Deep in the underground realms of avant-garde music is the genre of "noise," which is scattered all across the country. Here in Wilmington, noise has its own safe, concentrated haven in the 910 Noise collective.

The number of times people have asked about the definition of "noise" is uncountable. Simply put, noise is chaos and discord. Elements of repetition, dissonance, feedback, static, ambience and so forth are consistently present. It is likely that, along with a guitar or drums, the listener may find some non-traditional instruments being played, from washboards to silverware. Many noise artists also make their performances into a visual art, with video footage in the background or unconventional performances from the artists themselves.

As Stephanie Hart, who is part of the collective as Steph.Dig.It, says, "Noise is nothing to fear and everything to love."

On its Facebook page, it explains that 910 Noise is "a platform to showcase noise and experimental acts and artists from the local area code as well as out of town (or country)." 910 Noise also operates as a record label, with an impressive array of self-released albums.

"910 Noise is an incredible auditory, visual, tangible, emotional art form for the people," continues Hart. "To me, it is a banner we can all play under that allows everyone to perform whatever is inside themselves without fear of censorship or judgment. The artists that are involved run the gamut and are a wonderful reflection of our community."

With noise being such an unusual category of entertainment, it’s curious to note where these artists find venues to perform. Luckily, the Wilmington community has been open and supportive of noise, so artists from 910 Noise have played almost every Sunday night at The Juggling Gypsy, had a straight week of performances at Browncoat Pub and Theatre, annual celebrations of the Leonid Meteor Shower at Bottega Art Gallery and Parallelogram, and have also been seen at last year’s DIY festival, Be Yr Own Hero at The Soapbox.

Anyone who has noticed the occasional posted flyer for Caucasians, Donovan Quixote, Jason Ward, Authorless, etc, has seen only a small portion of the 910 Noise people.

"Perhaps it’s difficult for people to understand why we do things with our musical gear that most musicians wouldn’t dream of doing ... that’s easy ... we aren’t doing music," explains Ryan Lewis, aka, Mr. Stonecipher, and the other half of the band FOOD WORLD. "The range of the art varies from artist to artist, from quiet, ambient looped film soundscapes to harsh, low rumbling distortion and everything in between."

While 910 Noise is mainly a collective of local artists, the group welcome outside artists and assist them with grabbing gigs and coverage in Wilmington.

"Wilmington has such a strong noise/experimental music scene, compared to some cities; I know that Savannah, for example, has some really talented local artists playing shows, but there is no cohesive group of people who organize events and play so many different venues as 910 Noise does." says Grant Stewart, aka, Subterrene.

"Even the worst noise artist/group in town is still better than every Wilmington rock band and singer/songwriter combined!" boasts August Traeger, also known as Somnaphon and the other half of FOOD WORLD.