*** Blue Man Group

AUDIO

(Virgin)

Music plays a much bigger role than you might generally assume in Tubes, Blue Man Group's long-running and hugely successful Off Broadway/Boston/Chicago theatrical production. Not only are the various invented instruments the Blue Men have built out of PVC piping and fiberglass rods a central, integral part of the show, but in the absence of a traditional narrative, it's music -- loud, percussive music -- that sets the pace and sustains the momentum for much of the performance. On the other hand, Tubes is an intensely visually oriented production, one that relies heavily on creating a synergy between sound and movement, drawing much of its compelling drama from the very physical interactions between Blue Man and machine. Plus, those odd, homemade PVC devices wouldn't sound half as cool if you didn't actually see them being used (whereas nothing is lost by having the familiar guitar/bass/drums backing band largely hidden away off stage). As a result, Blue Man Group rejected the notion of simply recording the music from a Tubes performance and marketing it as a traditional score in favor of writing and producing a collection of 14 new instrumentals that both draw on and are inspired by the music from the show.

There are parts you may recognize from Tubes, but on a whole Audio aims to stand on its own, with its spaghetti-western surf guitars (courtesy of the Ray Corvair Trio's Chris Dyas) offset by heavier, almost grungy power-chord assaults, thumping tribal rhythms (courtesy, in large part, of another Boston musician, drummer Todd Pearlmutter) bolstered by deep bass notes and Chapman Stick, and an array of conga- and marimba-like PVC percussion embellishments from the three original Blue Men themselves (Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton, and Chris Wink). There's still something lost in the translation from a visual to a purely audio medium. But Audio does succeed as something of a visceral alternative to the cerebral instrumental rock of bands like Tortoise and Trans Am, and the kind of album that ABC's Wide World of Sports would be happy to get its hands on.

-- Matt Ashare