"Alternafolkpunktronica," Peckenpaugh calls his ambitious sound, an ethereal but tuneful and moody but mesmerizing style primarily crafted with an acoustic guitar fed through an array of effects onstage and heavily altered with computer programming in the studio. "It's my way of poking fun at the absurdities of pigeonholing music into genres, and yet is also probably a pretty fair description of my music," Peckenpaugh writes of that unwieldy, hyphen-hungry genre, and he's right: How else to label songs such as "Miss Your Sin," "Never Call" and "Again" from his self-released album "Year of the Dog," which evokes a Bizarro World collaboration between Billy Bragg, Brian Eno and Yello?

Peckpaugh doesn't quite have the vocal chops to pull off everything he tackles--it would be interesting to hear him collaborating with a really strong and dynamic singer, a la Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet--but his music is well worth checking out on the Web at www.myspace.com/scottpeckenpaugh. He'll also be performing live during a free afternoon of art and music at The 3160, 3160 N. Clark, from 4 to 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 23.