Decibel 08, originally uploaded by deejayres.

The Decibel Festival is set to make Seattle’s ears ring with electronic music starting today and running through Sunday the 30th. Many of these events will take place on Capitol Hill at Neumos, Barboza, Q, the Baltic Room, Melrose Market Studios, and, offering the largest variety of Decibel options for the Hill, the Broadway Performance Hall. If you include Hill-adjacent venues Re-Bar and The Paramount, that’s a high Decibel level for the Hill, right? Individual tickets and festival passes are available on the Decibel site.

For those looking to dip their toes into Decibel without buying the festival pass (which carries a hefty final cost of $240.64 after fees, or $129.13 for students) there’s an event on Saturday that warrants attention. At noon at the Broadway Performance Hall the Do Over will be hosting a free showcase hosted by Haycock, Strong, & Aloe Blacc, with many guest DJs. It’s all hush-hush, but judging by past events it should be well-respected DJs.

Decibel is an ambitious festival. Besides the music showcases, one major aspect is the conference, which takes place largely at the Broadway Performance Hall. The conference includes workshops, keynotes, product demos, and much more. One of the first of these events is a class called SPACE PALETTE AND MORE – CREATING CONTROLLERS FOR THE KINECT. (Broadway Performance Hall, Wednesday) That’s par for the course- geeky, forward-looking, and if you are involved with or interested in making electronic music, quite possibly fascinating. UPDATE: And, as Jeanine points out in comments, the conference portion is “complimentary” — also known as FREE.

A new addition to Decibel’s Capitol Hill experience will be Broadway dance club Q. The new venue debuted in September with ambitions of changing Seattle’s EDM landscape.

If one is drawn to the visual as much as the auditory there is much to choose from right on the Hill. Optical is Decibel’s audiovisual series will have many performances at, you guessed it, Broadway Performance Hall. On Wednesday there will be a re-scoring of Jean Rollin’s La Vampire Nue by Demdike Stare. Might not want to bring the kids to this one — the film is pretty adult. There are Optical events each day, some at the Triple Door, and some at BPH. Tickets for these events are sold individually, and are also included in the festival pass. 

Electronic music enthusiasts would be well-advised to attend as much of this year’s Decibel as possible. For fans of the upperclassmen, there’s Orbital at the Paramount on Thursday, KEXP recommends dB in Dub and Cerebral Vortex at Neumos on Wednesday and Saturday respectively. Off the Hill there are also many don’t-miss shows like Tipper, MIMOSA, and Starkey, at Showbox on Thursday. There are choices and plans to make, and little time. Better get to it.