The members in Rochester-based AudioInFlux wield their weapons wisely, emitting a sharp, funky groove. It threatens to break your neck if it weren't for the atmospheric, almost trip-hoppy overtones set to cushion the blow. Then along comes the vocals with all their joy and pain, sunshine and rain. Just picture Digable Planets if recorded by Tom Dowd at Stax, or a jam band that knows when to stop before the swirling masses yell "uncle." AudioInflux is a thing of beauty.

Guitarist George Miller brought together the band while he was living in Syracuse a year and a half ago, building it from the wreckage of the now-defunct Rochester band Space Agency.

"I wanted to completely start from scratch," Miller says. "I wanted to do funk/jazz; you know, experimental."

 When Miller split the Salt City for Rochester, the band lost members. Only Miller and bassist Kyle Uschold remained. "We were kind of bummed," Miller says. Then singer/drummer Chris English came along.

"And that's when everything changed," says Miller. "I met Chris playing basketball. We needed a drummer at the time and Chris told me he played drums and could sing a little bit." When he says this, the rest of his band mates in the room break out in laughter. Miller sticks to his story: "But that's what he told me, ‘a little bit.'"

The reason for the guffaws is simple: if anything, English sings a lotta bit, in a rich and raspy baritone, and has been singing for quite a while.

"Since I was 5," he says before correcting himself. "No, 3... no, in my mama's womb." The drums obviously started post-gestation.

"I started playing drums when I was 5," English says. "I taught myself how to read music, the rudiments, everything." English had played with AudioInFlux saxophonist/flutist Doug Egling in the band Bodega Radio, and had toured - and did side project session work - with legendary blues guitarist Buddy Guy. English met Guy while English was playing in what English calls a "high-class wedding band."

"Golf resorts, famous people," he says. "But I don't care about that." But he did care about being in a band where he could either sing or play drums. AudioInFlux was perfect; he could do both. "This is what I want to do for my whole life," he says. "Just find some people to vibe with."

And AudioInflux is all about the vibe, baby. This vibe and the band's sometimes-casual, always-deep groove helps it shrug off jam-band shackles. That's not to say that the band doesn't exhibit a fondness for the genre, especially in the open-ended middles found in its songs and perpetuated by the audience, which gets worked up even further with the band's resident MC, M.Coop.

"The crowd is a huge part of what we do, says keyboardist Drew Miltsch. "When we see them feeling great it just fuels us."

Uschold agrees. "It throws it back on them and then recycles back to us," he says. "It's like this perpetual awesomeness."

"There are songs that are never the same [twice]," Miller says.

"I think it's by having a jam sound, like a composition in itself," says Egling. "Not just a bunch of noodling. Or even think about it like a solo - ‘OK, let's do it quick, it's gotta make sense.' When it comes your time to step out and jam, the crowd pulls you out more. It's synergy. We're all in the moment and thinking on the same level. There'll be times where we're in a jam and Kyle and Chris will be jumping on some loop and it's like they're completely in each other's heads. And for me to be able to improvise on top of that is just...I love it."

"When it comes to the jam we're more on the jazz side," Miller says. "This is actually the band I've always dreamed of," he adds.

AudioInFlux is in the studio putting the final coats of paint on its debut CD, including a re-tooling of Jamiroquai's "Do You Know" and Ray Charles' "I Believe," which is exactly what you'll do when you hear how English tackles it.

"I just want people to listen to our music, man," he says. "The fame will definitely come if you just keep holding on." Yet some of the perks are already here.

"At the Water Street show when a girl just came up and tongue-kissed me after the show," he says. "Without saying a word."

AudioInFlux

w/J-San and the Analogue Sons

The Club @ Water Street, 204 North Water Street

Wednesday, July 14

9 p.m. | $5-$7 | 325-5600, audioinflux.net