintage analog synthesizers, operatic vocals, and immersive atmospheres into distinctive sound worlds. Her latest album, Shift (2023), departs from her warm analog palette and explores FM and digital synthesis, featuring contributions from SWANA women in production, art, and photography.

Max Hamel is a craftsperson, musician, artist and instrument maker with diverse practices ranging from professional fine violin luthiery to handmade live electronics. Their performance work builds upon a foundation of circuit bending, feedback, magic, touch and chaos, delighting in subtlety, pliable gesture and flippant ambiguity.

Friday November 21 * doors at 6:30, music at 7:15 * $15 * TICKETS

Jon Camp  is a fingerstyle guitarist and composer based out of the DC region. Jon blends melody, twang, and drone into a cohesive whole that is exploratory without forsaking the hook. Jon will be celebrating his new record, Proceed, out October 17th through Centripetal Force Records. Proceed is a full-band affair that is electric, expansive, and emotionally muscular, channeling a spirit of forward motion amidst the weight of memory and uncertainty. For Jon's Rhizome set, he'll be joined by regular collaborators Dave Jones (The Caribbean), Julian Comanda (Visitors), Scott Verrastro (Kohoutek, Jeffrey Alexander & The Heavy Lidders), and some guests.

Marian McLaughlin is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter. Her most recent album, Alcove, is a compilation of peaceful songs inspired by time spent outside gardening and walking in the woods. The album highlights the joy and gratitude felt from witnessing simple yet transcendental moments in nature, like watching the golden hour, fireflies emerging, a hummingbird zipping by, or two hawks flying overhead.

Dura is the solo project of DC's Mattson Ogg, comprising blissed out guitar picking and groovy tremolo drones. Through cassette releases on Patient Sounds, Scissor Tail, Atlantic Rhythms, and most recently Aural Canton, Dura is always trying to find a lower way to listen.

Saturday November 22 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $25-30 * TICKETS

Transparent Productions welcomes Otherlands Trio: Stephan Crump (bass), Darius Jones (alto sax), and Eric McPherson (drums). “A massive veteran trio...bassist Stephan Crump and alto saxophonist Darius Jones are not just immense players, they’re also two of the city’s great creative music composers, pushing it into wondrous, unexpected but also inviting spaces.” New album, Star Mountain, arrives October 17, 2025 on Intakt Records.

Stephan Crump is a Grammy-nominated bassist and composer, collaborator and bandleader, soloist and educator, based in New York City since 1994. Working beyond genre, he has become a crucial component of multiple New York music communities in and beyond jazz. Darius Jones has created a recognizable voice as a critically acclaimed saxophonist and composer by embracing individuality and innovation in the tradition of African-American music. Jones has released a string of diverse recordings featuring music and images evocative of Black Futurism. Jones’ music is a confrontation against apathy and ego, hoping to inspire authenticity that compels us to be better humans. A native of NYC, Eric McPherson came to prominence apprenticing with legendary saxophonist and educator, Jackie Mclean, and innovative pianist and composer Andrew Hill. Those foundational experiences cultivated Eric into one of the leading drummers in contemporary creative music.

Sunday November 23 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

Kristina Warren is a versatile and imaginative sound artist, composer, and performer based on Narragansett land, also known as Providence, Rhode Island. Warren’s performances range from synth voyages and digital soundscapes to concertina meditations and beyond; Warren also presents installations, workshops, lectures, and more. All this work aims in various ways to highlight the ebbs and flows of individual and collective listening attention.

Mike Alfieri (he/him) is a NY-based musician known for his collaboration with experimental pop group Tomato Flower and his solo electronic sets using Sensory Percussion. He’s toured widely and performed with artists like Animal Collective, Melt Banana, Susan Alcorn and Matmos.

Signals Under Tests - Richard Graham, Ph.D., is a musician, technologist, educator, and entrepreneur. His academic and practical pursuits encompass computer-assisted music composition and instrumental performance.

Friday November 28 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $10 * TICKETS

Druid Stone - Druid Stone was conceived under the influence of cheap drugs in the Autumn of 2011. Have the members straightened out, or are they still doomed to getting high at the expense of the world? Come see for yourself…

The Lampreys - Laptop-Twee from Richmond, Virginia

Fibbing - Baltimore-based piano rock trio celebrating the release of their first full-length album

The Death of James Dean - DOJD is a Philadelphia-based punk band coursing with Northern Virginian blood. Their often-unintelligible live shows sit at the intersection of hardcore, post-rock, and performance art.

Friday December 5 * doors at 7, music at 730 * $15-20 * TICKETS

In support of her newest album Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark, Gwenifer Raymond returns to Rhizome during her winter tour of the States. The album is Raymond’s first since 2020’s Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain, which drew widespread acclaim for its repurposing of Mississippi blues and John Fahey’s intricate Americana to embody Raymond’s roots in rural South Wales and her interests in folk horror and the avant garde, a new form dubbed Welsh Primitive. Now, on her forthcoming album, Raymond finds herself conjuring the work of pioneering rocket scientists, the words of fictional hobo prophets and the concepts of mathematical infinity. 

Christo Graham began writing his first songs when he was just 13. His effective minimalism is evident in his 2020 album 'Turnin'', whose 12 songs were inspired by a four-track recorder belonging to his grandmother and containing two songs recorded by herself at some point. His latest album “Music For Horses”, released by We Are Busy Bodies in October 2024 was also created on a similarly mystical recorder. Recorded in a 115-year-old classroom, with reduced percussion and restrained guitar, these new songs by Christo Graham emanate an almost meditative contemplation.

Insect Factory is the music of Jeff Barsky (and collaborators) and is a meditative project focused on deconstructing the possibilities of guitar to create detailed, hypnotic compositions. “…densely layered loops, planes of static standing tall like a gigantic back-scratcher of audio, improvised melodies clamoring over drones like they’re peaks in a mountain range…monolithic, moving, fluid and entirely lovely.” – Tiny Mix Tapes 

Sunday December 21 * 3-5pm * RSVP

Death Cafes are opportunities for people to enjoy refreshments together and discuss the topic of death. The objective is to “increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.” There are Death Cafes all over the country. What's on your mind about death and dying? Contact Death Cafe Facilitators Margaret Branch at margaret603@gmail.com or Monica Lynch at mlynch19@comcast.net.. Death Cafes are NOT therapy, grief support, or counseling sessions. Cost: Free (small donation for the space encouraged)