Coming out of recent weekly gigs at Chicago's Rainbo Club and the Chopin Theater, cornetist Mazurek, bassist Matt Lux, guitarist Jeff Parker, keyboardist/percussionist Dan Bitney and drummer John Herndon have developed a loose orientation to form. Though they're sometimes compared to early '70s projects by trumpeter Miles Davis or keyboardist/composer Herbie Hancock--or ''space-rock meets the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians''--the group isn't as intense as those predecessors and doesn't explore to an extreme the improvisational labyrinth.

The group's relaxed music is an amalgam of spacious, slower-tempo funk grooves with cornet and electric guitar improv of a palatable variety. ''Utonian Automatic'' is also characterized by sound effects and minimal electronic processing, a style which they developed after trombonist Sarah Smith had to leave the group due to severe tendonitis. They plan to bring the electronics on the road and combine it with their improvisations.

Greynolds said the Chicago improv rock scene, which gained national recognition three years ago thanks to Tortoise and Gastr del Sol [ tickets ], ''is still fresh and vital. It still hasn't hit its peak.'' As examples, he points to Mazurek and Parker's new album on Delmark, bassist Lux's participation in recent Drag City label projects, solid programming at the Empty Bottle and Hot House venues, and the recent MacArthur ''genius'' grant awarded to multi-reedist Ken Vandermark.

''Maybe because it's not New York or L.A.,'' he said, ''it still has a communal sense, and people are playing on different people's records.''

Isotope 217 will spend January and February touring Europe, and afterwards, Herndon, Bitney and Parker will make a new recording with Tortoise, to be released in the fall of 2000.