Eiliyas

Noise in the ear of the beholder

When Eiliyas says he prefers to talk in person versus using the telephone, you expect him to offer some deep, mystical reason for it based on the cataclysmic soundscapes he creates.

But his explanation is pretty straight-forward.

“It’s just my mild way of speaking or whatever,” he says over a plate of fries and a turkey burger at Eclipse di Luna. “That, and the fact that Sprint has been kinda trippin’ lately.”

Cell-phone bills notwithstanding, Eiliyas is a complex brother. But he prefers to let his music do the talking. In three years’ time, the Macon native has made a good bit of noise in Atlanta’s experimental scene. He recorded more than 200 songs during the span, selling some hand-to-hand as three separate EP releases.

Eiliyas envelops everything from traditional instruments to field recordings into his sound palette. It’s not what he uses, however, but how he puts it together that makes it gel. Like most noise artists, he plays with distortion and drone aplenty. Yet he still makes room for melodic rhythms in songs such as “Jiminoschooxie,” which sounds like a long-lost collaboration between George Clinton and Sun Ra.

Oddly enough, hip-hop laid the path toward experimentation for Eiliyas. “I remember being young and looking through my pop’s records,” he says, explaining how he’d dig for the source material sampled by favorites, such as Showbiz & A.G. “That would be like a game I would play. Go look in my pop’s record collection and see if I could find the original.”

His parents haven’t quite embraced his evolved taste, though. “Sounds like somebody on acid,” his mom said the first time she overheard his music. He has, however, found a receptive ear in collaborator Zano. Together, the two work like alchemists, says Eiliyas, transforming noise into something sublime. Ringtones not included.

Eiliyas opens for nerdkween, Amanda Ray and One Hand Loves the Other at Apache Café. $10 for 21 and over; $15 for 18-20. 9 p.m. Fri., Nov. 16. www.apachecafe.info.