Everything in the deckhouse of Volker’s magic carpet is designed to supplicate whatever muse inspires his art, from his one-man recording rig to his armada of dictionaries. Through overlaying multiple passes on his multiple-effects keyboard, including the otherworldly maracas shakes that added deep vibe to so many Radiators tunes, Volker builds an incantatory trance music that underlies his fascination with revenant spirits, magnetic spheres, the afterlife and the labyrinths of love. Or all of it at once, as in “Ma Ma Magnetizer”: “She eats what she kills and then she lets it kill her/ She’s a killer-diller, the real chinchilla.”

There are a lot of really catchy pieces here, including the languid melody of “Call Throw Back Man” (which references the Rads’ loss of its equipment truck several lifetimes ago); the very Rads-like pulse of “Crashing the Past”; “The World Without You,” a tribute to both Earl King and Clark Vreeland, Ed’s old sidekick from the Rhapsodizers; the dance party anthem “Twist It Up,” with its references to Chubby Checker, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley and Eddie Bo; and the reflections of Alice in Wonderland in the title track.

Volker’s tunes are easy on the ears and prone to set your feet a-pattin’, but are not always so easy to decipher. Or recipher or lucipher.

He’s an imagist, a punster, a wordsmith, a Zen trickster. The stories he may be telling probably do not adhere to whatever narrative the listener is taking from them. As if that mattered on this highway. Poetic license and registration, please. Don’t get out of the car, and don’t take off your shoes.

A good example of Zeke’s slippery method appears on the title track of the latest release, Gone World. One of his best newer pieces, “Gone World” was the climax of this year’s Volker performance with Quintet Narcosis at Jazz Fest, and here it comes as an addendum to “Maggie Got a Firebird”: “When you goin’ back to the Gone World/ Take me with you when you go.”

Easy to understand, right? Except what is the “gone world”? Yes, the Firebird, but… Is it the Avalon of myth that guides our dreams? Is it a world that existed, the good old days that are indeed gone if not forgotten? Is it a world that never existed in the first place? Or is it a world we are going to, the world we step into when we “get gone,” like when we’re at a particularly good Zeke Fishhead show? Get back, Loretta.

At any rate, Gone World is a great place to start if you want to know more about Volker’s recent live appearances as Zeke Fishhead. It’s the closest available reflection of what he sounds like live these days, with four songs—the title track, the much-requested “Go Down Swinging,” “I Got a Thing for You” and “Dancing on the Grave of a Son of a Bitch” (I bet you think this song is about you)—all included in that Jazz Fest set. Also of note is the beautiful tribute to Allen Toussaint, “Sweet Touch,” and the thoughtful “Hundred Year Solitude,” inspired by the Angola Three.