Frank Sinatra cut hits in this room. Brian Wilson masterminded the Beach Boys' 1966 jewel, Pet Sounds, here. Tonight, in Studio Two at Ocean Way Recording (the former United Western Studios), in Los Angeles, the star on the control-room couch — soaking in the deafening playback of fresh work — is Michael Balzary, better known as Flea, the thirty-six-year-old live-wire bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He is wearing a dark-green sweat shirt that says RAT SOUND and underneath, in smaller letters, FUCK YOU. And he is bouncing on the sofa with spring-action delight to the hip-hop crunch of "All Around the World," one of the twenty-eight songs rushed to tape in the last three weeks by a reunited, revitalized Chili Peppers.

"Anthony still has to write words to go there," Flea yells — meaning singer Anthony Kiedis — over the sound of his own frantic bass, the iron-bicep crack of Chad Smith's drumming and the chicken-peck funk of prodigal guitarist John Frusciante, who is back in the band after a six-year sabbatical. Given his agit-rap singing style, Kiedis' wordless hyperbark in the chorus sounds just fine. The problem is that Flea, Smith and Frusciante have been uncorking new instrumental pieces so quickly since Frusciante's return early last summer that Kiedis, who writes the lyrics and melodies, has been struggling, happily, to keep up.

Flea points to the proof: two big scoreboards on the wall, marking the rapid progress of the Chili Peppers' forthcoming album — produced by Rick Rubin and as yet unnamed, it's to be released June 8th on Warner Bros. with heavy touring to follow. The band isn't sure which songs will be on the finished record, but particularly juicy titles include "Phfat Dance," "I Like Dirt," "Purple Stain" and "Gong Li," named after the Chinese actress.

"Phfat Dance" doesn't have words yet, either, but it has a hard, sassy kick and a nifty, backward-lead guitar break. "Scar Tissue," which does have lyrics, features a strutting rhythm running under Kiedis' pensive vocal. "Parallel Universe" is a hip, mongrel blend of rat-a-tat riffing, a fried-disco beat in the verse and a big, rock-out surge in the chorus. "It's a little soft here," Flea says apologetically of the guitar in the rough mix. At that point, as if on cue, Frusciante's instrument bolts out of the speakers in a mad-dog distortion seizure.

"A lot of these songs started as jams," Flea says as Kiedis, Frusciante and Rubin — who produced the band's last album with Frusciante, 1991's breakthrough Blood Sugar Sex Magik — pop in and out of the studio, preparing for a hard night's labor. "As soon as John came back into the band," Flea goes on, "we jammed in my garage all summer. Then we did the album in three weeks." Basic tracks, in fact, were done in five days.

"Flea first brought it up," notes Kiedis later, between vocal overdubs. "He said, 'What do you think of playing with John again?' I said, 'That would be a dream. But what are the odds that the chemistry would work for even a minute?' And he said, 'Yeah, the odds are a million to one.' But from the first time we got together to play, I felt completely levitated.

"Yeah, there's an instability factor. I couldn't take the time to go over the history of discombobulation that this band has been through," Kiedis says, referring to, among other things, the 1988 fatal overdose of original guitarist Hillel Slovak and the three guitarists, including Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction, who zipped through the Peppers in Frusciante's absence. "We all know not to project how many years this thing is going to work. Right now, it's working like crazy."