NIK BARTSCH'S RONIN

NIK BÄRTSCH'S RONIN "Zen-funk" is the term that Nik Bärtsch, a Swiss pianist, uses to describe the music of his five-piece band, Ronin, above. It's an eminently printable phrase, but it cleanly misses the mark. True, Mr. Bärtsch composed the pieces for his recent album, "Stoa" (ECM), during a six-month residency in Japan. And, yes, at times those pieces do flirt with funkiness, though to draw allusions to James Brown, as some reviewers have, following Mr. Bärtsch's lead, is a rather dubious stretch. The problem with the term is its connotation of mind-clearing tranquillity, when Ronin proposes something much more heady and premeditated. "Stoa," for instance, relies on a precision movement of interlocking parts in a manner suggestive of a timepiece. (The Swiss and the Japanese have long had this expertise in common, after all.) Minimalism is a useful frame of reference, in the same way that it is for some hard-to-classify American bands. One track on the album, "Modul 35," could be considered an acoustic corollary to the music of Battles; elsewhere there's a vague resemblance to Tortoise. And videotape of Mr. Bärtsch and his colleagues performing "Modul 33" last fall (find it on YouTube, or at nikbaertsch.com) brings to mind the contemporary chamber group So Percussion. Next week's showcase, which comes on the heels of festival appearances in Vancouver and Montreal, will mark Ronin's United States debut. If all goes according to plan, Mr. Bärtsch will engage the drummer Kaspar Rast, the percussionist Andi Pupato, the bassist Björn Meyer and the clarinetist Stefan Haslebacher in a tricky yet ethereal interaction that's more vivid in performance than on record. Maybe it will be meditative, and maybe it will get funky. Whatever the case, the crowd response will surely outdo the sound of one hand clapping. (Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., Joe's Pub, at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village, 212-539-8778, joespub.com; cover, , with a two-drink minimum.) NATE CHINEN