BUSY IN THE STUDIO, Wax Fingers have a new arsenal to draw from, and it’s some of the smartest music in the present Portland circuit. Built out of the same math-rock backbone, there’s a new layer of tempered chaos. There’s percussion all over the stage, from where it’s expected on the trap set to electric guitar neck plucking and rhythm guitar hammering. It’s as though Yes were reunited and asked to cover Animal Collective’s Feels.

WITH ONE FOOT planted firmly in an experimental psychedelic stew, and the other tippy-toed on a tight wire of spastic instrumental noodling, Wax Fingers succeed in injecting their plunky pop with depth, but without the pretension…

LOCAL STANDOUT Wax Fingers is a trio of musically intrepid laborers, constructing exploratory brain-rock tracks of immense feeling and discipline. Often substituting lyrics for funky, ever-transitioning guitarspeak, Wax Fingers embodies artful minimalism. Its gusto emanates from radiating strings and complex percussion instead…

THANKS TO WAX FINGERS and their new song, “Sticky Bees,” I now know what it would sound like 20,000 leagues under the sea.

WHEN A GROUP like Wax Fingers sends me a track, I just feel blessed to live where I live.

COMMITTED TO ITS QUEST of shaking loose paint off walls through lush, experimental jams that corkscrew up and down like a carnival ride. It’s effectual prog-rock with a dash of black magic and whale song…