On Jan. 30, the Iowa Music Store and Nova Labs will work together to host the first Flanuary-Noise Event, featuring BBJr, Moulttrigger, The Cryogenic Strawberries and Stratum, as part of a quarterly series.

The event strictly focuses on noise music, an underground genre heavily based on improv, free form, avant-garde jazz and is played loosely and in no particular key.

Nova Labs is a local Ames record label run by Bryon Dudley and Matt Dake. The team will celebrate the two-year anniversary of their label this spring, though Dudley and Dake have been working together for about four years.

The two started with a noise project they call Stratum, a name that represents the strata of not only the music they play, but also the diversity of the group itself. After creating and releasing their own EP for Stratum, Dudley and Dake decided to create Nova Labs and have worked with numerous artists and musicians since.  

Dudley and Dake, both of Nova Labs and Stratum, have put on several other noise shows throughout the years, as well as other Flanuary events, but this event will be the first noise event featured in the quarterly series. The event will be held at the Iowa Music Store in Ames as a free, all ages show, from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. 

Stratum – Stratum is a local Ames band consisting of three members: Bryon Dudley, Matt Dake and Tom Russell.  The three represent a “stratum of decades,” according to Dudley, because the age for each member range from 30 years old to 50 years old.  With the range of ages comes a range of musical influences that is embraced in their unique sound, a sound identified by Dudley as “Indian noise.”  

To illustrate “Indian noise,” Dudley explained a piece they performed at a past event where they banged a gong, froze it and broke a glass in a barrel.  This concept piece, named “Gongreation,” was a musical illustration of the birth and death of the universe.  The group has been creating noise together for about three or four years.  

BBJr – Bob Bucko Jr., otherwise known as BBJr, is a solo noise artist from Dubuque, Iowa who will visit Ames’ Iowa Music Store for the Flanuary Noise event.  From writing songs with a saxophone at age seven and playing guitar with various bands in the late ’90s, to running a personal record label, Bob Bucko Jr’s Personal Archives, and becoming a solo noise artist around 2011, BBJr has experimented with a variety of music, including Eastern, Western, old American songs and much more.

“I’m too melodic for the noise people and too noisy for the folk people,” BBJr said, explaining his unique sound.

BBJr has several releases coming up, including his LP with Captcha Records, a California based label, a tape with Warren Gospel, a Des Moines based label and a CD with Ames’ very own Nova Labs, which will be released at the show. BBJr will be touring from to the West Coast and back from March 27 to April 28.  

Moulttrigger – Solo artist Dave Wren, or Moulttrigger, will also perform at the noise event.  Moulttrigger is an experimental noise artist who labels himself as a “home taper that tends to get noisy at times.”  When creating his music, Moulttrigger takes whatever sounds he enjoys and combines them, which is exactly how the name ‘Moulttrigger’ came to be.

“I just thought of it …,” Wren said, explaining the origin of the performance name Moulttrigger. “But later found both words cause a bird to lose its feathers.”

The fact that Moulttrigger is a creative stage name related to birds is quite a coincidence, since his album entitled “Birds” will be re-released by Nova Labs at the show.  Wren performs about three shows a year and said “they are always fun,” though “live [performances] never sound like the tape.”  

Performances by Moulttrigger usually consist of one long, drawn out piece that is created on the spur of the moment. This will be Moulttrigger’s first time using samples from the album “Birds” and Wren claims “it’s gonna be pretty good”.

The Cryogenic Strawberries – The Huxley-based noise group known as The Cryogenic Strawberries will be releasing its project titled “15 Years of Failure” with Nova Labs at the Flanuary Noise event.  The Cryogenic Strawberries is a 15-year-old project with revolving cast members, currently consisting of Edward “Rev. Eddie DeSade” Bignar, Casey Jones and Josh Nelson.  

The group started as a home recording project among a group of trailer park musicians.  It has since created two albums, three EPs and five albums worth of material that was never released.  The Cryogenic Strawberries have a name as groovy as their sound, which they said belonged to a psychedelic, experimental, freak folk genre.

“I Think Everything Is Going To Be Ok Again” is a song from The Cryogenic Strawberries’ first album, and a song that Bignar, band member and owner of Workerbee Records, especially enjoys to play live.  

As their first time working with Nova Labs, Bignar has been actively supporting the Flanuary-Noise Event and is looking forward to playing at the all-ages Iowa Music Store in downtown Ames, which Bignar described as a “nice venue.”