"Welcome to the Tempo ... Tempo Valley."

With his zen purr of a voice and guileless smile, master-of-flow Joseph "Seph 1" Rosales greets the crowd filling the barstools and mod scarlet loungers of Jazz Minds Art & Cafe for his band's weekly Saturday night gig. Producer and vocalist Eugene "Slo" Carroll works some beats off his beloved Akai MPC 3000 beat machine and phrase sampler. Sitting stoically stage-front, cellist Dianne Rubio coaxes mournful sonics with her bow while the rest of Tempo Valley's membership provides rhythm.

Vocalist Jennifer "Paisley" Cua drifts on stage, closes her eyes and takes the mike. Her vocals are pretty and dreamy; her lyrics speak of cautious optimism in trying times.

The song is a mellifluous, slightly tropical balled called "Treehouse." Other compositions — with titles like "Opium," "Femme Nu," "Dream Away" and "Not Your 'Fluffer' " — arrive equally hush and shy or more sinister of beat and sound. Sometimes, the songs work both worlds.

And so goes another Saturday night of Honolulu-based music collective Tempo Valley working its atmospheric, otherworldly melange of downtempo hip-hop, jazz, neo-soul, trip-hop, slightly psychedelic world beat and occasional oddball sonics.

Wicked inventive, funky eclectic and trippy original, the music of Tempo Valley showcases a gathering of musicians who have gained a loyal, growing grass-roots following. It's also a gathering of musicians about to release its first collection of music, "Memoirs of the Tempo" — unfinished versions of which have been passed around enough in the last year to earn Tempo Valley that growing grass-roots following.

"Everything's all right. Everything's OK," sings Cua, on "All Right," as the jazz minds — mostly folks in their 20s and 30s — sink into their seats and let the music wash over them. It's the only sound of its kind in Honolulu — think elements of The Roots meets Massive Attack meets Portishead meets Erykah Badu. And it's a pretty sweet listen.

VALLEY FORGED

The seeds of Tempo Valley were sown on a rainy Kane'ohe Saturday afternoon in December 2003. After crafting a beat with longtime friend Johanne Mitchell, Carroll had him play acoustic guitar over it and lay some vocals.

Pleased with what they heard, the duo continued recording, adding guitarist Kona Askari and rhyming vocalist Jamal Mamalias to the mix, and calling the project "Valley of the Tempo." The project ended abruptly when Mitchell moved to the Mainland in the middle of production. Carroll went back to working on beats and demos in a small studio he'd rented in downtown's Blaisdell Hotel. A year and a half went by, as he awaited inspiration for a new Tempo Valley project.

Enter Jen Cua.

"I was doing homework across the hallway in Jamal's studio," said Cua, recalling the November 2005 evening she first sang for Carroll. "I was finishing a last school project for my anthropology class at UH. ... I wasn't really into it. So I took a walk next door."

Cua had been introduced to Carroll by Mamalias, who was no longer involved with Tempo Valley. Though she hadn't done much vocal work in several years, Cua occasionally sat in with musicians such as John Cruz, Pure Heart, Fiji and Ka'au Crater Boys during their late '90s live shows.

More important to Carroll, though, Cua had never stopped writing.

"Eugene and Kona were working on a beat," said Cua. "Kona had just laid down rhythms on the beat and asked, 'You have anything sexy?' "

Cua suggested "My Fruit, Your Green Tree," a piece she'd written five years earlier for an English class.

"It was about a friend of mine who was a stripper," Cua said. "I went in the studio and messed around with rhythms and the beat that they had, finding a melody for the song. We did two or three takes. And by the end of the night, it became a song."

Carroll asked Cua if she was interested in recording a full CD. Tempo Valley was born again.

"I haven't let her leave since," said Carroll, laughing.

FEMME NU INSPIRATION

"A lot of what's on the CD came out of us in those first few months," Cua said.

Rubio, a classically trained cellist, and Jeffrey James, of Honolulu's famed family drum collective of Chuck, Jerome and Justin, came on board as recording progressed in 2006.

Spoken-word vocalist Rosales — of now-defunct local hip-hop collective Microscopic Syllables — joined shortly after Cua, inspired by the music being created at Carroll's studio and Cua's writing.

"Jen's experience and this music has taken me to a place inward," said Rosales, explaining influences on his soft-spoken, effortlessly smooth, always conscious flow. "It's her voice and the actual experience of projecting outward not necessarily your own personal experience, but an experience of life that is definitely tied to this music."

For her part, Cua said her lyrics are inspired mostly by watching people, imagining their lives and thoughts and distilling these through her life experiences — for instance "My Fruit, Your Green Tree," which became fan favorite "La Femme Nu."

"If you listen to our stuff, it's not really structured like your average song on the radio," said Carroll, of Tempo's difficult to pigeonhole sound, which reflects its membership's diverse musical backgrounds and interests. "There's no hook. A lot of it is free-flowing. And that's what I think is so fresh about our music. It's different but still consistent."

Tempo Valley earned its audience mostly through word-of-mouth, handing out free CDs of tracks from its "Memoirs" disc as it was still being recorded and posting fliers for the gigs it did in 2006. The band passed tracks to KTUH DJs and streamed all of its music on its Web site and MySpace. In January, Tempo Valley locked in its weekly Jazz Minds gig, which now draws a near full-house on Saturdays.

"It's a real intimate setting, and I think that our CD is really intimate," Carroll said.

Added Cua, laughing: "And it's right next to Femme Nu!"

"It's like a little haven in the middle of a crazy Babylon," said Rosales. "It's a warm environment. It feels cultured. And not just because there's pictures all around of all these dope jazz cats. ... You never know who you're gonna get."

THINKING BIG

Carroll, Rosales and Cua are gathered at Fort Union, Tempo Valley's studio sanctuary, on a Friday night. Fort Union is three rooms and a bathroom-turned-sound-booth housing Carroll's indie label, recording studio and design facility. It's on the fourth floor of Fort Street Mall's century-old Blaisdell Hotel, which all three members are only too happy to inform visitors is haunted.

"Around 8 p.m. when I know that all of the other offices and classes are out, I turn up the music and speakers," Carroll said of his nightly ritual. "I'm usually making beats or mixing something. Often, I let the music play and Seph writes to it."

If Cua is around, she'll drop vocal and lyric ideas. The rest of the band usually stops by later in the evening. Music can be heard on the mall through the early a.m.

Carroll imagines four Tempo Valley CD projects for Fort Union. First, the current lineup's "Memoirs of the Tempo," which focuses on Cua's lyrics and vocals. Next, a release of the unfinished alt-rock-jam-reminiscent "Valley of the Tempo" project followed by "Knights of the Tempo" featuring Rosales' flow. The final "Tempo Tranquille" will focus on Cua's and Rosales' vocal tracks from all three discs minus the beats, perhaps accompanied by acoustic instrumentation.

Other future Fort Union label projects may include recordings by modern jazz collectives Newjass Quartet and Nu Swing Project, and MC-focused hip-hop collective Tha Spacifics.

"I want Tempo Valley to represent Hawai'i like KRS-One represents New York," explained Carroll. "I want people to get a sense of the talent that's here in Hawai'i as well."

When the projects are completed, Tempo's members may even close the book on the band permanently and, as Rosales says, "crawl back into the valley."

For now though?

Said Cua: "We're just sharing a little window of the time that we spend together here."

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.