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It's an all too common club experience. As some artist softly pours his heart into a subtle folk tune or ambient noise suite, an oblivious audience member yammers at a volume that would be completely inappropriate at, say, a theatrical performance. In response to this oft-witnessed act of nightclub social retardation, a clump of like-minded psych-folk artists have banded together as the Sunshine Plague Travelling Revue. This weekend's Plague appearances showcase an exceptional seven-act lineup that's playing all quiet, all the time, with enough variety to keep things from becoming a monotonous acoustic guitar marathon. Think of the shows as Terrastock Lite, a mini version of the British-spawned psych fest that touched down in S.F. in 1998.

Plague's cavalcade of quietude is the brainchild of Greg Weeks, a New York folkie whose oeuvre ranges from sensitive coffeehouse vignettes to the Moog-heavy chamber-prog of his most recent album, Awake Like Sleep, a 2001 staff fave at S.F.'s Aquarius Records. Other acts include Aroah, the namesake of Irene R. Trembaly, an American expatriate living in Spain whose sultry indie-strum resembles a stripped-down Mazzy Star; Nonloc, the solo acoustic project of Mark Dwinell of Providence, R.I., space-rockers Bright; and country-folk contingent Timesbold, which the Plague press release swears "delivers crushing tales of austerity and loss in a poetry that will have audiences weeping as they stand begging for more." We'll see about that.

Three fine local artists round out the Bay Area shows. Six Organs of Admittance, led by sometime McKinleyville resident Ben Chasny, serves up four-track opium-den trancedelia such as that found on its new CD, Dark Noontide(Holy Mountain). The local guys in Charles Atlasproffer lulling, pulsing atmospherics reminiscent of acid jazz and avant-rock, while San Francisco's Thuja -- featuring members of Id Battery and the Knit Separates, including SF Weekly contributor Glenn Donaldson -- presents its highly listenable take on improvisational scrape, scratch, plink, and drone. All in all, the Sunshine Plague promises a choice night of the quietly unusual. Just keep the blather outside.