Kevin Bronson on June 14th, 2013

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It’s easy to imagine composer Chris Schlarb in a white lab coat, surrounded by Bunson burners, a glint in his eye. If not out-and-out magic, what Schlarb practices in his Long Beach studio is musical alchemy, a cerebral yet somehow sensual voyage to world unfettered by boundaries. Schlarb debuted his ambient experimentation “Psychic Temple” back in 2010, but for the follow-up, “Psychic Temple II” (out July 16 via Sufjan’s Stevens’ Asthmatic Kitty label), he has outdone himself, again assembling a diverse collection of collaborators for his excursion into rock, prog, pop, jazz and a few other forms nobody’s named yet. Included are Stevens himself on “’Til I Die” (a Brian Wilson song), the Happy Hollows’ Sarah Negahdari on “Seventh House,” Castanets’ Raymond Raposa, the Mars Volta’s Ikey Owens, singer-songwriter Aaron Roche, Learning Music’s John Wood and Cryptacize’s Nedelle Torrisi. On the surface, nothing seems to fit on “Psychic Temple II,” but everything does – Schlarb’s eight originals, the cover Frank Zappa’s “Cover No. 2” and the strange-but-true rendition of Joe Jackson’s “Steppin’ Out.” Can anything really be mind-blowing these days? “Psychic Temple II” makes a case.

||| Stream: “Seventh House” (featuring Sarah Negahdari) and “’Til I Die” (featuring Sufjan Stevens)

||| Download: “’Til I Die” on a name-your-price basis on Bandcamp

||| Watch: After the jump, check out the video for “Seventh House”