Just a slight hint of Dead in Hydra

Anyone expecting ‘60s grooves from Hydra, a brand-new collaboration of Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart and young Los Angeles quartet Particle, was off by at least a decade at the group’s show Sunday at the Henry Fonda Music Box Theatre.

Particle, featuring the fluid soloing of keyboardist Steve Molitz and guitarist Charlie Hitchcock over the sturdy foundation of bassist Eric Gould and drummer Darren Pujalet, gets most of its grooves from ‘70s jazz-funk, with more recent electronic elements added in. With Hart driving things with percussion and electronic devices, the ensemble’s almost-entirely instrumental dialogues at their best spanned more eras -- not to mention continents -- with Hart’s global ethnomusicologist experience more prominent than his legacy from the Dead. The opening “Stellar Particles” hinted at the potential when Hart used a Kenyan balaphon (a marimba-like instrument) to weave burbling polyrhythms around the band’s muscular, if foursquare, approach.

In Sunday’s second set, though, the richness of the combinations was fully realized. “The Glow” saw a return of the balaphon sounds as well as samples ranging from white noise to chanting monks, while the following “Luminiferous Ether” found unlikely common ground between Santana and Kraftwerk while building up the propulsion of a runaway train.

This project has perhaps the least connection to Grateful Dead music of any by surviving members since Jerry Garcia’s death nearly 10 years ago -- only an instrumental jam on “Fire on the Mountain” (a Dead song co-written by Hart) and a few teasing quotes from other songs. But the dancing Deadheads didn’t seem to mind at all.