Denver Noise Fest re-launched on October 24-25, 2025, at DIY space The Denver Music Venue (aka the DMV) after around a decade of being dormant. The DMV has become the de facto place to see noise in Denver in the last year or so, as well as some of the improvisational and experimental music performances that have become a more active facet in the music scene of the Mile High after a bit of a dip in the wake of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
The festival represented a kind of capstone to a year that saw an unmistakable and marked increase in activity in the city’s more left-field noisemaking. The summer saw the fifth edition of the ambient/experimental electronic music outdoor mini-festival, Listening Lawn, put together by the people of the digital label Multidim. Dean Inman curated the Tiny Blanket series on select Sundays in City Park in the spring and summer. Caracol Productions organized many concerts in an attempt to revitalize the classic Aztlan Theater, with shows from Martin Rev of Suicide, Laraaji, and multiple others. Creative Music Works, led in part by avant-garde music legend Janet Feder and Matthew Garrington, saw an uptick of activity this year, booking concerts at the newly refurbished Federal Theatre and art theater mainstay The Bug. Isaac Rivera organized unique musical experiences as at the Let It Be Stage. The good folks of Ghost Canyon Fest not only brought more challenging music to their own four-day festival but have helped to promote experimental music generally throughout the year. Thunder Shout Presents also promoted more adventurous music at various venues including Glob.
This didn’t all happen suddenly, but it felt like a major convergence of forces and efforts that yielded a richer music scene in 2025. But Denver has had a long history of “weird” and forward-thinking music that is more extensive than this article can cover.
