The economy is tanking, we’re in debt up to our eyeballs and there’s apparently no stopping the abject horror and anguish that is American Idol. Fear not, music fans, because despite all the maladies that are infecting civilization as we know it, Les Claypool has gotten exponentially weirder.

“When you say I’m getting weirder, I get it,” says Claypool. “But to me, it feels like I’m becoming more and more honest. That might be a total bullshit thing to say, but I feel like this new record is a sub-conscious record. I went in, did it and didn’t try to push anybody’s buttons but my own.”

Released on his long-running label Prawn Song, Of Fungi And Foe is the latest aesthetic adventure from Claypool, the singer/bassist who, for the past two decades, has infiltrated the consciousness of music fans in his alternating roles as alt-rock personality (fronting future-funk icons Primus), inspired bandleader (as CEO of such units as Colonel Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, the Holy Mackerel and Bucket Of Bernie Brains), capable sideman and A-team player. Given Claypool’s forward-in-all-directions mindset and storied career—which also includes non-musical pursuits as directing feature films (2008’s Electric Apricot) and writing books (2006’s South Of The Pumphouse)—you might think he’d be encumbered by an ennui-ridden malaise of epic been-there-done-that-sold-the-shirt-on-eBay proportions. Of course, you’d be dead wrong, Rumsfeld. Explain it to’ em, Lester…