For the past 15 years, North Carolina-based Three Lobed Recordings has documented an intersection of underground psychedelia and Americana—some improvised, some not. The 10 artists spread over five LPs of the label’s ambitious new Parallelogram box set come from a simultaneously cozy and  wide spectrum of recent faces and old heroes to create an oddly unified and vital collection of new music.

On the accessible end comes Philadelphia indie heartthrob Kurt Vile in gorgeous acoustic mode, bringing appropriate wryness to songs by John Prine (“Why Back Then”) and Randy Newman (“Pretty Boy”), plus a pair of new originals. On the flip comes new guitar-hero Steve Gunn, continuing to negotiate expressive guitar heroics and proper songs with the drumlessly soaring, 10-minute “Spring Garden.” On his own LP side, Nashville, Tenn.’s William Tyler, a guitarist working with a similar palette as Gunn, stays instrumental on a pair of 10-minute pieces, going dreamily modal (“No Marigolds in the Promised Land”) and exquisitely narrative (“Southern Living”). Old-guard wyrrd-picker Ben Chasny, playing as Six Organs of Admittance, demonstrates the balance perfectly on his 16-minute “Lsha.” The box’s May-December award goes to newcomer Hiss Golden Messenger (maybe too accessible?) and grizzled Michael Chapman (never too accessible).

Some big names are expectedly noisy, such as Sonic Youth co-founder Thurston Moore, jamming in his Caught On Tape duo. Others are unexpectedly expansive, like Yo La Tengo’s 23-minute “Electric Eye,” dancing between squonked Ira Kaplan soloing and a burbling sound swamp (with submerged vocals). A supergroup of Harry Pussy’s Bill Orcutt, Sun City Girls’ Alan Bishop, and freelance, wild-style drummer Chris Corsano blow big and strange on seven improv fragments, but on Parallelogram, nothing is as far out so much as it is right on.