Dismal Niche

06/05/2026

RP Boo w/ Maxubishi
Friday, July 24th at Sinquefield Music Center (MU Campus)
9pm-Midnight
FREE + food and drinks!
We are beyond excited to welcome the legendary Chicago producer and ‘godfather of footwork’ RP Boo back to Columbia, MO as part of a collaboration with the Mizzou New Music Initiative and the annual Mizzou International Composers Festival! Local creative powerhouse Maxubishi will DJ a reception/cocktail party from 9-10 and RP Boo will turn up and turn it out 10-12!
The Mizzou International Composers Festival is a completely FREE annual event featuring public concerts, workshops and more! Each year the fest serves as a summer home to Grammy Award winning ensemble-in-residence Alarm Will Sound who perform the work of two distinguished guest Composers. This year the festival welcomes as a guest composer JLin - one of the most distinctive composers in America and one of the most influential women in modern electronic music, whose work builds from the Chicago footwork foundations laid by RP Boo!

We are honored to play even a small part in bringing these artists together in Columbia for an immanent, embodied conversation around the history and trajectory of the liberatory Chicago sound, dance, culture and movement of Footwork!

05/26/2026

'25-26 Season Exit Survey!
Did you attend ANY Dismal Niche Arts events Sept. '25 - May '26? If so, please take a moment to complete this anonymous exit survey. The information and data we collect here helps us with our grant final reports and informs our future programming!

Anonymous exit survey. The data and feedback collected here will be used to inform our final reports to grant committees that provided funding to the series as well as to generally guide and inform our future programming decisions. Thank you for your time!

05/19/2026

⚡️⚡️With our second announcement of the ‘26-27 season we are thrilled to welcome Tyondai Braxton to Columbia on Nov. 13th at Crow Hall as part of our Extended Play fall mini-fest!

Tyondai Braxton is a composer, producer and professor who has been writing and performing music since the mid-1990s. Formerly the front man of experimental rock band Battles, Braxton’s solo work since 2010 has incorporated elements of electronic, electro-acoustic and orchestral composition across a range of contexts from intimate solo albums and large-scale symphonic works, to collaborations with legendary modern composers like Phillip Glass.

Today, Braxton announced his new solo album Splayed Werks due out this August on the inimitable Erased Tapes label. Years in the works, it is an album that reflects the embrace of radical hybrids in modern music — at once club sound system-ready, art-installation-leaning and music-school-mediated while carefully hand-crafted and deeply intuitive.
Full season ‘26-27 season announcement coming soon! Please support our current fund drive to help us continue bringing rare events and world-class artists to Columbia! Link in bio

05/15/2026

‘25-26 season in flyers!
As we fundraise for the ‘26-27 season ahead, let’s take a moment to reflect on the past year of programming featuring bonafide legends, modern luminaries, emergent visionaries and local heroes across the spectrum of adventurous independent music, art and film!
This kind of crucial, independent programming is a labor of love (and delusion) and we can’t do it without significant supplemental support beyond ticket sales!

We have a full season of diverse programming lined up again for the ‘26-27 season and we are asking for your support in making it all happen! Please consider making a one time donation or becoming a sustaining supporter today! Link in bio to donate.
Flyer artists - .wav

05/14/2026

ENCORE!
Friday, May 22nd at Birdies Deli we offer up a season ending encore, welcoming CoMo ex-pat and Dismal Niche Arts co-founder Ben Chlapek back to town from Chicago for a saturated drone set under his Dousing moniker alongside Los Angeles based ambient stalwart Walt McClements. Local music journalist and expert selector Disk Jockey Randall Roberts will hold it down from doors to showtime and during intermission while Birdies will provide chilled libations for a night of high vibrations.
7pm Doors and DJ
8pm Dousing
9pm Walt McClements
$10-20 or PWYC
Buying tickets in advance is always a huge help!

05/11/2026

🌼🌼🌼
SPRING FUND DRIVE starts now! Link to donate in bio or at dismalniche.com. Please consider making an investment in critically engaged, independent art and music in Columbia today!
We are setting an ambitious $10k goal to support another year of the Columbia Experimental Music Series which will once again feature the 4-concert ‘Left Field Series’ with We Always Swing, The Extended Play Fall Mini Fest as well as one-off shows, film screenings and artist workshops.

We’re excited to unveil the full season lineup on June 14th at our Summer Fundraising party at Waves Cider Co!

05/06/2026

📣📣📣Announcing our first concert of the the ‘26-27 Columbia Experimental Music Series!
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HORSE LORDS
Saturday, Sept. 26 at Cafe Berlin
Founded in Baltimore in 2010, Horse Lords operate at the intersection of minimalism, experimental rock, and contemporary composition. The quartet Sam Haberman (drums), Owen Gardner (guitar), Max Eilbacher (bass), and Andrew Bernstein (alto saxophone) build tightly interlocking rhythmic systems informed by just intonation, process music, and global rhythmic traditions.

Across 16 years of frequent touring and recording, the group has developed a distinctive sound rooted in repetition, tuning systems, and gradually shifting patterns. Their work draws connections between the structural traditions of composers such as La Monte Young and Pauline Oliveros, Fluxus-era experimentalism, and rhythmic sources ranging from James Brown to Gulf-region sawt music.
This is just the first of many upcoming shows in our ‘26-27 season. Full lineup will be announced June 14th at our Summer Fundraising Party at Waves Cider Co! We’re currently in the middle of our spring fund drive attempting to raise 20% of overall programming costs. If you can help, please head to the link in our bio!

12/11/2025

Today is the day! Link to donate in bio.

When you donate to the “We Always Swing” Jazz Series CoMo Gives campaign today, you support the future of the Left Field Series - the nascent collaboration between The Jazz Series and Dismal Niche.

Tonight we’ll close the 2025 year of events at 6:30 pm at Ragatg Cinema with a special 16mm film program featuring two films by the legendary avant-garde filmmaker Michael Snow. This program is being guest curated by St. Luis based artist and musician Alex Cunningham in collaboration with local film nonprofit Disarm Cinema! The screenings will be preceded by a concert from the Mizzou Creative Improvisation Collective at 5:30 on the stage ar Hitt Records!

Our goal today is to raise $3k! Please consider giving any amount you can and sharing with others!