The Silver Spring Penguin

Photo: Musician Pat Gillis at Saturday's performance. Courtesy of IntangibleArts; reprinted with permission.

Attending an experimental-music performance can be like walking into a mad scientist’s lab. Alien transistor thingies sit next to spare turntable parts. A flat-screen monitor plugs into a soundboard. Wires and cables slither everywhere.

To the untrained eye (and uninitiated ear), it’s an intimidating mess. But for fans and curious onlookers, experimental music is a feat of orchestrated chaos. An umbrella term, experimental music can mean anything from free-form jazz (usually with a digital twist) to industrial noise and ear-piercing feedback. A new album highlighting that range was released recently and celebrated Saturday at the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center.

“This type of music puts a lot of responsibility on the listener,” Jason Mullinax, a percussionist who performs as Pilesar, told The Washington Post last week. “It forces you to think, it forces you to be an active participant. You can’t just turn it on and do the dishes.”

Photo: Zach Mason at Saturday's performance. Courtesy of IntangibleArts; reprinted with permission.

Unless one wants to smash said dishes into bits. Some experimental musicians tend to focus on primal sounds — unnerving tones warbled through electronic gizmos, looping rhythms that roll into nowhere. The result is an unsettling, sometimes exciting tension between the listener and the music.

“People were asking, ‘Is there going to be a Q&A? Is someone going to explain this to me?’ ” Zach Mason, who performs as Soft Pieces, recalled of a recent performance and relayed to The Post.

Expect more musical challenges this week, as the Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music unleashes its ninth year of performances. The festival starts Tuesday at 7:00 p.m., with a free gig at UMd’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.

Don’t feel like schlepping to College Park? The festival has performances cooking in The District all week and finally rolls into Pyramid Atlantic on Friday evening. There’s a $15 admission fee to the Silver Spring gig.