Last December, a rock band from outer space performed live on a Seattle radio station. The extraterrestrial group, a duo, calls itself Angine de Poitrine. The guitarist, Khn, and drummer, Klek, were covered in black-and-white polka dots. Each musician had a proboscis longer than Pinocchio’s nose. Their music is even more otherworldly. Listeners had never heard anything like it. A YouTube video of the duo’s performance on radio station KEXP went viral. To date, it has garnered over 20 million views.

In reality, Angine de Poitrine consists of two anonymous musicians from Canada who wear absurdist costumes, speak in a made-up alien language, and claim they came to Earth because they were intrigued by human rock concerts. But the Dadaist gag belies their serious musicianship. The duo’s music is unusual to the human ear because it employs microtones. Those are the notes in between the 12 notes used in traditional Western scales.…