POP MUSIC REVIEW : Alphabet Soup Served at the Palomino

It’s a bizarre, blasted place, that spot where jazz fusion, avant-garde pop music and noise for art’s sake cross-fertilize each other. Captain Beefheart was a regular tourist. So was/is Frank Zappa. But Crazy-Backwards Alphabet, which played the Palomino Thursday, not only visits this quirky intersection--the band’s planted a flag, built a cabin and has settled in for good.

The pedigree of the quartet (a trio on Thursday, since drummer/vocalist Michael Maksymenko was a no-show) is impeccable: guitarist/vocalist Henry Kaiser has worked with John Abercrombie and Herbie Hancock; bassist Andy West was a founding member of the seminal Southern-fried fusion band the Dixie Dregs, and drummer/vocalist John French played with Beefheart and Zappa. That’s a heady brew, and in concert C-BA neither asks for quarter nor gives any; it’s literally a post-modern musical free-for-all, with improvisation, volume and wry commentary as the keys. From a longish musical melodrama (documenting a homeowner’s discussion with the little devil that lives in his plumbing) to 30-second sonic assaults, from country-tinged ballads to sprawling instrumental mutterings and howlings . . . this band can do it all , without apology or compromise.

It certainly isn’t everybody’s cup of borscht (at the set’s beginning, the Palomino was packed; at the end, about half-full). But if new musical frontiers are your thing, and you don’t mind a little artistic attitude (you know--where the band’s acting as if they’re doing you a favor), Crazy-Backwards Alphabet is the most filling soup to appear on the scene since Beefheart headed for the woods.