Lungs in Weird Town 6 at Rozz-Tox -- October 19.

Saturday, October 19, 7 p.m.

Rozz-Tox, 2108 Third Avenue, Rock Island IL

A giant, marathon-style bill of noise, ambient, and experimental music – primarily sourced from the Quad Cities, but extending its reach across the Midwest and beyond – lands at Rozz-Tox on October 19 under the title Weird Town 6.

It takes a weird town to raise a weird child, right? Rozz-Tox plays host to a quintessential Quad Cities noise fest with a total of 11 acts on the bill. Looking at the 7 p.m. start time, you might wonder how long this night will stretch on, or how 11 acts could all take the stage in the allotted time. The answer to these questions is: short sets, lo-o-o-n-n-ng night.

Chicago's “junk ambient” ensemble Signal Decay sits at the top of the lineup, offering up its idiosyncratic bursts of mutated-alien noise exploration. The duo released a tape called Variations on Mutated Hardware in 2017 to inaugurate a cassette label appropriately called Midwaste. Jump to any moment in the tape’s two 22-minute-plus sidelong jams and you can expect to hear anything from infinitely sustained electronic drones, disembodied metallic scrapes, and, perhaps most strikingly, fanfares of effected trumpet surging through the din. The combined effect is like a variation on the “fourth world” electronic-abetted trumpet explorations of Jon Hassell, as witnessed in a dystopian junkyard instead of some far-off imaginary island. The closest contemporaries to Signal Decay’s brass/noise experiments might be the now defunct New York duo Grasshopper – both ensembles are unafraid to mix a little post-classical flavor into what could be otherwise completely bleak soundscapes, and both know when to inject some legible melody and harmonic content into what seem like inhuman, atonal sonics.

Minneapolis-based ensemble Lungs skews the abstract curation of Weird Town 6 closer to more traditional full band performance with its slow burning post-metal compositions. The band releases the new LP Estuary on October 18, the day before the fest, so we might consider this an unofficial album-release party shared with a huge menu of other acts. Estuary's lead single “Oak” wears a heavy Isis and Neurosis influence on its sleeve as it shifts from moody, clean-toned verses into towering, distorted riffs before winding back down into near nothingness. The vocals alternate between long, mysterious chants and sharp barks that cut through the mix as the musicians start to tear through the scenery around them. The attention to detail in dynamics here sits front and center in the form of no fewer than three LOUD -> quiet -> LOUD climaxes, culminating in a frenetic passage of blastbeats and hyper-dissonant guitar breakdowns. If the rest of Estuary achieves this level of nuance and supreme heaviness, the LP promises plenty of entertainment.

Chicago’s Whitephosphorous bills itself as an “electronic war machine,” and the description aptly fits its harsh-as-hell style. The group's Bandcamp page is home to eight releases from the last three-or-so years, all presented in a uniform black-and-white collage style in step with decades of self-released underground noise from Whitehouse to Hospital Productions and beyond. The group’s take on harsh noise walls finds room for a little more variation and intrigue than straight, unadulterated feedback and static. Tracks such as “A Halo Cast In Sulphur” from this year’s release Only the Carrion Birds Will Taste Victory rattle from the speakers in a state of constant overload, yet distinct electronic drones and peals of harsh texture find their way in and out of the spread, sounding out with fine-grain details and dipping for a few moments here and there to let the dark energy brood through the emptiness. The charmingly titled Autoerotic Self Immolation from earlier this year foregrounds what could be a vocal sample, or what could be spoken word from a group participant, before bursting into the proverbial pure hellish miasma – yet once again, more individual elements emerge here than the average harsh noise workout.

Chicago/Quad Cities heavy free-jazz unit Absolute Terror Field keeps the bill moving with its improvised insanity, which comes off like a late-era ESP Disk LP performed by a rock band that has forgotten the history of rock. Guitars pump out string-scraping anti-music while the bass holds down droning low end expanses. The drummer takes his time slowly working his way around the kit, as if testing each tom head for tightness – providing less of a backbeat and more of a lead percussive voice. Most tracks on the two tapes the band released this year stretch past the 10-minute mark, with some even going past 20, giving the band plenty of space to stretch out and shift between manic intensity and near nothingness. The jams bring to mind such classic 2000s noise-rock luminaries as Fat Worm of Error or Sightings, as show just how far the guitar/guitar/bass/drums format can be pushed beyond the breaking point into something that barely resembles what one might expect from its constituent parts.

Rounding out the bill are seven more groups that exist at varying levels of the Quad Cities and Midwest underground: Lackluster, Systems x Blue Movies, Voiddweller, Distortion Master, Opivm RVX vs. Mondkinder, Elliott Bay Towers, and Magnolias. Weird Town 6 promises to scrape your brain clean, if you’ll let it.

Admission to the October 19 Weird Town 6 is $5, and more information on the 7 p.m. show is available by calling (309)200-0978 or visiting RozzTox.com.

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