I love it...love it, when music refuses to be stuffed into a category. When I bought my first Tortoise record, half the night was spent wondering just what the heck I was listening to. Instrumental Rock? Ambient? An odd brand of jazz? The dreaded "post-rock"?

Turns out that it hardly matters. The off-kilter rhythms, the jagged melodies, the elongated resolutions: they are the point. When the music is good enough to make you temporarily forget who you are, categorizing the band seems like an exercise in time-wasting.

But hey, let's maybe play that game for just a little while. What kind of band writes tunes like "Herman Ze German Cassette," "Spencer's PlayGround vs. Todd's Claim," and (my favorite) "You Haven't Lived Until You Have Had To Have Read Beowulf"? Would they specialize in twisted jazz avant garde-isms, funk rock, the polymeters of "math rock"?

Yes, is the answer. Three times over and maybe more.

The Gang Font feat. Interloper, who bill themselves on their MySpace page as "PunkProgFreeFunkMathMetal," is Craig Taborn on keyboards, Erik Fratzke (Happy Apples) on guitar, Dave King (The Bad Plus) on drums, and Craig Norton on bass. Yes, the bass player from the scorching post-punk band Hüsker Dü. I really hate to use the word "supergroup," but give a listen to the opening track (that "...Beowulf" thing) and tell me I'm wrong.

But enough with the labels and the categories. Let's get to the collision of guitars, synths, drums, and that one scary mustache.

It's like this: nervous but tight guitar figures, dissonant blasts of keyboards, very muscular basslines, drum work that goes from sensitive to full-force and back again, psychedelia coexisting with modernity, ominous rumblings, a guitar sound that at times comes right out of the Andy Gill/Gang of Four era , random blurpy noises. It's really some amazing stuff. A big load of fun, (check out this mspmag interview for the story on the band and the name) with the overall effect defying description.

Take the closing track "European Ambulance" as an example. An aggressive opening guitar riff is mirrored by the drums for a couple of cycles before a more floating and odd-timed section gives pause. A trio of fast descending lines lead into a tension-building start/stop passage that highlights the drummer. The group then settles in on a sort of full-band ostinato that leaves room for guitar solos on top and keyboard lines that add color by going against the general melodic flow. There's a lot going on to be sure, but the Gang Font feat. Interloper manages to squeeze out all of the beauty hidden in such complexity.

And isn't capturing that beauty what jazz is all about?