Andy Winter

2 Foot Yard was a San Francisco/Oakland-based chamber-rock trio led by violinist-vocalist Carla Kihlstedt, alongside cellist-vocalist Marika Hughes and multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily (drums, guitar). Functioning as a songwriting collective, the group blended chamber-music intimacy with rock and avant-pop, occupying "the fertile cracks between art song and pop song." It grew out of a solo album Kihlstedt released on Tzadik and released two records: the self-titled "2 Foot Yard" (Tzadik, 2003) and "Borrowed Arms" (self-released, 2008).

One-man Vienna-based experimental progressive metal project helmed by David Angerer, whose 2026 album Palingenaeon plays like 'a film score at a party' -- neoclassical/symphonic prog metal stitched together with circus music, absurdist black comedy, and a loose concept about botched reincarnation. Extremely new and thinly documented outside a handful of prog/metal press write-ups.

Oh. is the solo moniker of Greek multi-instrumentalist, composer, and director Olivia Hadjiioannou, who writes, performs, records, and mixes every part of her music herself. Her instrumental progressive-metal EP Metallia (self-released, July 2018) is a six-part concept work built from layered electric/acoustic guitars, violin, keyboards, and shifting time signatures; its 'Red Lion' music video won Best Music Video at multiple festivals, including the French Riviera Film Festival in Cannes.

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Cosa Brava is an experimental rock and free improvisation group formed in March 2008 in Oakland, California, by guitarist and composer Fred Frith (Henry Cow, Skeleton Crew, Naked City). All About Jazz described their sound as existing somewhere between folk, Celtic, modern chamber, Latin, funk, Eastern, and prog-rock. The quintet released Ragged Atlas (2010) and The Letter (2012) on Switzerland's Intakt Records, followed by Z Sides (2024). Its lineup draws together members of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum with longtime Frith collaborator Zeena Parkins.

Tokyo progressive/avant-garde metal quintet active since 1997, built around keyboardist Masashi Momota's sweeping piano work and vocalist Anoji Matsuoka's genre-hopping delivery, from spitting growls to a more crooned register. The band favors through-composed 'movements' over verse-chorus form, blending death metal weight with jazz and fusion harmony; their 2005 sophomore album Naishikyo-Sekai reached the West via a 2008 Season of Mist reissue. Early drummer Junichi Harashima left the band (replaced by Gaku Yamaguchi around 2006) to become the longtime drummer of fellow Japanese avant-garde metal act Sigh.

無下の人 (Muge No Hito / The Free Man)play in the dock

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Rabbit Rabbit Radio is the song-a-month art-pop duo of Carla Kihlstedt and Matthias Bossi, both formerly of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Founded in February 2012, the project releases a new song to Bandcamp subscribers on the first day of every month, collecting them into yearly volume albums. Drawing on art song, folk song, industrial and improvised music and heart-wrenching balladry, their songs are described as raw, beautiful, sparse and rich. The core duo is expanded in performance and recording by Jeremy Flower and Jon Evans.

Archangel is an avant-garde/electronic metal band from Venice, Italy, formed in 1994, notable for a groove-metal-rooted early sound that evolved into a symphonic, industrial, and electronically-inflected style incorporating elements as varied as saxophone passages within metal arrangements. Their 1996/97 debut 'In Tears the Angel Falls...' is often cited as a landmark avant-garde metal record and the band has been credited by some (including their own promotion) as the first metal act to tune entirely to the Golden Mean-derived 432 Hz standard. They continued releasing conceptually ambitious albums through 2010's 'The Story of My Immor(t)al Life', with core member Vam Kama Ocean Archangel (vocals/keyboards) present since formation.

Steve Blanco is the bassist and keyboardist of New York avant-garde metal act Imperial Triumphant, but his solo catalog runs on piano: the jazz-rooted Steve Blanco Trio records (Contact, Piano Warrior) gave way to increasingly extreme solo works like Misztikus and 2026's Shadow Arc Suite. The latter pairs virtuosic, Coltrane-indebted improvisation and modernist/serialist piano writing with programmed blast beats, atonal guitar, and ambient textures — an 'extreme ensemble' piece dragging free jazz and metal violence into the same room.

A Perfect Circle is an American rock supergroup formed in Los Angeles in 1999 by guitarist Billy Howerdel, a former guitar tech for Tool, Nine Inch Nails and the Smashing Pumpkins, and Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan. Fronting a more melodic, art-rock-leaning counterpart to Tool, the band broke through with the platinum debut Mer de Noms (2000) and its David Fincher-directed single "Judith." The rotating lineup has drawn from across alternative rock, with Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, session drummer Josh Freese, and bassist Matt McJunkins among its long-running members. After a long hiatus the group returned with Eat the Elephant (2018).

Judithplay in the dock

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A San Diego collective mixing free-jazz horns (sax, tuba, French horn) and folk instrumentation (banjo, accordion) with noise-rock abrasion and beatnik-poetry vocals, resisting the 'metal band' label despite billing themselves as extreme. Press describes them as an unpredictable blend of free improvisation, algorithmic composition, and 'ancient campfire songs' colliding with shattered noise.