But he's also attentive to sound, and some of the best moments of "Ascent," Six Organs' 15th album, come at the very end of tracks like "Solar Ascent," or "Even if You Knew," when the last note or chord cuts off, and as it decays, you can size up the tower of reverb and sonic space that Mr. Chasny has built.
If a chord sounds off, go back and try to adjust it based on your ear.
A section of "Grand Ideas" recalled the British synth-pop duo Erasure, and Lindstrom's version of it here was one of the night's highlights, synthesizer chords bouncing off one another as if in a pinball machine.
His left hand did little but was used occasionally to point and to cut chords off.
And he's elemental in the galloping garage-rock of "Silver Cloud," shouting, "I'm a fool for your love — come on, fool me!" and then wrenching guitar chords off the beat to joust with his lead guitarist, David Pulkingham.
But if the sounds have changed since the days of Chuck Berry and Brylcreem, the impulse remains the same for the musicians who blast distorted chords off garage walls: they want to be like their heroes.
Spurning the specialists' lexicon, he sets olive oil nuances to music so people can detect high and low notes, harmonious chords and off-key cacophony.
His band -- which included the alto saxophonist Justin Robinson, doing a fervid version of Charlie Parker's bright, hard sound, as well as the trombonist Kiamate Zuwati -- rolled through solos on the set chord changes, cutting off where Mr. Kendrick indicated.
The haunting music consists of strangely oscillating intervals, obsessively repetitive patterns of broken chords, spiraling riffs, splotchy passagework and exploding fortissimo chords that set off delicate flecks of notes, like sparks from a fire.
The fineness of the writing — the high, fluttering wind solos, swimming chord progressions and off-kilter puffs of brass and plucked strings, all set off by gunshot-like explosions — enlists just the kind of elegance, firepower and transparency that this orchestra can produce as well as any other.
