Although the Superboothian torrent of new-fangled instruments have all but washed clean the synth-obcessed minds here at Perfect Circuit, a flickering image remains stark in our memory. On April 25th, 2026, we held the second installment of our new concert series Plastics Dept., again igniting the hallowed halls of Coaxial Arts Foundation with another entourage of beat-slinging, timbre-morphing, knob-twiddling wünderkinds.

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Dedicated to showcasing exciting and creative performance with electronic tools, Plastics Dept. is a vehicle for a wide range of artistic practices. This pluralistic perspective, at times cross-eyed but never contradictory, celebrates the contemporary richness of electronic arts; beyond the long-told stories of electronic emergence, temporary autonomous zones, and scenes carved from solder-fumes, Plastics Dept. seeks to be a sunny bay window where all the tangled tendrils of today's electronic music and art can find a warm light.

For April's show, we collaborated with Alex Pelly to devise a wild night of audiovisual performances curated through her deep history of collaborations in LA's electronic underground. Pelly is by all accounts an inveterate scholar in the realm of creative signal flow, particularly as it pertains to video. An accomplished film editor by trade, her own creative work is a hybrid practice that integrates live video projection with sound, using an anachronistic blend of analog and digital technologies to spin audiovisual webs that capture audiences in an elegant flurry of abstract shapes, vivid color, and evolving sonic forms.

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Stepping into the familiar space of Coaxial's concrete frame that night, Pelly was already set-up and primed for an exciting night of audiovisual excellence. Perched atop and peering over a large modular system in the corner of the space, Pelly was slated to perform visuals through the entire night, both for her own set and the other three performers. In addition to Alex's own audiovisual set, also on the bill were the adventurous flute and electronic sounds of Ki Oni, the raucously rave-drenched noise of Jehanne, and the beat-breaking, still-sound-killing spectacle of Kid606.

Having arrived early enough to get a glimpse at the space before most attendees appeared, I watched as tables shuffled into position, elbows bumped, and legions of be-knobbed boxes spilled out onto surfaces of molded plastic. Setting themselves into position and connecting their networks of instruments and effects, performers casually laughed, embraced, and caught up with one another, revealing the well-cultivated relationships Pelly had curated within the space.

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Also in tow was Lauren Goshinski, the Executive Director at DubLab. Formed in 1999, DubLab is an LA institution of community-driven internet radio where Pelly has contributed a decades-worth of captivating audiovisual streams through her show "PELLYVISION". Deciding where to place a glowing cube decorated with DubLab's logo, Goshinski was on scene to sign attendees up for the net-radio outfit's membership drive. All together, the scene satisfyingly demonstrated a sort of innate resonance, each participant in their place, feeding seamlessly into a larger assemblage that connected impassioned artistry, expressive space, and dreams of sonic futures yet unheard.

Shuffling awkwardly in anticipation, I thought about how the tangled webs of cabling between electronic tools might describe the connective pathways which make music possible. A microcosm of the artistic exchange and interdependence between friends, colleagues, material tools, and institutions like Coaxial or DubLab, it felt clear that the event about to unfold was energized not by independently clever individuals in isolation, but a rich network of social interactivity. Like the signals spewing wildly between devices, sometimes in circular paths, this interactive network creates the conditions for artistic flow, getting everything buzzing.

Tuning In

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Before I could lose myself too much in such daydreamt metaphors, the lights dimmed for Alex's set, focusing my attention outwardly towards the projector screen. A colorful shape emerged at the center of the screen as the music faded in, a fluttering and syncopated chatter under which a low squarewave tone offered support. As woody and tabla-esque percussion entered the arrangement, the projection danced along, reforming its stained-glass cat eye appearance into a flickering diamond of rubberized vertices. As syncopated elements assembled, a proper beat emerged, building in textural density as the projection expanded and exploded into psychedelic tapestries of video feedback, askew reflections, and wavering ripples of light.

The set soon broke its pace, pulling out the rug of kick drums and other percussion to leave only a sizzling hi-hat texture that suspended all energy in the room, building tension as it developed its complex syncopation. Dropping into an even deeper, kick-punctuated groove, the textural ripples on the projector screen became animated to the beat. At a midpoint, the groove subsided into a shimmering texture of bell tone synth sounds, with Pelly's projection now bright with bold yellow and lime green hues. From this ethereal mass emerged a plucky melody which was then joined in unison by the squarewave bass, before kicks dropped for a final movement of danceable bliss, set to a backdrop of vibrantly excited forms spread kaleidoscopically across the screen's lively canvas.

During the set, Pelly moved behind her large modular system with care and quiet attention, eyes deftly moving between the projection and various knobs and patch points hidden amidst a family-style spaghetti dinner of wired connections. Admittedly, I have had my share of doubts regarding the practice of live A/V performance, perplexed at how a single performer could effectively spread attention between the multimodal sensory information of simultaneous audio and video control. These doubts were righteously dismissed by Pelly's set, as audio and video collided to present a singular dynamic form rather than parallel streams of loosely-related activity.

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Assuredly, the system Pelly had assembled involved electronic processors which, to some degree, automated the connection between audio and video parameters. While I have no full-patch rundown, I could deduce that at the very least audio amplitude, and perhaps band-specific energy, were used to govern trigger points of change, color and shape modulation, and other visual elements. These mapped relationships enable the system to create meaningful gestures of visuals and sound moving together, creating a vast space of possibilities which are defined by the dynamics of interaction programmed in patch point connections. However, while the patch creates this theoretical space of interactive possibilities, it can't account entirely for the specific audiovisual forms Pelly created in the course of performance.

The task of controlling these elements creatively from moment to moment demands a significant investment of time and practice, refining one's ability to explore the space of mapped connections. Keeping careful attention to both audio and video as it unfolds, one must iterate on its possible inflections, and develop moment-to-moment changes that contextualize each form in a history of sound and light. Pelly's set demonstrated a strong and idiosyncratic mastery of these skills, attending proficiently to the core problem of modular synthesis in performance, which is much less concerned with how the system is connected, but rather how one wrestles its connective logic into specific creative moves. In creating a system of interactive possibilities and shaping time within its programmed logic, one provides observers opportunities to survey and explore their own relationships of meaning within their embodied experience.

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Reflecting briefly on how Pelly's performance created such opportunities for sense-making within my own experience, soon Ki Oni took the stage, treating me to another take at audiovisual amazement. The musical moniker of LA-based musician and DubLab contributor Chuck Soo-Hoo, Ki Oni's ambient excursions with flute and electronics explore themes of interior space and the natural wilds melting together in surrealist forms. Of all the set-ups on display that night, Ki Oni's table was by far the simplest, holding only a laptop and MIDI controller alongside his flute and a microphone for processing the instrument through the software system. While it may leave little for the leering gear noticers to ogle and identify, I'm always excited by simple set-ups like these, as it can be exciting to discover the diverse and vibrant forms that can emerge from a laptop's comparatively flat affective character.

Ki Oni's set began with a slowly evolving melody from the flute. Resonating into a rich and spacious shimmering reverb and delay effect, breathy tones circled around a lifting major second gesture, patiently wandering in melodic expansion, but never straying far from this conceptual node. The shimmering reverberance from the software system offered a droning bed of harmonic support that made each note float like fabric threads caught in a steady wind. As the melody elegantly lilted around its centerpoint, the reverberant environment it excited shifted in subtle and muted tones, evoking watercolors mixed in still fluid. Pelly's projections took to these synesthetic notes immediately as if entirely incorporated into the sound world Ki Oni created, as a glowing tide of blue, purple, and stark white spilled in slow motion upwards towards the ceiling, electrifying into rich yellow and orange hues as the sonic space grew in greater complexity.

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Suddenly, a sound like bamboo wind chimes erupted into the sonic environment, plunking together in playful polyphony, with a muted tone as if heard underwater. The rich shimmer reverb from the prior section gave way to vaporwave-esque diffusion and darkness in timbre that gently shook me from the initial movement's textural dreamstate. The sound's complex and crowded transients rippled throughout the projected visuals, casting refracted shadows around the darkened room. For the last half of the set, these loops emerged in numerous iterations and gestural transformations, each moment shifting in how they excited the resonant effects within the software system. Like watching shadows shift around a room over hours of daylight, high tones faded in and out, and low sub bass bloomed and subsided underneath as the loop continued to repeat. The woody tones of the bamboo slowly became more synth-like over time as these resonant tones were accentuated by the loop, a building energy that seemed to release in punctuating hisses of soft white noise that responded to each iteration. Finding a point of stasis, the sound and visuals slowly reposed, ending the set in a gentle release.

Dancing in the Light

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Captivated by the lush sound and light world Ki Oni and Pelly had created together, I didn't have long to lay about in the remembered bliss of ambient tones before Jehanne was ready to rock the block. The only duo of the night, Jehanne is an improvisational techno and noise project that seamlessly blends aggressive, harsh tones with battering, dance-worthy beats. I had a chance to talk to Teddy prior to the set, who is half of the group alongside Forest, about Jehanne's unique approach to their live sets. Performing in disparate scenes and venues from raves to noise dungeons, Teddy explained that Jehanne's live performances shift contextually to each specific event. While their core character of raucous playfulness and discovery remains, they often shift the focus of their improvisations to fit the feel of each night, and hearing this, I was curious how the legion of devices they had brought in tow would be instrumentalized to mirror the moment at hand.

Over the course of the set, Jehanne kept a relatively even blend of both their beat-forward, danceable side and their deviously noise-drenched explorations. Given the colossal crew of instruments they'd assembled across their table, it was nearly impossible to track exactly where sonic elements would emerge from, with 16-step sequencers dancing along in unison across the set-up. Crunchy kicks excited detuned melodies as noisy cymbals clattered overhead, with elements dovetailing in and out of the texture smoothly over the course of the set. At times, the rhythmic scaffolding of drums and percussion would vanish entirely, leaving only the sounds of characterful hoovers and other massive synth sounds, creating cycles of tension and release that could satisfy anyone from the darkest noise disciples to the most dedicated of gabber crazed party goers. In the visual elements, Pelly's performance offered a complex and complimentary field of warm oranges and neon cool tones, which were deeply modulated by Jehanne's full spectrum sonic assault.

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Jehanne's relationship on stage was striking, as they appeared to interact in ways that mirrored the aesthetic blending of noise and techno spaces heard in their music. In one moment, both performers would sway threateningly over their fleet of devices like the most intense of power electronics performances, while in others they would whisper together, laugh, and nod with cheeky grins as if presenting B2B style in the Boiler Room. Across all their improvisations, it seemed clear that they were both having an immense amount of fun on stage, creating space for new creative possibilities in each knob turn that would be picked up and recontextualized by one another in the next tweak or button press. Pelly seemed to fit perfectly into this exchange, as her familiarity and experience with the crew clearly informed her ability to follow their improvisational shifts in quickly moving and well-crafted visual gestures.

At the end of the night, it was time for the final performance by Kid606, for which anticipation had built throughout the entire night of sets. A storied veteran of glitch, hardcore techno, and breakcore scenes, Kid606's work traverses a huge range of aesthetic inflections from noise and EDM to ambient, punk, and industrial, often eschewing any one specific area of musical expression for an idiosyncratic approach that blends each together in irreverent and gleeful exchange. At Coaxial that night, he had assembled a laptop over a large DJ mixer flanked on both sides by Kaoss Pads, which given his vast breadth of sonic stylings, revealed very little about what was to come, aside from a clear understanding it would be, in fact, totally sick—as nearly anything done with two Kaoss Pads has a habit of being.

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I had met Kid606 once before in a back-alley Eurorack deal, wherein we laughed about my encounter with a neighbor of his that I'd scared to death moments earlier by over-excitedly approaching while shouting about a wavefolder. He kindly shared a few copies of albums from his long discography, and I dug into his oeuvre with reckless abandon over a number of weeks. Needless to say, I was excited to see the set, but was outdone in that excitement by another member of the audience. Having driven from multiple states away to see the show, a duo of mom and teenage daughter had come to Coaxial specifically to see and hear Kid606. Describing herself as a long-time Kid606 superfan, the entire audience was immediately endeared to this dedicated youngster, a surefire relief to calloused hearts and old-head perspectives that instantly softened on hearing of her impassioned pilgrimage to LA.

Opening with a wild and rubbery loop that bent to and fro in the sonic space, Kid606's set danced through digitally smeared waves and shimmers before dropping a four on the floor kick into the mix at an even, walking pace. From there the set progressed between house-inflected grooves and DJ-esque assemblages of pop tracks and original sounds, frequently interspersed with Kid606's characteristic glitch gestures from the dual Kaoss Pads. Digital noise overtook the texture and degraded into new grooves through transitional moments, with the crowd dancing along to each inspired and askew synth line, always strongly supported by the deep thump of the kick. In his classic genre blending style, the texture also moved into almost dub-inspired slow and syncopated grooves, eventually returning to the house sound as mangled vocal samples and decadent Carpenter-esque synths galloped alongside the kick's steady pulse.

The visuals during the Kid606 set experienced a bit of technical glitching at first, as if the projector formed a mind of its own and decided to get in on the glitch-happy fun going on in the audio stream. Clearly not as proficient as Kid606, the projector offered few interesting contributions during this brief interlude between periods of functionality, though I found it to be strangely fitting for the set as the Panasonic logo proudly pronounced itself amidst a sea of deep blue overhead. With the kick thumping, the crowd didn't seem to mind either, as dancers kept pace and energy before rejoicing as Pelly's signal victoriously flooded back to the screen. As the visuals returned, it seemed their inspired flickers and movements energized the music even further, with Pelly's keen constructions enhancing every hip shake and head nod throughout the undulating audience.

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As the night concluded and concert goers slowly slipped out, the eclectic performances played back in my head simultaneously. The night Pelly had curated covered so much ground sonically, yet fused together seamlessly through the lens of her vivid visual expertise. Beyond the music and light itself, the gathering revealed a wonderful warmth within the community Pelly had built around her, a generous sharing of perspectives and practices in effortless exchange, bubbling to the surface with an effervescent energy in every moment. We can't thank Alex and the performers involved enough for their work, and can't wait to see what spins up in the next night of Plastics Dept.

Check out more from these artists at the links below, and we will catch you at the next event!

Alex Pelly | Ki Oni | Jehanne | Kid606