Stars of the Lid in a Rare Concert in Brooklyn Stars of the Lid Brian McBride, half of this duo, with the Wordless Music Orchestra at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Brooklyn. It's not hard to concoct a list of likely inspirations for Stars of the Lid, the persuasive ambient-music duo formed in 1993 by Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie. Seminal tape-loop meditations by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, the haunting tidal wash of Gavin Bryars's most influential handful of works, the infinite sadness of Gorecki's Third Symphony, the unsettling disquiet of Angelo Badalamenti's "Twin Peaks" music: All this and more resonates in the duo's work. Still, to list a menu of what might constitute Stars of the Lid, presented by Wordless Music in a rare concert at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, on Tuesday, is to diminish the distinction and impact of what Mr. McBride and Mr. Wiltzie have created. Across a span of seven albums issued from 1995 to 2007, the pair's work evolved from scrappy electric-guitar murmurings and talk-radio sound bites to majestic epics built from slow, simple chord progressions swathed in reverb, illuminated with strings and horns, and repeated to trance-inducing effect. What Stars of the Lid presented with the flexible Wordless Music Orchestra - here, nine string players built around a core group from the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, with which Mr. Wiltzie had previously collaborated - mostly consisted of music slated for a forthcoming album, with a handful of earlier pieces newly arranged by Mr. Wiltzie. Like Satie's "Gymnopédies" as heard through a narcotic veil, the music stair-stepped and circled with melancholy deliberateness, slight disharmonies lending the sensation of cracked, yellowed photos. Sometimes the strings worked alone; elsewhere they ceded to Mr. McBride and Mr. Wiltzie, who played electric guitars and small keyboards. When they all combined, new sounds emerged from the ether; imaginary horns, harps, organs and choirs suited a glorious cathedral awash in sympathetic lights and projections designed by Luke Savisky. Opening the show, Justin Walter performed a set of original electronic pieces: two from a beautifully moody recent LP, "Lullabies & Nightmares," among a clutch of newer works. Mr. Walter's preferred implement, the Electronic Valve Instrument, might be the least sexy horn ever invented. But the fluid solos he produced, over his whooshing, throbbing background loops and Erik Hall's drums, would have been the envy of any New Age synthesizer guru. The Wordless Music series presents the band Neutral Milk Hotel, Jan. 23 to 25 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Avenue, at Ashland Place, Fort Greene; wordlessmusic.org.