YOU KNOW THAT old riddle, If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? I found myself toying with that question as Stereo Muthafuckaz set up in the nearly empty basement of Li Po Lounge. It was sort of like the watched pot that never boils, and I wondered if an attended show has become the antithesis of serious music making. I comforted myself with that idea because if Stereo Muthafuckaz were a crashing tree, I was the proverbial "no one" there to hear it.

The night lent itself to metaphysical musings and jumbled philosophy – I'd been waiting for a bus to take me to Chinatown for half an hour, not realizing that the 15 line no longer passed that stop. Sometimes when you plan to go out, you get an intuition that it's best to abort the evening and stay in. That night one of those Spidey-sense tingles tugged me toward the safety and convenience of home, but I was in it till the end.

After wandering down the dank stairwell of Li Po, I caught openers the Black Ghost, a coed two-piece on guitar and drums. The singer-guitarist played one of those custom aluminum guitars that inevitably makes one sound like Steve Albini. This seemed to be less of a coincidence as the dark shadow of Shellac's chug and plunge ran through their set. A new band possibly playing out for the first time, the B.G. had songs that tended to meander. Still there was potential in their interplay, albeit it's a path well trod by many post-rock footsteps.

It had been over a year since Stereo MF had played. The first time I saw them, they seemed like a side project of Control R Workshop. Main members Randy Lee Sutherland and Daron Key (formerly of Mesmer) chilled out on the free jazz and electronic-damage elements of Control R and got down with nitty-gritty blasts of heavy punk noise at Kimo's, opening for 7000 Dying Rats. They took a sabbatical from both bands, but tonight was the record release for a limited self-released 7-inch lathe-cut by New Zealander Peter King.

I was expecting something similar to what I'd seen a year ago, a refreshing freak-out from a duo who channeled all the latent aggression of their other noise experiments into a funnel of ferocity. Either the ambience (or lack thereof) or internal issues got in the way, though – the set felt stilted from the start, never quite building up momentum. Sutherland's drum sound didn't carry well in the basement, all sticky humidity clinging to concrete, an overhead mesh net adding to the Apocalypse Now vibe. Key's guitar tone was great – he plucked and tapped bleeps and stutters from the fretboard – but at their best the duo seemed to be just barely missing a sonic baton pass. It also made me miss the distinctly trashy incubator quality of Kimo's as a testing ground for free-for-all material.

There were excellent sounds coming out of these guys. They just work better as an improv unit than in the somewhat limiting structure of being a "band." The dynamics are there, and Sutherland's growled vocals and Key's semicomical interactions add a necessary playfulness to the affair. It just seems like going the traditional route, playing empty basement gigs with ill-paired rock acts, will be a hard road. The 7-inch, with an elaborate die-cut and silk-screen cover, is pretty killer – a better encapsulation of their whole gestalt, which includes Harry Pussy, Dead C, and, to my ears, even Lightning Bolt.