TICKETS ARE VERY LIMITED FOR THIS EVENT! $15 advance tickets, $20 day of show — PAY WHAT YOU WISH option also available! Advance tickets available online at TicketLeap; Physical tickets on sale Friday October 16th for in-person purchase at Surface Noise (cash only), 600 Baxter Avenue, Louisville KY 40204
ALL AGES 7:00 PM Doors 8:00 PM Music
Magic Tuber Stringband by Libby Rodenbough
MAGIC TUBER STRINGBAND, hailing from North Carolina, probes the undercurrents of the landscapes around them. Highly skilled players and writers, the trio are leaders within the burgeoning avant composition world utilizing folk instrumentation. Their music appears to weave in and out of the fabric of their surroundings, reflecting their time spent living across the Southeast and studying its regional folk traditions and natural histories. Having performed recently at Big Ears, Hopscotch, Sound & Gravity (and many other places along the way) the group’s music resonates well beyond their regional roots. Their newest record, Heavy Water, was released May 22, 2026 on the venerable Thrill Jockey Records. The ensemble continues to stretch the parameters of acoustic instrumental expression with masterful flourishes of dense, textural arrangements, subtle minimalist gestures and deft improvisation.
MAN EATER (performing as the duo of Grace Rogers and Nadia Ramlagan for this concert) has built a unique repertoire and a following both inside of and outside of the old-time scene, having played in every setting from dive bars and house shows to old time festivals including the Celebration of Women in Old Time Music in Knoxville and the Cowan Creek Mountain Music School. They’ve shared stages with acts like the Local Honeys, and Leo Shannon & Sarah Kate Morgan. MAN EATER is committed to deep connection and study in the old-time music world, and meaningful connection with the broader music community.
TICKETS ARE VERY LIMITED FOR THIS EVENT! $15 advance tickets, $20 day of show — PAY WHAT YOU WISH option also available! Advance tickets available online at TicketLeap; Physical tickets on sale Friday August 21st for in-person purchase at Surface Noise (cash only), 600 Baxter Avenue, Louisville KY 40204
ALL AGES 7:00 PM Doors 8:00 PM Music
Photo by by Mike Belleme
TASHI DORJI is a Bhutanese-born, Asheville-based experimental guitarist whose fiercely intuitive improvisations have carved out a unique space in the contemporary avant-garde. His expansive discography includes deeply felt solo works like Stateless (2020) and we will be wherever the fires are lit (2024), and his most recent electric album low clouds hang, this land is on fire (2026) on Drag City. TASHI DORJI is one half of Manas, the dynamic duo with drummer Thom Nguyen, and a founding member of the free jazz trio KUZU, alongside saxophonist Dave Rempis and drummer Tyler Damon. His collaborators span a wide spectrum: from Mette Rasmussen, Susie Ibarra, Efrim Manuel Menuck, Alex Zhang Hungtai, John Dieterich, Audrey Chen and Joe McPhee to more recent partnerships with Tony Buck, Terrie Ex, Andy Moor, bassist John Edwards, and drummer Steve Noble. Across his solo and group projects, DORJI’s playing, rooted in alternate tunings, prepared guitar, and spontaneous gesture, articulates an aesthetic of resistance, deep listening, and collective transformation.
TASHI DORJI turns to the electric guitar. After the furious acoustic improvisations that drove [his previous two albums] —Stateless and we will be wherever the fires are lit — it’s easy to imagine [his new] album of electric guitar improvisations as an encompassingly incendiary essay. Especially when titled low clouds hang, this land is on fire. After all, this is a man capable of tearing up the place with the tactile musical violence of Bill Orcutt and Derek Bailey! And yet, this knowledge serves to set up a greater shock: the album’s disarmingly gentle musical drift. When asked why he turned the knob down from 11 for this album, TASHI says simply, “To find the silence.” As ever with TASHI, this is a political statement. Even the search for silence takes intention and happens for a reason. In this time of such institutional inhumanity, what is there to feel but exhaustion? When seeing the faces of the deprived, what is there to feel other than hopelessness? In the face of such grief, what words are there to say? So, TASHI got a couple amps, moved from the shed where he’d done his first two [Drag City] titles, set up in a room in the family home with high ceilings and dialed in the reverb. Once the sound was in the space, reflecting in a manner that he felt congenial with his mood, he taped it. It’s a striking signal, meditative and melancholy, with a delicacy comparable to the lineage of Loren Connors or Bill Frisell, the songs at times developed with the deliberate exposition of themes in raga’s alap form. It’s a sound that lives within silence. Once he’d laid down the sound, TASHI went back and listened to the composition of each piece. Then the words came easily. They’re the titles of these songs, they provide the narrative — or a prism, to allow us to gaze unblinking upon the awesome rot of empire. These are TASHI DORJI‘s punk anthems for the year 2026… for all the years, really— to be thrown to the people outside the walls, to aid them in their quest to be allowed in.
Currently FLANGER MAGAZINE is the trio of Chris Bush (Caboladies, Equipment Pointed Ankh, Sapat), Ben Traughber (Sapat, Equipment Pointed Ankh), and Leidner (Sapat, YLEM) with occasionally Jim Marlowe (Equipment Pointed Ankh, Tropical Trash, Sapat), “Gathering samples, a River Doctor Limnologist inspecting the properties of [FLANGER MAGAZINE‘s 2022 album] After the Bend might note the specter of Leroy Jenkin’s free-violin heat-light deep in the water’s thermal stratification. Or mortgage the late-Maestro’s time with Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza to pay down the growing river heat budget. Or take one’s dirty buckets to the banks of the 19th laundromat where Walt Dickerson plays his vibraphone parts from Divine Gemini with dowsing rods. Or excavate the bedrock in the drainage basin, noting skeletal remains of a Shostakovich string quartet attempting to tune up a Kentucky Fiddle’s subsequent influence on the chemical composition of the water. Or consult the historical revisionist reenactment troupe’s episode of Fishing with John (Fahey) in which Codona, The Sea Ensemble and Nuno Canavarro guest host as their fleet of paddle boats churn river water into a regal lager, and all the fish get drunk in their quest for the leaner enamel Hosianna Mantra GPS coordinates of the Fattened Herb.” – Kris Abplanalp.
Special thanks to Ella Lumpkins, Kris Abplanalp, and MaybeIt’sFate.
Monday, April 20th, 2026 at B-Side 1076 E. Washington Street, 2nd Floor Louisville, KY 40206
$10 advance tickets, $15 day of show Advance tickets available online at TicketLeap; Physical tickets available for in-person purchase at Surface Noise (cash only), 600 Baxter Avenue, Louisville KY 40204
21+ 7:00 PM doors 8:00 PM music
Spectre Folk
Pete Nolan was SPECTRE FOLK before drumming and strumming in Magik Markers was his main gig, and will be SPECTRE FOLK long after he shuffles off this mortal coil. The main benefit of ghost-folk is: you can play it way after you’re dead, and while you’re alive the Spectre can haunt any decent willing body with a gift for the unreal. This time around, fellow Abbey Road alum and cinematographer Eben Bull creates scapes of sound on keys to accompany Pete, who jams his kief-encrusted thumbprint directly in the center of the proceedings. Also, in the crew are Tuscadero frontperson Mellie Ferris on bass, fellow Magik Marker John Shaw on drums, and Pete’s daughter little Violet Ray on guitar. The music they make takes a leisurely pace, like opening the cabin for the first time in the season, introducing all the ambient nature world funk that seeped through into the nose and lungs. They deal in righteous, stank Lazy Horse/CCCR type jammers and a general sense of “folk vacation,” the beer’s gone, what a time we had so let’s roll another number for the road. Fearless as a lemming, Nolan creates a private universe, a Society of the Spectre-cal, if you will, and his gift is his freedom. Let’s have a drift.
SPECTRE FOLK‘s most recent album, “Quabbin Winter,” was co-released by Nolan’s Arbitrary Signs and Ryan Davis’s Sophomore Lounge in 2025 in a limited edition of 200, and features James Canty (The Make-Up, Nation of Ulysses) and Eben Bull, and was produced by Mike Donovan (Sic Alps, Peacers).
PIPE FITTER is the duo of Britt Walford (Slint, Evergreen, and much more) and Kris Abplanalp (Sapat, Freud County Limits, and much more). This show is their live debut.
Thursday, April 9th, 2026 at MaybeIt’sFate (Music in the Attic) 1425 Story Avenue Louisville, KY 40206
SOLD OUT!
Thanks to Surface Noise for selling physical tickets.
7:00 PM doors 8:00 PM music
(Photo by Julien Sitruk)
DAVID GRUBBS is Distinguished Professor of Music at Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, CUNY. He is the author of Good night the pleasure was ours, The Voice in the Headphones, Now that the audience is assembled, and Records Ruin the Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording (all published by Duke University Press) as well as the collaborative artists’ books Simultaneous Soloists (with Anthony McCall, Pioneer Works Press) and Projectile (with Reto Geiser and John Sparagana, Drag City). DAVID GRUBBS has released sixteen solo albums and appeared on more than 200 releases. In 2000, his The Spectrum Between (Drag City) was named “Album of the Year” in the London Sunday Times. He is known for his cross-disciplinary collaborations with poet Susan Howe and visual artists Anthony McCall, Angela Bulloch, and Josiah McElheny, and his work has been presented at, among other venues, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, the Tate Modern, and the Centre Pompidou. Louisville native DAVID GRUBBS was a member of the groups Gastr del Sol, Bastro, and Squirrel Bait, and has performed with Tony Conrad, Pauline Oliveros, Luc Ferrari, Will Oldham, Loren Connors, Jan St. Werner, the Red Krayola, and many others. He is a recipient of the Berlin Prize and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts award in Music/Sound, a member of the board of directors of Blank Forms, and director of the Blue Chopsticks record label. 2025’s Whistle from Above is the first solo collection David’s released since 2017’s Creep Mission. During the 2020 shutdown, David played what he precisely quantified as “a shit-ton of guitar,” more than he could recall playing ever previously. Reinvigorated by this period of enforced woodshedding, he produced a series of new pieces, mostly for guitar, but also a piano composition and an exceptionally eerie bit of musique concrète. These seemed to imply a solo set that would tour marvelously when the time was right again. Whistle from Above is a colorful, compulsive set of instrumental pieces in which David and his chosen collaborators interact amid the steady roll of an expansive landscape based in the hypnosis of David’s immediately recognizable guitar style.
(Photo by The Other Side of Life)
KEN BROWN is a founding member of Tortoise and Pullman, and former member of Bastro, Gastr del Sol, and Directions. In 2025 three solo albums credited to Louisville drummer and percussionist Tim Barnes were released with production, mixing, and performances by Brown: Lost Words, Noumena, and Inside Energy. Also in 2025 Brown released Cease and Desist by Jungle Boogie, recordings of his duo with Slint drummer Britt Walford. January 2026 saw the return of Pullman, Brown’s group featuring Tim Barnes, Chris Brokaw (Come/Codeine), Curtis Harvey (Rex), and Doug McCombs (Tortoise/Eleventh Dream Day) with their third album, III, released by Western Vinyl.
KEN BROWN will have live visuals created by SEETHINGS, Louisville’s own Tim Furnish, a multi-faceted musician, graphic designer, photographer, and VJ. Furnish is a founding member of classic Louisville bands Parlour, Cerebellum, and Crain and has been a member of The For Carnation and Aerial M. As SEETHINGS he has provided visuals for Old Baby, Shedding, Flanger Magazine, Jungle Boogie, Jaye Jayle, and many others. SEE MORE of SEETHINGS: https://www.youtube.com/user/timfurnish https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkgHn6E1QjNRWEOET_tQttXBn-Gkddv1y&si=_-7s4BwvNf1CCDaL
Friday, March 6th, 2026 Art Sanctuary (back room) 1433 S. Shelby Street Louisville, KY 40217
$15 advance tickets, $20 day of show Advance tickets available online at Art Sanctuary; Physical tickets available for in-person purchase on Wednesday February 4th at Surface Noise (cash only), 600 Baxter Avenue, Louisville KY 40204
18+ 7:00 PM doors 8:00 PM music
(Photo of Sarah Hennies by GlassHertzzPhoto)
SARAH HENNIES (b. 1979, Louisville, KY) is a composer based in Upstate NY whose work is concerned with a variety of musical, sociopolitical, and psychological issues including queer & trans identity, psychoacoustics, and the social and neurological conditions underlying creative thought. She is primarily a composer of acoustic ensemble music, but is also active in improvisation, film, and performance art. She presents her work internationally as both a composer and percussionist with notable performances at MoMA PS1 (NYC), Monday Evening Concerts (Los Angeles), Warsaw Autumn, Ruhrtriennale (Essen), Archipel Festival (Geneva), Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Time:Spans (NYC), and the Edition Festival (Stockholm). As a composer, she has received commissions across a wide array of performers and ensembles including Bearthoven, Bent Duo, Ensemble Dedalus, The Living Earth Show, Mivos String Quartet, Sarah Saviet/Joe Houston, Talea Ensemble, Nate Wooley, and Yarn/Wire.
Her ground breaking audio-visual work Contralto (2017) explores transfeminine identity through the elements of “voice feminization” therapy, featuring a cast of transgender women accompanied by a dense and varied musical score for string quartet and three percussionists. The work has been in high demand since its premiere, with numerous performances taking place around North America, Europe, and Australia and was one of four finalists for the 2019 Queer|Art Prize.
She works collaboratively in a duo with double bassist Tristan Kasten-Krause and in the percussion trio Meridian. As a scholar and performer she is engaged with ongoing research about the percussion music of Iannis Xenakis and a recording project to document music by the American percussionist and composer Michael Ranta. Sarah is currently Assistant Professor of Music at Bard College.
For 25 years, SAPAT has operated as a Louisville-based large-group ensemble, shaping slow-moving architectures of sound across drone, minimalist composition, and experiments in rock, jazz, and folk idioms. The work drifts between extended environments and tighter, song-shaped forms, allowing time, density, and volume to act as compositional forces. More recordings circulate under affiliated names and alternative identities than under SAPAT itself, and even so, the catalog only gestures toward a much larger body of work. Each performance becomes a new room to enter: a site where resonance is risked rather than managed, and where sound answers back through the interplay of players, space, and duration.
