411

The opening of the decidedly modern music on 411, the track entitled "Timanfaya," sounds like a spooky, welcome to a plugged-in netherworld. It begins with electric surges and wafflings, then glowing beeps punctuating electric washes before a shift into tune two, "all in," that sounds as if the late multiple reedman Eric Dolphy is hanging around the place, where he's hooked up with guitarist/composer Frank Zappa.

The music is the brainchild of classical guitarist Diego Barber--who hails from the Canary Islands, and now lives in New York City--and electronic music composer Hugo Cipres, who is home-based in Lanzorate, Spain. A stew of Barber's guitars blended with Cipres' desktop backdrops and Seamus Blake's saxophone and EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument), backed by a deep groove bass and Ari Hoenig's very modernistic, rock rhythm drumming suggest a neon lit future world, one with a soundtrack soaked in trumpeter Miles Davis' On the Corner (Columbia Records, 1972) hipness, James Brown's bands late 1960s, early 70s, slashing guitar dance grooves and, perhaps, the Beatles--during the group's experimental, and too-brief, "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"I Am the Walrus" interlude.

"Turn It On" has the sound of a florescent light bulb going bad in very rhythmic fashion, and--like the rest of the set--features noises made by unidentifiable sources (who's doing what?), with a tight Seamus Blake sax solo slipped in. It's a sound that conjures images of strobe lights illuminating dance floors packed with bodies clad in metallic colors, topped with high-spiked hair, the women coiffed and made-up with a precise android perfection.

Multiple listens reveal multiple layerings. This 411 is quite the unusual and compelling experience.