Obscure--and Happy : Medicine’s mix is ambiguous, alluring--and sans hype. ‘We want it to be an organic thing, where people discover the music themselves.’

“When I put our CD on, I want to hear something completely confusing,” says Medicine’s guitarist and founder Brad Laner. “I want to be wondering, ‘How the hell did they do that?’ ”

Laner, 27, singer Beth Thompson, 26, and drummer Jim Goodall, 41, have reached that goal. The band’s layers of ethereal and abrasive guitar, synthesized effects and smooth, liquid vocals are ambiguous and alluring.

Though the group’s second full album, “The Buried Life,” reached the Top 20 on the college radio airplay charts after its release last October, it has remained an underground entity, creeping slowly toward daylight through word of mouth from such fans as Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan and Britain’s Cocteau Twins. The trio’s upcoming EP “The Sounds of Medicine,” due in May, features a remix by Corgan and a song sung by the Cocteaus’ Elizabeth Fraser.

But Medicine, who opens for Swervedriver at the Whisky on Monday and Tuesday, is happy in its obscurity.

“There’s been no massive media hype or MTV blitz, and that’s completely intentional,” saysLaner, who lives in North Hollywood. “We want it to be an organic thing, where people discover the music themselves. That way, if we ever do get massively popular, it won’t be a fluke. Besides, how would you hype a band like Medicine?”

That doesn’t mean Laner wants to keep his music a secret. “Sometimes I get frustrated because I think the album is packed with hits. . . . Then I listen to what hits are out there, and I realize how weird we are.”

The group formed in L.A.’s underground art rock scene, where Laner played guitar, electronics and drums for remote groups like Vox Pop, Nervous Gender and Savage Republic. Thompson, Goodall, guitarist Jim Putnam and bassist Eddie Ruscha completed the first lineup, which recorded the debut album “Shot Forth Self Living” for the British label Creation. American Records (then Def American) signed the band and re-released the album in 1992. Medicine released the EP “5ive” early last year, then reduced itself to a trio.

Laner grew up in Van Nuys and Sepulveda, where he formed an early obsession with music. Between the third and sixth grades, he recorded 40 albums on cassette.

“I made funny noises and songs. I had a piano in my bedroom I slept next to. I was just a little music nerd kid. Still am.”

The Beatles were a favorite until he was 10, when he discovered Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart. But it was the radical Yoko Ono albums of the late ‘60s that laid the groundwork for his current sound. “She was like screaming her head off over guitar feedback, and that just blew my mind. It set me off making guitar feedback at a really early age and driving my parents crazy.”

Laner went on to work on 30 independent albums with various obscure bands before starting Medicine.

“I’ve easily made hundreds of albums worth of music,” says Laner, who calls songwriting something of a compulsion. “I have whole closets full of cassettes. The albums that I’m on are only a tiny fraction of the music I’ve made.”

Medicine’s sound is partly a meltdown of his musical past, but “The Buried Life” is so fused with other elements, even he has trouble identifying the origins.

“That’s what I like about this album,” he says. “I can’t put my finger on it as easily as the first album. Before, I was real anxious to give the band a defining sound, but with this one, I wanted to lessen that and be all over the place. If someone says the album’s jangly or noisy or poppy, they’re not wrong. That’s just the way they hear it. There’s a hundred ways to interpret it.”

In Medicine’s music, sadness seems to come out in contemplative lulls, and anger in swirling chaos. But Laner insists that it reflects little of his own personality.

“My problem with confessional music is that it’s mundane,” he says. “It’s like, ‘Here’s my feelings, here’s my life.’ With us, we’re making a different life altogether. We’re trying to create a separate reality rather than wallow in whatever reality we may be in at the time. It’s more fun. There’s nothing wrong with escapism.”