The inimitable Tom G. Palmer, who I must confess I had previously imagined sat at home singing along to Wagner’s Der Ring des Niebelungen in flawless German, recently dropped some fantastic noise on me: the album Sax Pax for a Sax by a lunatic genius named Moondog.

Moondog is nominally a jazz artist, at least, that’s the most common label I turned up when poking on the web. But like calling, say, Robert Anton Wilson “sci-fi,” that doesn’t quite capture it. There are also elements of swing, of 19th century French impressionism, and even a bit of Busby Berkeley — a men’s choir pops in here and there to belt out an ode to “Par-ee, Par-ee” or New York. I was going to say he’s like Phillip Glass, if Phillip Glass weren’t boring, but that sounded a bit oxymoronic. Still, it seems apt somehow. Go load up you favorite p2p client and take an illicit listen. Then when you’ve confirmed that it’s phenomenal, go out and buy an album or three.