Casualties of Cool

Aaen Anima is a Prague, Czechia avant-garde/doom-metal project founded April 25, 2002 as, in the band's own words, "originally playing acoustic avant-garde." Its 2003 album "Aniline Harp" pairs guitars and bass with cedar drum, bell, didgeridoo, darbuka and harmonium (all played by founder Aaen), plus flute (Ismia) and keyboards/djembe (Jari Velaochaga) — an eclectic, ritual-tinged folk-instrumentation palette rare even for avant-garde metal. No activity is documented past 2008.

This node covers the atmospheric, largely un-distorted pole of Devin Townsend's solo catalog: Ocean Machine: Biomech (1997, "a mix of hard rock, ambient, and progressive rock"), the pure-ambient/experimental Devlab and The Hummer, and Ghost (2011) — a deliberately quiet, New Age-inflected release Townsend paired with the heavy Deconstruction as two halves of one project.

Senmuth is the solo project of Russian multi-instrumentalist Valery Androsov (b. 1973, Moscow), extraordinarily prolific with well over a hundred releases combining ambient, industrial/industrial metal, EBM, and 'ethno metal' built from guitars, programming, and ethnic instruments (sitar, dutar, domra, tarka, duduk, oud). Albums are conceptually organized around ancient civilizations — especially Egyptian, Mesoamerican, and Asian themes — with the project's style shifting from guitar-driven doom/industrial metal in its early years toward increasingly sample-based, ethnically-fused, ambient composition over time.

Harvestman is the cosmic folk and psychedelic drone project of Steve Von Till, the guitarist and co-vocalist of Neurosis. The music blends delicate 1970s British-style folk with shimmering psychedelic drift, doom drone, krautrock, and space-raga textures built from electric guitars, synthesizers, dulcimers, and effects processing. Von Till has recorded albums including Lashing the Rye, In a Dark Tongue, Music for Megaliths, and the full-moon-timed Triptych series, all issued through Neurot Recordings. Members of Grails and Om have contributed to the project as supporting players.

KUNTARI is a Bandung duo, multi-instrumentalist Tesla Manaf and percussionist Rio Abror, who coined their own genre tag 'primal-core' for a sound built from roto toms, sarons, percussive guitar, field recordings and voice. It threads ancestral Indonesian ceremonial rhythms and gamelan tonality through sludge metal, dark ambient and minimalist sound-art, most fully on 2025's industrial-tinged Mutu Beton.

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Nucleus Torn was a Swiss avant-folk/progressive-metal project founded in 1997 by multi-instrumentalist Fredy Schnyder, expanding into a chamber-metal ensemble with cello, violin, flute, and an array of folk instruments (hammered dulcimer, bouzouki, oud, bagpipes). Signed to Prophecy Productions from 2006, the band moved between folk-rock, 1970s progressive-rock homage, and extreme metal across a decade-plus discography, including a conceptual Nihil/Knell/Andromeda Awaiting trilogy. Active until 2015, the later lineup included Eluveitie's Anna Murphy.

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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.

Jarboe rose to prominence as Michael Gira's co-vocalist in Swans from 1985 until the band's 1997 breakup, then built a prolific solo catalog spanning dark ambient, drone, neofolk, and industrial idioms. In 2003 she recorded a full-length collaborative album with Neurosis, trading tracks online with the band before it was released on Neurot Recordings, and in 2008 she partnered with Justin K. Broadrick (Jesu/Godflesh) on the ambient duo album J2. Though not primarily a metal artist, her ritualistic performance style and genre-blurring catalog have made her a recurring collaborator across the extreme-music underground.

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).

Faun Fables is an American avant-folk / dark-folk band based in Oakland, California, formed in the late 1990s by Spokane-raised singer, dancer and songwriter Dawn McCarthy. Known for a theatrical "songtelling" style, the band blends British, Scandinavian, Appalachian and Eastern European folk traditions with art rock and performance art. McCarthy's principal collaborator is Nils Frykdahl of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, whom she married; the two build the project around McCarthy's voice and Frykdahl's multi-instrumental work.