Copernicus/Nomadas

Fans of such outsider-music landmarks as William Shatner’s The Transformed Man should take immense delight in Immediate Eternity, a collaboration between a buffoon named after a 15th/16th-century Polish astronomer and a band from Guayaquil, Ecuador. But lest you think that this might be some insane guy bellowing theatrical gibberish over accompaniment from one of those Andean panpipe bands you occasionally see panhandling in shopping malls, it is not. No, Immediate Eternity sounds like some insane guy bellowing theatrical gibberish over feverish progressive-rock wanking. Which is to say that listening to this CD is like putting Scotch tape on a cat’s paws before draping a banana peel across its back: If you’re the cat, you’re frightened that some idiot is torturing you; if you’re the idiot, you’re laughing at the hapless cat. To hear Copernicus is to experience both sides, and to understand.