Robert Kyniston, left, and Billy Mickelson make experimental, ambient music together under the name Mysle.

When Billy Mickelson talks about music and what it means to him, he speaks in intense, level tones, often staring out a window as he searches for the right words.

Sometimes, they don’t come, and he looks to his longtime best friend, Robert Kyniston, who’s also his partner in local ambient duo Mysle. (Pronounced “miss-luh,” it’s a Czech word that means “body, mind and heart.”)

The thing is, the words don’t come easy to Kyniston, either.

That’s OK. Fitting, really, because these two men — Mickelson is 24, Kyniston, 23 — are the hearts, minds and personalities behind one of Central Oregon’s darkest, most challenging musical projects.

If they were all hearts and rainbows and unicorns, it’d be a little … odd.

“I’m a pretty somber guy, and I think that’s why Rob and I get along so well musically. We’re both pretty somber people with the music we listen to or the music we like to capture,” Mickelson said, his eyes fixed on the outside. “I really like darker moods, somber moods, and (my music) just comes out that way.”

Indeed, Mysle’s new album “Chrysalis” — which the duo will fete with a show in Redmond tonight (see “If you go”) — is a study in brooding ambient music. One by one, nine stark soundscapes confront the listener, built with conventional parts (guitar, piano, voice) nestled alongside the unconventional, where songs as long as nine minutes creep along, gathering steam and the scattered sound of horns, cello, percussion, and much more unorthodox stuff.

The unconventional, in Mysle’s case, is everywhere. From the band’s history to its recording techniques to its sound, Mickelson and Kyniston choose an uncommon approach to making music.

The two have been playing together since their time at Redmond High School, where Kyniston’s art and attitude caught Mickelson’s attention.

“In high school, Robert … was very quiet, very soft-spoken, and I … just wanted to know what he was about,” Mickelson said. “I read some of his poetry. He showed me some things he’d been writing on his guitar, and it went from there.”

The friends formed Mysle in 2002, and in the six years since, they’ve released two albums and played once in public. Until tonight.

“We’ve always been a studio recording band, and we never really cared to perform. We just wanted to make great music,” Mickelson said. “Now it’s really exciting to take all these songs and … perform them just between the two of us.”

Kyniston is every bit as soft-spoken as his friend says, but he piped in here: “I kind of want to share it with everybody, and bring it out there so people can hear it.”

Mysle’s sudden interest in playing their music for friends, family and fans is a direct result of the passion they feel for “Chrysalis,” an album four years in the making. Over that time, they figure, recordings were made in 10 different homes, plus various locations around the world as Mickelson and Kyniston have traveled.

Incorporated throughout “Chrysalis” are field recordings of noise from across the planet: in the woods, on the ocean, in the desert, in Iceland and Arizona and New Mexico. The album features a church bell in Taos, N.M., and a vocal captured in a tunnel near Multnomah Falls.

“We like to experiment,” Mickelson said.

The field recordings “give the music a lot more memories,” Kyniston said. “There’s stuff that you remember when you’re listening to a song.”

Hearing that point, Mickelson perked up: “It definitely captures the four years that it took to make this album, with all the traveling and the emotion going on in our lives,” he said, clutching his chest. “It really captures all of that, I think. It’s probably the most important thing I’ve ever done.

“It captures more of my life than any music I’ve ever recorded or played.”

Kyniston nodded in agreement. That happens a lot. The two are not only great friends, but they seem to share a musical brain. There are vocals on “Chrysalis,” sung by Mickelson. But the lyrics are penned by Kyniston. They say it wouldn’t work any other way.

“I can’t write words. I’ve tried. It never works out for me,” Mickelson said. “But I love to sing, and I love to sing Robert’s words, and it’s so strange how his words with my melody release a feeling that I’m going through in my life.”

Kynston put it in simpler terms.

“I think we trade off a lot and play to each other’s strengths,” he said.

Mysle’s strength, unquestionably, is mood music. It’s the kind of stuff you can put on during a quiet evening at home, or while reading a book, or in an effort to clear your mind of all the junk that piles up in there from day to day. Mysle’s music is a soundtrack, perhaps, for the inner workings of the farthest corners of your mind, where music floats rather than chimes, and sounds appear out of nowhere and then fade into the dark. Where songwriters ignore typical three-chord structures and score songs to cause something like catatonia.

“It’s very gray, cloudy, gloomy, but hopeful, in my opinion. That’s how I see it,” Mickelson said. “I’m very curious (to see how people react to it), because the music is slow. All you can do is just stare at it.”

Kyniston has a slightly less abstract description for the duo’s music.

“I tell people that it’s ambient music to just relax to,” he said, “because that’s what it is for us.”

Mysle’s “Chrysalis” CD is available for free at Ranch Records, and the band will have copies at its show tonight in Redmond. But there’s another way to get it, this one without leaving your home.

In November, Billy Mickelson of Mysle (and Redmond) launched www.thirdseven.com, a not-for-profit Web site and record label dedicated to making his music and his friends’ music available to anyone who wants to hear it.

On the Third Seven site, you can find recordings by not only Mysle, but also Larry and His Flask, Mr. Potato, Grimsbeard, Collothen, Mangled Bohemians, Strange Attractor and Mickelson’s solo project Third Seven. The music is available for free download or streaming, and it ranges from punk rock to ambient to electronic to metal.

Third Seven’s site acts as a compendium of sorts of some of Central Oregon’s most experimental bands, and that’s exactly what Mickelson wants. There’s a place to donate to the cause, but no traditional online shop.

“I don’t care about money,” Mickelson said. “Obviously it’d be great to make money and have a full-time job playing music, but if … (the music is) going to come from the heart unconventionally, it’s not as easy to do that. In that sense, I may as well have the music free.”

— Ben Salmon

What: Mysle CD-release show

When: 6 tonight

Where: Santiago’s Mate Co., 528 S.W. Sixth St., Redmond

Cost: Free

Contact: tsrbilly@yahoo.com or www.myspace.com/mysle