Montreal’s Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band (SMZ) takes the Bluebird stage tonight.

SMZ is associated with the disbanded Godspeed You! Black Emperor, as its three founders were Godspeed members.

Like Godspeed, SMZ’s music has an avant-garde feel, with Efrim Menuck’s piano and vocal themes setting a foundation that the other members (two guitars, two violins, cello, contrabass and drums) can experiment with.

They are touring in support of their fifth album, “13 Blues for Thirteen Moons” (Constellation), released in March.

The album is eccentric, as the first dozen “songs” are actually tiny snippets of high-pitched noise. Hence, the record is actually four long tracks featuring crackling guitars, intense string parts and group vocal passages.

The song titles and occasional lyrics reveal an abstract take on protest music.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when a friend took me to see Godspeed at Mississippi Nights in 2003, but I was pleasantly surprised by a lush, orchestrated performance that kept me riveted.

I spoke with Menuck a few weeks back as his band prepared to tour the U.S.

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RC: Do you have any classical influence in your background?

EM: No. I was self taught. I started in my early twenties and have always been involved with punk rock and hard core bands. Both our violin player and upright bass player have some classical interests, but they were also self taught.

RC: In what tradition would you say your music follows?

EM: We are just a punk rock band in the truer sense of word – the older sense of word.

RC: How do you write your songs?

EM: I usually come in with a handful of riffs. We beat it over the head for few hours until we have a rough chordal structure with some counter lines. About a month of work goes into forming each song.

RC: Tell me about the new album – what was the reasoning behind the 12 snippets at the start?

EM: We knew we wanted to put out an abstract piece in the beginning to ease people into the album. Then we had the goofy idea of starting it off like that to make iPods glitch a little if they are on shuffle mode. It turns out iTunes doesn’t know how to handle a seven second track. (As for the album,) we took from blues themes and riffs. The third track (“Black Waters Blowed / Engine Broke Blues”) was written as a sad lament for a dear friend who was going through some difficult times.

RC: What can fans expect from your live show?

EM: Our live stuff is louder and sloppier, but we seem to do pretty well in a live context. We are a pretty accessible band. We do our own thing, but we’re not experimentalists or avant-gardeists. The music is pretty simple and self evident and people can either take it or leave it. We just make sure they take it or leave it on our terms and not someone else’s.

RC: Are you more concerned with the direction of the U.S. government than Canada’s?

EM: I’m not concerned with the U.S. more than Canada. All wealthy western nations are experiencing a crisis of leadership. Plain folks see how bleak their future seems to be. There’s an appalling lack of intelligent leadership everywhere. Nothing is being addressed: the environment, the collapsing economy… (As for U.S. protesters), I wouldn’t be jealous — Canada is not any better in any way, shape or form. We’re all in the same mess.

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band

Bluebird, 2706 Olive Street

Doors: 8:30 PM, $15, all ages