TRACK: {An} EeL, David Sait, Friendly Rich - 'The Dainty Dandies': hail the new princes of Nordine surreality

THE ABSURD and surreal is a strand of music that brings much joy and not a little brain-tickling to your humble correspondent here; and while there’s a grand old tradition of the point where hallucinatory songwriting meets music, there aren’t too many working in the field right now.

We’ve had, and adored, the Hibernian surreality of Ivor Cutler; Vivian Stanshall’s post-Bonzos reinvention as Sir Henry, down at Rawlinson’s End; the performance freakery of The Barrow Poets. Great British eccentricity at play.

Over the big water, the absolutely unparalleled Ken Nordine was at play for decades – everyone who seeks the weird needs a dive into his Word Jazz album, from ’57, and Colors, from ’67; his rich baritone spooling out views of the word heretofore unconceived.

Which brings us rather nicely to the delicously wonky Ontario trio behind new album A Muffled Snore, for there can be no doubt they’ve been passed the flaming chalice of the truly weerd by Mr Nordine, who only departed this world almost two years to the day at the grand old age of 99.

The trio? Alaskan punk performance artist {An} EeL; Torontonian guzheng improviser David Sait, and self-styled “mad composer” Friendly Rich. Hey, don’t doubt him.

So, they’e got together to produce the astonishingly otherly soundworld of A Muffled Snore – twelve beautifully strange tales, the Dadaist texts of EeL pairing with Friendly Rich’s dark vocal delivery and the psychedelic sounds of David Sait.

Believe the hype and climb into a teaser track, “The Dainty Dandies,” with accompanying eye-freakery, below. Friendly’s cracked baritone leads us into a world delighting in the play and plosive and fricative, the physicality of the spoken word, a tale from a cheese dream or a shroom vision. I’m pretty sure Ken will be looking down from above and so fully approve. When the going gets weird …

Follow Friendly Rich on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and keep your ear trumpet tuned to channel freaked for news of A Muffled Snore.