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The Book of Knots is a Brooklyn experimental art rock studio collective formed in the spring of 2003 at Joel Hamilton and Tony Maimone's Studio G, with Matthias Bossi and Carla Kihlstedt completing the core quartet. The group built a trilogy of themed concept albums: the self-titled debut (Arclight, 2004) about failed sea voyages, Traineater (Anti-, 2007) about crumbling Midwestern rust belt towns, and Garden of Fainting Stars (Ipecac Recordings, 2011) about flight and space travel. Their records feature a rotating cast of guest vocalists and musicians including Tom Waits, Mike Watt, Mike Patton, David Thomas, Blixa Bargeld, and Jon Langford.

Keiji Haino is a Japanese guitarist, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist active since the 1970s across rock, free improvisation and noise, best known for his long-running band Fushitsusha, formed in 1978. His intensely cathartic sound blends noise, psychedelia and Japanese traditional inflection into massively amplified guitar exploration. Within this atlas he intersects the drone axis directly: Black: Implication Flooding (1998) is a live collaboration album with Boris, and a 2006 meeting with Sunn O)))'s Stephen O'Malley (via Oren Ambarchi) grew into the trio Nazoranai.

Nazoranai is an improvising power trio formed in 2011 by Keiji Haino (guitar, vocals, synth), Stephen O'Malley of Sunn O))) (bass) and Oren Ambarchi (drums), issuing its self-titled live debut on O'Malley's Ideologic Organ imprint in 2012. The name signals a stance against pure free improvisation, favoring a more deliberate approach as the trio moves from sparse, post-industrial landscapes into huge firestorms of riff and distortion. Its genesis traces to a 2006 introduction between Haino and O'Malley via Ambarchi.

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Mutyumu (夢中夢, 'a dream within a dream') was a six-piece Japanese band active 2002–2010, blending post-rock, classical minimalism and heavy metal around operatic vocals, strings and piano alongside blast beats and screamed vocals. Contrary to secondhand descriptions of it as a solo project, sources consistently describe a full band led by vocalist Hatis Noit. Their two albums, 夢中夢 (2006) and イリヤ -Il y a- (2008, on Gyuune Cassette), fold folk melody and droning classical passages into a metal/post-rock framework, with the latter featuring guest contributions from World's End Girlfriend, before the band split in 2010.

Amenra is a Belgian post-metal and sludge band formed in 1999 in Kortrijk, West Flanders, known for cathartic, ritualistic live performances built around themes of pain, loss, and catharsis. The band names its full-length albums as a numbered Mass series (Mass III through Mass VI, plus De Doorn) and is the creative center of the Church of Ra, a Kortrijk-area collective of like-minded musicians and visual artists. Fronted by vocalist Colin H. van Eeckhout, their sound draws heavily on doom, hardcore punk, and the atmospheric heaviness of Neurosis.

Tool is an American progressive metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1990, meshing dark underground metal with the ambition of art rock into multi-sectioned, layered songs built on odd time signatures and lengthy instrumental passages. The classic lineup pairs vocalist Maynard James Keenan and guitarist Adam Jones with drummer Danny Carey and, since 1995, bassist Justin Chancellor, who replaced founding bassist Paul D'Amour. Across albums from Undertow (1993) through Ænima, Lateralus, 10,000 Days, and Fear Inoculum (2019), the band cultivated an almost mythic reputation for cryptic, cerebral heaviness. Keenan splits his time with A Perfect Circle and Puscifer, while Carey moonlights in the fusion outfit Volto!.

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Runhild Gammelsæter is a Norwegian vocalist who is also a professional biologist holding a Ph.D. in cell physiology. She first drew notice fronting the American doom band Thorr's Hammer, which she joined at 17 alongside Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson, and later co-formed the duo/trio Khlyst with James Plotkin. Her 2008 solo debut Amplicon (Utech Records) is built almost entirely from her own voice, warped with effects, with each track founded on a scientific, largely biologic theme conceived as a soundtrack to the cycle of the universe. Her voice ranges from the death-metal growls of her Thorr's Hammer work to unnerving, art-inflected experimental singing.

Helium Horse Fly are a Liège, Belgium avant-garde/experimental-rock act formed in 2009, fronted by vocalist/keyboardist Marie Billy alongside guitarist Stéphane Dupont, bassist Dimitri Iannello and drummer Gil Chevigné (who replaced founding drummer Bastien Dupont in 2014). Critics have described their sound as 'progressive baroque hardcore' and compared its dark, brooding intensity to Kayo Dot, spanning EPs A Dispute to Redefine Clearly Frontiers Between Devils and Angels (2010) and Fishing for Ghosts (2011) through the albums Helium Horse Fly (2013) and Hollowed (2019). Reviewers place them across post-metal, art rock and experimental-rock tags.

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Sleepytime Gorilla Museum is an Oakland avant-garde metal and experimental rock collective formed in 1999 from the ashes of Idiot Flesh, known for theatrical live rituals, dark literary lyrics, and an arsenal of self-built instruments. The band fuses avant-metal, progressive rock, industrial, and chamber influences into a deliberately uncategorizable sound. Active through 2011, the group reunited in 2023 and released the album "of the Last Human Being" in February 2024.

Sleep Is Wrongplay in the dock

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Kayo Dot is an American avant-garde/experimental band formed in Boston in 2002 by multi-instrumentalist Toby Driver out of the ashes of his previous group maudlin of the Well. Their 2003 debut Choirs of the Eye was released on John Zorn's Tzadik label and set the template for a restless, genre-dissolving music that has drifted across chamber metal, art rock, post-rock, drone and synth-driven new wave over more than a decade of records. Driver is the band's only constant, steering a rotating cast of string players, horn players and rhythm sections through long-form compositions that refuse to sit still.

The Manifold Curiosityplay in the dock

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