MUSIC REVIEW : Ceramic Ensemble at Art Gallery

Brian Ransom makes music the hard way--he makes his instruments first. He designs and builds, from the ground up, all manner of clay flutes and whistles, drums and chimes, even his own baroque versions of a saxophone and fleugelhorn.

Sunday evening, Ransom and his Ceramic Ensemble gave a free-wheeling, wide-ranging concert at the Couturier Gallery, near La Brea and Beverly, in conjunction with an exhibition there of his instruments.

Ransom’s music is a genial fusion of world musics, pop and jazz, with a nod to classical mavericks such as Lou Harrison in the way of unusual modes, quarter-tone tweakings and sheer inventive spunk. He doesn’t rely on clay alone for his sounds--most of the pieces are synthesizer-backed, and he sweetens his amplified instruments with reverb and other electronic processing.

Pieces ranged from the new “Solstice,” a suavely shaped and thematically well-developed essay for a variety of flutes, to the quirky bopping of “Try to Tell a Fish About Water,” a sort of minimalist Amazon folksong. Joining Ransom on all the instruments, in tight, fluent ensemble were Ernesto Salcedo and Norma Tanega, the latter featured in a ceramic updating of her 1966 pop hit “Walking My Cat Named Dog.”

Guest Susan Rawcliffe brought her version of the aboriginal Australian didjeridu to “Invocation for Susan,” an extended bit of boisterous bravura that sounds not unlike a BART station at rush hour.