One of the reasons it’s so important for everyone to continue wearing masks at this point in the pandemic is to mitigate the number of people from transmitting the virus to one another—as the chance the virus could mutate into something nastier becomes greater. Taking mutation into consideration, it’s great that Osees frontman John Dwyer has been evolving so rapidly, churning out what would be half a decade’s worth of releases for any mere mortal from his compound during the last 18 months.

And just like in nature, Dwyer’s collaborations with different musicians has led to some pretty strange musical chimeras. Endless Garbage, the latest variant from Dwyer’s psychedelic petri dish, shambles and clangs like wounded jazz. It’s the sound of music shedding its rules. John Dwyer is joined by Ted Byrnes, Greg Coates, Tom Dolas and Brad Caulkins for the project, which feels like a great album of free jazz, but not much like an Osees album.

While Dolas plays keys in the Osees, one of the main differences with this project is Greg Coates’ upright bass playing; which, with its darker, acoustic tone, puts a lot of miles between Dwyer’s latest project and the Osees singular space-age garage-rock sound. On the album’s opener, “Vertical Infinity,” Coates—who’s been a part of the Long Beach music scene for years—lays down some very cool, angular low-end. But this is “out” jazz and so Coates’ role is not so much groove-keeper as it is rumbler in chief.

Brad Caulkins, who played on another recent Dwyer release, Witch Egg, provides various saxophone and other brass skronks that decorate the sonic chaos with the sound of a cat being removed from a wetsuit. On “Now Flutter,” Caulkins delivers funeral dirge-like wails, with the occasional flurry of notes swirling like drunken birds in a Dionysian celebration of flight.

On “Four,” Caulkins and Dolas attempt to out-bleep and out-bloop one another in a dizzying duel of electrified squeaks and brassy squawks while free jazz drummer Ted Byrnes sounds more like he’s building a drum kit than playing one. In fact, it was Byrnes’ loud garage practicing in Dwyer’s neighborhood that inspired the new musical connection and collaboration.

For his part, Dwyer is a bit of musical chameleon, switching from fuzzed-out guitar noise on “Lucky You” to weird jazz on “No Goodbyes” and gentle guitar disassembling sounds on “Pro-Death.” Dwyer navigates the strange sonic landscape like seasoned sea salt, which is much more difficult that it sounds.

It’s worth considering that there is a significant percentage of readers here who probably think all of this sounds quite terrible. But it’s great that artists are out there breaking the molds and trying new things. It’s a testament to Dwyer’s versatility that he sounds just as at home in free jazz skronk reminiscent of The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Ornette Coleman as he does playing Black Flag covers in Osees. And if you’re ready to hear what it sounds like outside of the box, Endless Garbage may be just for you.

Follow writer David Gill at Twitter.com/songotaku and Instagram/songotaku.