I initially decided to catch the Six Parts Seven and Richard Buckner in Mount Pleasant, SC as a sort of rebound, having just parted from San Francisco two months ago. The lead, Allen Karpinski contacted me via the Internet and told me of an additional secret show in Columbia. Then, I saw online that they would be playing Atlanta. Why not see all three?

The seven members of the instrumental band, which has been featured on NPR, are subtle in their approach. I envision them composing the sort of musical score in which one becomes teary during the film without knowing why. They recall such contemporaries as Sigur Rós, James Blackshaw and even Built to Spill in their compositions. The wind of sturdy and continuous rhythm flows spaciously throughout the body of the whole, eliciting a relaxed yet active response to the sound.

The energy in Mount Pleasant’s Village Tavern is a bit much on khaki and pearls, this being beside the old and affluent city of Charleston. But the beers on tap are good—we’re drinking Rogue Mocha Porter and Blue Moon.

The Six Parts Seven set comes exclusively from their fifth release, Casually Smashed to Pieces, with “Conversation Heart” drifting into “Stolen Moments” into “Awaiting Elemental Meltdown” and so on. My friend Dan Victor says it is like rainy-day music, to which I reply, “rainy Saturday music.” It’s like no-strings sex, if no-strings sex actually worked: lacking in historical subtext, weightless, rich with subtle climaxes and plateaus.

And their comfort onstage translates, Karpinski sitting cross-legged with his shoes off, and Jennifer Court slouching dazedly over her clarinet. Even drummer Matt Chasney seems way too chilled out to be beating on things. It’s the musical equivalent of Valium.

Banjo player Mike Tolan enters the crowd during their final song, “Knock at My Door,” kneeling down and strumming as the others whistle a synched melody. As with the rest of the set, this forms the finale of all three shows I will see. This group, I will soon realize, relies on math, symmetry, on the exploitation of formulas that work.

Most Southerners appreciate country music. We like its simplicity; worn jeans and flasks passed and cowboy hats; straight and plain lyrics and melodies that do not try to be any more than the unwashed and unmade face of love. The crowd has become quiet and thick when alt-country heavyweight Richard Buckner goes on, coalescing around me while I was not paying attention.

Neither is he. Buckner hunkers over the stool, squinting, totally removed as he draws his voice out of some place subterranean. The microphone has been turned down too low, and there are still a lot of loudmouths talking in the bar; I can’t hear all of the words. However, his purring, growling voice elicits a response straight out of my gut, reminding me of stars I grew up listening to such as Alan Jackson, Dwight Yoakam, Vince Gill.

He has drastically slowed the tempos of songs like “Her, Before” and notably the cryptic “Boys, the Night Will Bury You” to evoke a darker live presentation, disoriented scenes of nights spent alone and without anywhere to go besides inward. The 6P7, however, uplift the songs with texture and buoyancy.

They leave the stage to allow him a spotlight in the solo. He is a big man with the age showing in his face and is dressed in a red collar shirt and dark jeans, unassuming garb. He plays several solo songs and then walks off as the applause begins. He does not play an encore.

Four nights later, I have traveled down to Atlanta for my second night following the band. On the way backstage, I run into Richard.

“Hey! Do you remember me?”

“Sure. You were in—wait, Mount Pleasant, right? You came down here just for this? ”

He asks this with a sweet, happy grin. Not the man of brood and thunder from the stage, he’s genuinely happy to see me again. Maybe he did grow up in California and not the South, but the good old boy could really fool my mother.

“I was going to be down here, anyway. My eighty-year-old grandpa is getting married in Georgia, to his high school sweetheart.”

“Oh my gosh, I love that. What a waste of time though, right?”

Okay, maybe he is a bit gloomy.

On the deck behind The Earl, I pose a hypothetical question to Karpinski and his bandmate Jake Trombetta, “What if everyone just said whatever they thought all the time?”

“Oh, it would be wonderful,” Karpinski says. “We would be like children again—only wiser, and more intelligent.”

This from a guy who writes songs without lyrics.

One of those grungy black box affairs, The Earl has fantastic acoustics. 6P7 delve into their casual smashing to pieces, creating another beautiful and meditative soundscape, one that I may not remember distinctly, but will continue to intuit long afterward, perhaps in the relaxation of muscles, anxieties spent.

Together with Buckner, something sparks, and the songs begin to foray into the rambling and animated terrain of progressive rock. Under their care, they become danceable and even trance-inducing. It is the same set, yet significantly longer than the night before, and somehow, more involved.

How is it that the same formula, literally the exact same set list creates such a dramatically different mood? Perhaps they are right when they write on their MySpace page, “Listening is a form of creation. This music isn’t complete, nor defined, until each individual listener internalizes the sounds and re-imagines them in their own fashion.” This sort of conviction unites them with Buckner; both are so strong because they know exactly what they are doing and why, and because they are persistent in their measured plodding across a decade and more to do it.

After seeing my grandpa and his new wifey feed each other cake the next day, I drive back to my hometown of Columbia, SC for a show in a comic book shop that opened while I was in California.

Richard is out back drinking a beer and smoking an American Spirit. I kick up my boots and we get to talking. He mentions an overheard conversation: “Some guy was talking to these people, and they were in some sort of religious group. Maybe they were Mormons. And he asked them, ‘So why would you want everlasting life, anyway?’ ”

Inside, about seventy people sit in Acme Comics and Records, which is closed and has been rearranged to accommodate the rows of chairs. There are Band of Horses and Unicorns poster on the wall and DVDs for sale such as Meeting People is Easy, a Radiohead documentary. By this time, I recognize the 6P7 set and am even a little weary of it. However the atmosphere soothes me into such a mellow mood that all I want to do is sit at the front like a kid during story time. They finish with that same whistling in unison as the dwindling sunlight falls on our faces and clothing and the shelves of albums and comic books.

Buckner’s presence is altogether royal and burly within the small space and his voice wonderful in that too-loud way. He articulates his fragments of metaphor so cogently that I can almost pick them up and hold them in my hand… yes, almost. Perhaps that is the essence of music: sublimity couched within the nearly-had, the persistent fleeing of sound, and the chasing of.

And how about saying exactly what we think, always? Perhaps we would understand ourselves and each other more clearly. The truth would seem less like betrayal, and communication would flow like water between us. And if am to never tell a lie, I must admit that I am chasing these musicians around because I miss San Francisco. I miss the way that girls dress boyishly and boys in those very skinny pants and thin shirts. I miss how it brims with so many who refuse to just grow up already. I miss acoustic shows in which all are quietly moved and best of all, quiet.

Yet, as this night reaches its hushed and obscure finale, I realize I don’t have to put a country behind me to find a sensitive culture of peers. It is sometimes hidden in a modest comic book store in the sleazy part of your own home town, familiar as jeans washed until finally, they are soft as skin.