NO SHITTIN', it took all of 30 seconds for Weird Weeds' new EP to fully blow my mind. The thing starts off with nice, gentle, country folk guitar, just sorta trembling along on a cold, frozen morning, and drums drowsy and behind the singers when—BAM!—suddenly the music cuts out and now there's a shaker keeping the beat and a brand-new time signature, and for the last half minute of the song we're in a flea circus with music tinkered out by toy instruments that don't sound like toys, just tiny, perfect, tuneful little instruments.

The rest of the Austin-based band's This is Not What You Want EP—which you can download for free at www.weirdweeds.com—is full of nimble, layered folk that trips out all over the place without ever sounding wanky, uncoordinated, or unstructured. In a post-noise music scene there's a lotta lazy people improvising because it's easier than actually writing songs. This hurts the true improv artists and craftsmen alike, but music like Weird Weeds just makes the fools look retarded. There's nothing half-assed or phoned-in about this; it's solid, steady, stable music that can still get loose without sounding loose because it understands the subtle balance of hard work vis-à-vis hyper-creativity.

So, at the risk of sounding like a geek (actually, I don't give a fuck) I am thrilled that these guys are coming to town. Weird Weeds played as Castanets' backing band at SXSW last year and accounts of it are damn near legendary. I have a feeling they won't let us down. And if they play their cover of Van Morrison's "Sweet Thing," (which you can hear on the EP) I'm nominating them for President in '08.