Arthur Ahbez: Arthur Ahbez and the Flaming Ahbez (digital outlets)

We have it on sort-of reliable authority that Arthur Ahbez is this local artist's real name, not a homage to the fascinating proto-hippie Eden Ahbez who wrote, among other things, the jazz standard Nature Boy.

If Eden was proto-, Arthur sounds more post- because this album roams freely through psychedelic pop, country, folk-rock and more.

It's quite a trip and if the destination is unclear that hardly matters because the unpredictability is a considerable part of its appeal.

This kind of melange of styles was common enough in the Sixties (we'd cite albums by Moby Grape and Country Joe and the Fish by way of example) but less so these days when artists want to establish A Voice.

That Ahbez and band shift from a boogie riff (A Song for Jim) to spaced-out, slow blues-rock (Late Night Empty Pocket Blues) then into pop-rock which shapeshifts into a section with its roots in the Fifties and closes with a bit of surf-rock guitar (Take It Easy) is to their great credit.

And fun.

The mad psychedelic folk-rock of Reckless comes with typically bewildering lyrics: “Bull on the wood, misunderstood. She'll take a trip to a Hollywood. Some fat cow sings in the farmers yard, milk turns sour and the cream turns hard. Ride the wave she don't look back, there's a train a comin' loose on the railway track.”

The Flaming Ahbez might just resurrect the organ's place in moody rock with the stateless Lost Sleep: “Keep in mind you're all alone. Pick up your mat, get up and walk!”

And Cool Water at the end harks back to those stentorian spoken word pieces by Johnny Cash, Lorne Greene and others who could carry lyrics like these: “Over the dunes and towards the ridge he walked, his boots both split open at the heel and the hour was approaching noon. It was three days since he last touched a lick of water . . .”

Arthur Ahbez and his band cover a lot of musical territory, perhaps not ironically, and from the opener Sister (like The Doors but without Morrison's gloomy baritone) to that cowboy lament at the end, this is enjoyably unpredictable.

Graybeards sometimes say “they don't make albums like that anymore”.

Well, these people have.

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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here