The visuals range from the director himself, his cats, action figures, and a variety of impressive color manipulation. The all around great production quality of the package itself (70 gram vinyl, great artwork) also leads to a great overall experience.

"Lend Me Your Blanket" is Argumentix' best solo moment on any format so far...I didn't know about James' mom...no wonder that song's so heart-wrenching. I've seen him sing it in live performance three times, and each time, everyone in the audience is uncomfortable, and yet totally captivated.

This Argumentix EP doesn't set a minimum standard or even raise the standard. Rather, it excels a work of art and an example of a higher standard.

With a sound this discordant and evil, I realize Argumentix isnt for everybody, but it works for me and Im gonna preach it: check it out here, here, and here. Also, next time James plays go to the merch table and buy the collaboration CD he did with Dragging an Ox Through Water, which is like free jazz and free folk made even freer with Jameskill-the-world-with-kindnoise production, and weird, animalistic brass/horn asides. Argumentixnext show is this coming Wednesday (May 24) at the Food Hole. Go support the local weird.

Wonderful, that is, in the way that only pure noise action and total sonic freeform antics can be.

The term "noise" can be applied to both dismiss and venerate Argumentix and Dead/Bird, the two artists who will be performing on tonight's Live in Studio A program on KDVS 90.3 FM.

It may all be a bit too much to take: For many, "noise" as an independent genre seemed to materialize at some point in the early aughts with a flurry of self-released 3" CD-Rs that referenced both Black Flag's ground-up DIY ethos and the brutality of Whitehouse.

Add to that the fact that these guys are both from Portland, the scenester capital of the Pacific Northwest, and it may appear a bit contrived.

The view of noise artists seems, some years after its emergence, to have resolved into a tough binary.

At one extreme, it appears to be an esoteric economy, allowing recently arrived and already-jaded urban hipsters to vie for an elusive "edge." Meanwhile, it manifests at the other end of the spectrum as an aggro outlet for machos left with nowhere to go after hardcore turned into emo and ate itself.

But take a more careful glance, and these caricatures all but collapse.

At the most basic level, Argumentix's music is about two things: tapes and voices. Collecting discarded and damaged tapes of music and field recordings, James Squeaky - the man behind Argumentix - layers drum machine beats and queasy, processed vocals and finds sounds to create something that sounds not unlike Ariel Pink doing musique concrète.

Dead/Bird's music approaches more familiar, but no less original, territory with its Wolf Eyes-esque piercing paroxysms and amplified power electronics.

The musicians have already collaborated on some recordings, and will unleash an on-air noise bomb tonight between 11 p.m. and midnight.

These guys have absorbed John Cage, Steely Dan and The Dead C equally well. Even if "noise" may be an off-putting-ly hip genre, leave your baggage at the door for these dudes.

Squeaky says the source material for songs like "Lend Me a Blanket" off his debut CD, Hoarse Whisperer, came from "a new age meditation tape that I found that is supposed to help you quit smoking or something. I added some samples of waves and seagulls to make it even more tranquil and then slowed it all down."

It's trippy stuff—vocals half spoken, half crooned; the new age etherealities bubbling below the surface are soothing, but there's a shit-ton of brain-sizzling napalm amid the tranquility.

Still, Hoarse Whisperer is a lot more than just new age remixes. Says Squeaky, "A lot of it comes from beats that I created either on my laptop, with my drum machine or by putting a contact mic on a cymbal and processing it through delay. And then everything is slowed down to give that drugged-out delay effect. Other things come from found tapes or field recording samples."

In past bands, Squeaky has done everything from confrontational avant-hardcore to balls-out freak noise, but this, he says, is where he wants to be right now. "The main idea of Argumentix is to take all of the ideas and things I've learned from my other bands and combine my favorite ideas... the vocal acrobatics of Alarmist, the no rules/nothing sacred approach of Sex with Girls, and the drugged out improvised vibe of Space Hawk. I also want to balance composition and improvisation. My current live set is about half and half and that's where I would like to keep it."

How can someone with a pop foundation learn to appreciate this music?
By understanding it's creating atmosphere: a noise that's a soundtrack to whatever environment people find themselves in at the time. Most of the people that are making this kind of music, they've thought a lot about the ideas behind the sounds they're using.

What atmosphere are you creating?
It's a lot about catharsis and healing. The reason I started doing it was to deal with my mother's suicide. A lot of the music I create is me processing the emotions that go along with that in an artistic way. It's like you break something open to see what's inside of it, and then start putting the pieces together to build something else.

When you are breaking something open—making noise—is it safe to say you're not always following the positive responses, that you're following the mistakes?
I love mistakes! Most of the good music or art that I've created that I've been satisfied with—through all the bands that I've been in—it's amazing how much of the best material has come from mistakes.

What's the state of noise in Portland?
Overall, I think Portland is one of the strongest noise scenes in the country. People aren't necessarily as driven to create a viable business model out of their band here. Overall, people are just content to make beautiful music that people are not necessarily going to be that interested in except for a few of their friends. It's a place where people can just put out a CD-R of 100 copies of something and 100 people will want to hear it, but no one will necessarily be able to make a living off of it.