01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, June 8, 2006

A new record by Alec K. Redfearn and the Eyesores is always a cause for celebration, and The Smother Party is no exception. Less lush and yet more poppy than last year's The Quiet Room, it is still full of the Eyesores' trademark virtuosity and the singular vision of Redfearn, who combines respect and sarcasm towards rock, European traditional music, the kind of avant-garde that's still avant-garde, and full-on noise.

Redfearn describes The Smother Party as "a songs record." The vocal melodies (and Redfearn's voice) are more prominent here than ever: Songs such as "Choreboy and a Blowtorch" and "Valse II" are virtual sing-alongs, and "The Way of All Flesh" (co-written with Cynthia Hopkins) begins with a long, nearly a cappella passage before an instrumental restatement of the theme.

Redfearn says that the pendulum's swing from sprawling instrumental tunes to concise vocally based songs is part of "a natural cycle." He cracks that "I basically ran out of ideas on instrumental music," but that's not exactly true, as the 26-minute album closer, "Gutterhelmet Ascending" (a duet between Redfearn and drummer Matt McLaren, who occasionally play together under the name Gutterhelmet), makes clear.

More seriously, Redfearn says, "I was trying to outrun the prog label" as well as the other critical tropes that have been hauled out to describe his music: circus music, cabaret music, on and on. Klezmer and "gypsy punk" are two of the latest tags that have amused Redfearn.

"I like Balkan music and Arabian music," he says, "but I like the Stones. I like metal. I like the Kinks."

He cites the Kinks and Serge Gainsbourg as particular songwriting influences on The Smother Party.

AT THE SAME time that the songs are more pop-based, the arrangements are starker than on The Quiet Room. "Gutterhelmet Ascending" is the obvious example, but the record is full of examples of a repeating pattern, either on accordion, distorted accordion or drums, with only one or two instruments on top of it. Redfearn says that that was intentional as well, part of the natural cycle his songwriting has gone through.

There's also less of a direct influence of traditional music on The Smother Party than anything Redfearn has recorded in years.

"I'm not trying to avoid folk influences," he says; "but I'm trying to be less direct about them. . . . I'm a fake folk musician; we're not playing traditional melodies."

Last year, Redfearn received one of the inaugural McColl Johnson Fellowships for composers, and used the money to record I Am the Resurrection and the Light (which hasn't been released yet), to cut back his day job in a group home to part-time and to spend roughly three months on tours of the United States and Europe "that almost broke even."

The resulting exposure from that touring, he says, allowed him to hire a booking agent, and it means that when he or the agent calls a venue, "someone knows who we are. . . ."

The money meant he was "basically able to breathe easy for a year," Redfearn says.

So is the pressure back on?

"Oh, yeah."

Redfearn has been working at group homes for more than 15 years and has often cited the flexible scheduling as a boon to a musician's life. But he's also quick to agree that the work has influenced the music directly.

"I started working at group homes right when I started writing music," Redfearn says. And especially early on, along with "the internal logic" of patients, "I was really reflecting some of the rhythms of autism. Autism is a very rhythmic condition."

LYRICALLY, The Smother Party continues Redfearn's concerns about mortality, which came to the fore on I Am the Resurrection and the Light, a song cycle on the subject that he premiered at the Carriage House in 2004. "Flight of the Sims" is dedicated to a deceased friend; in "Choreboy and a Blowtorch" he sings, "He drew a drowning breath/ Iron lungs enslaving a little taste of death." And "The Way of All Flesh" is a pure folk death song: "Hey man, where are you going? / I'm going the way of all flesh."

The term "smother party" refers to sex as well as death, Redfearn says, and a number of the lyrics could be taken either way. Still, he says he's been particularly concerned with mortality since being diagnosed with hepatitis C in 2000.

He's eschewing treatment ("I don't trust the current treatment") but has paid more attention to diet and exercise in recent years. He says he's currently feeling no effects of the disease, and "there's no telling how long before my liver gives out. . . . It may never give out."

Music helps, too: "It's the closest thing I have to a real spiritual basis."

Alec K. Redfearn and the Eyesores, 2 Percent Majesty and Micah Blue Smaldone are at AS220, 115 Empire St., Providence, tonight at 9. Admission is $7; call (401) 831-9327.

Steve Jobe's chamber pieces

When you've already built the world's biggest hurdy-gurdy, where do you go from there?

Back to the basics, apparently.

Composer, instrument builder, avant-garde cabaret master and all-purpose madman Steve Jobe premieres a new series of recent chamber pieces this weekend, and he writes in an e-mail that "this is a crazy concert for me in that it doesn't have big instruments or dancers."

There's a new string quartet, a bassoon concerto featuring Jim Morgan, and two movements to be performed by a band including violinist Laura Gulley and the matchless singer Ellen Santaniello.

The premiere is Saturday at St. Peter's Church, in Narragansett; the show will also come to the Carriage House Stage, 7 Duncan Ave., Providence, on June 16 and 17. All shows are at 8 p.m. and admission is $15.

'Local bluegrass supergroup'

The Pegheads are a "local bluegrass supergroup" with Martin Grosswendt of Magnolia, Karl Dennis (formerly of the Neon Valley Boys), Jeff Horton (formerly of Northern Lights) and Ben Pearce (no glowing resume accomplishments available at press time, but he's gotta be pretty good to play with those guys, yeah?).

Get down to the Courthouse Center for the Arts, Route 138 in West Kingston, for a good dose of the high lonesome. Tickets are $12 and the show's at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Call (401) 782-1018.

rmassimo@projo.com / (401) 277-7206