It's telling that the cover of the recent self-titled Doublends Vert (Present Sounds) disc camouflages the group's name in a sea of dark olive green. Discerning who is doing what in this unusual trio is similarly challenging as all three musicians--violinist Tom Swafford, accordionist Annie Lewandowski, and clarinetist Adam Diller--blend together so well by slowing down to the point of stark stillness.

At a Doublends Vert show last year, I hurriedly scribbled, "Imagine a vastly decelerated music from Appalachia like the High Lonesome humming across the empty Siberian tundra; Lewandowski lets her accordion wheeze until it crackles. On Swafford's violin, a note surfaces then sinks down into a prolonged, restful haze. Diller's tone: almost a sine or pure rect[angular] wave?"

Collectively composed and performed, this is calming, minimal music that augments and accompanies the sounds of daily life. It is almost impossible to hear the group in a setting free of external noise, yet passing cars, yells from a nearby alley, and the sniffle of someone behind you all fit in somehow. This isn't drone music but an elegant hermitage of gently dissonant, sustained tones: varying rates of vibrato create a bleak shimmering, Nature's equivalent of a sputtering streetlight overhead.

Opening the show is Daniel Higgs, singer for the latter-day krautrock band Lungfish; he plays a solo set just on Jew's Harp. The instrument is a twanging, boingy metal tine mounted in a loop of steel and thrummed against the mouth and is chiefly used today in folk music or for sound effects (especially to emphasize a cartoon character's surprise). Higgs creates strange buzzing drones and other oral/aural artifacts that belie its hick, homely origin. CHRISTOPHER DeLAURENTI

Doublends Vert perform Thurs Jan 27 (Gallery 1412, 1412 18th Ave at E Union St, 322-1533), 8 pm, $5-$15 sliding-scale donation.