Jake Luce, aka Wild Boy, pioneers his hard-to-define musical style with a Matt Baldwin show at Fernwood.

Jake Luce, founder of the abstract musical collective Wild Boy, frequently asserts that his project’s pulse is “an act of rebellion.”

“We’re a band that attacks the traditional approach to music, focusing on formlessness and the release of energy,” he says.

“Spiritual” is another description he uses. The sound is difficult to describe, so Luce’s poetic definitions aren’t as cryptic as they might sound. Ultimately, the music accomplishes his goal – it unlocks imaginations, like a fill-in-the-blank experience of personal interpretation.

A Halloween appearance at Folkyeah’s Vertigo Festival in Bandit Town provides a peek into Luce’s lucid dreams. You trust in the constant rhythm of his drum machine and fall into a trance. Fragments of instrumental notes stimulate you then decay and you sink back. Luce’s quaking voice feels like internal narration.

Luce first began his foray into formlessness as a writer, which included a stop at the Weekly as an intern. “I started using two periods [after sentences] because I like the musical rhythm of it. The bop bop,” he says.

As a long-time resident of Big Sur, he immersed himself in the wild region’s artistic community and made his own contributions by authoring a novelette and making jewelry.

Luce’s shaved head, hand-made feather earring, and gentle demeanor evoke a bohemian monk. People may recognize him as the mysterious event-planner guy at concerts organized by Folkyeah.

Luce plays live with a cast of accomplished local musicians, including multi-instrumentalist Tom Lis, Tracy Cheesebrough on cello and Mike Scutari on drums. Luce collaborated with Pacific Grove native guitar wizard Matthew Baldwin to record an album, Invoke Me, at Baldwin’s studio in Berkeley. The album has yet to be released.

“I have to be quick in managing [the recording] because he often works improvisational,” Baldwin says. “The title Invoke Me has a lot to do with our mutual interest in esotericism,” he adds.

Baldwin, who headlines the upcoming Fernwood show with Wild Boy, is exploring a new angle in his musical career. He’s known for creating for his complex and hypnotic instrumental compositions, but he’s adding vocals and lyrics.

Baldwin finds inspiration through his experiences working at a psychiatric hospital. “It’s not like therapy in which one has to root around for feelings,” he says. “The emotions are intense and on the surface.”

WILD BOY and MATT BALDWIN 10pm Saturday Nov. 12. Fernwood Tavern, 47200 Highway 1, Big Sur. No cover. 667-2129, www.fernwoodbigsur.com