Cleric

Zu are an Italian avant-jazz/noise-metal trio formed in Ostia near Rome in 1997, built on the unconventional lineup of Luca T. Mai's baritone saxophone, Massimo Pupillo's bass and Jacopo Battaglia's drums. Their heaviest album, Carboniferous (2009), was their first release for Mike Patton's Ipecac Recordings. It features guest appearances by Mike Patton on vocals (notably on "Soulympics") and King Buzzo (Buzz Osborne) of the Melvins on guitar for "Chthonian."

Soulympics (with Mike Patton)play in the dock

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God were a London experimental collective founded in 1987 around Kevin Martin (later of The Bug and Zonal), fusing ambient, dub, free jazz and noise rock into a saxophone-led 'jazzcore' that passed through the grindcore and industrial-metal scenes. The project ballooned to a nine-piece and drew admirers including Bill Laswell and John Zorn, the latter contributing directly. Justin Broadrick, whose Godflesh Martin had heard on John Peel's radio show, produced the group's early releases before joining as guitarist; the debut EP Breach Birth appeared on Situation Two in 1990, followed by the album Possession on Virgin in 1992.

Painkiller (stylized PainKiller) is an avant-garde trio formed in 1991 by John Zorn (saxophone), Bill Laswell (bass) and Mick Harris (drums), the latter fresh from grindcore pioneers Napalm Death. Their early records Guts of a Virgin (1991) and Buried Secrets (1992) fused blast-beat grindcore with free jazz, while the 1994 double album Execution Ground steered the group toward dub and ambient textures. After Harris left in 1995 to focus on electronic music, Zorn and Laswell continued Painkiller with drummers including Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins, and the original trio reunited in 2024 with Harris on electronics.

Yakuza is a Chicago avant-garde metal band formed in 1999, led by saxophonist/vocalist Bruce Lamont. They build a metal base with progressive flair, folding in free jazz saxophone and clarinet, world music, doom, grind, and post-rock ambience into a jazz-metal hybrid sometimes tagged 'jazzcore.' Their discography spans Way of the Dead (2002, Century Media), Samsara (2006) and Transmutations (2007, Prosthetic), Of Seismic Consequence (2010) and Beyul (2012, Profound Lore), and Sutra (2023, Svart Records).

An Oakland art-thrash unit fusing King Crimson-style tempo shifts and free-jazz saxophone skronk with Slayer-speed riffing, math-rock structure, and post-punk snarl. Signed to Crucial Blast for City of Dis (2005), critics placed them alongside Naked City and Yakuza for pushing metal and jazz into the same collapsing structure.

Kurushimi (苦しみ, 'suffering') is a Sydney improv collective founded in 2015 by bassist Andrew Mortensen, built around Zorn/Zappa-style conduction: two conductors flash hand signals mid-performance to steer a five-to-six-piece horn-and-rhythm ensemble through sudden lurches between free jazz, doom, freegrind, dub and noise. Reviewers reach for John Zorn, Ornette Coleman, Bill Laswell, Morbid Angel and Bohren & Der Club of Gore in the same breath to describe it, and the band's own 'doom jazz' tag undersells how far the improvisations range. It's one of the purest Naked City-lineage conduction projects to turn up on the avant-garde-metal chart, even without any documented direct tie to Zorn himself.

Chaos Remainsplay in the dock

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Praxis is producer/bassist Bill Laswell's shape-shifting experimental project, built around a core trio of Laswell, guitarist Buckethead and drummer Brain (Bryan Mantia) that fuses funk, jazz, hip-hop, dub and heavy metal into highly improvised music. The 1992 debut Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis) drew in P-Funk's Bernie Worrell and Bootsy Collins, while the harsher 1993/94 album Sacrifist added John Zorn on saxophone and ex-Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris of Painkiller, plus vocalist Yamatsuka Eye. The result swings between noisy speed metal, dub and turntablist collage.

Brain Tentacles is a Chicago trio formed in 2013: Bruce Lamont (Yakuza, Bloodiest) on saxophone, electric piano, synth and voice; Dave Witte (Discordance Axis, Municipal Waste) on drums; and Aaron Dallison (Keelhaul) on bass and synth. Their 2016 self-titled debut (Relapse Records) swings between 'mathy chaos' and 'juddering grooves,' drawing direct comparisons to John Zorn's Naked City, with a guest vocal spot from Eugene Robinson (Oxbow), production by Sanford Parker, and cover art by Jef Whitehead (Leviathan).

Fruitcakeplay in the dock

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Black Engine is a one-off 2007 Italian collaboration uniting three members of experimental jazzcore trio Zu - Luca T. Mai (baritone/alto sax), Massimo Pupillo (bass) and Jacopo Battaglia (drums) - with guitarist/producer Eraldo Bernocchi. Their sole album, 'Ku Klux Klowns' (Wallace Records, 2007), pushes Zu's usual free-jazz/noise-rock language into heavier, doom-drone-adjacent territory with Bernocchi's guitar riffing layered atop the horn-led chaos. The project effectively works as a heavier-guitar-driven Zu side outlet and presaged Bernocchi and Pupillo's later duo Obake.

Convulsif is a Swiss instrumental unit built around bassist Loïc Grobéty, trading guitars for a lineup of bass, drums, treated violin and bass clarinet. Billed as a 'jazz-grindcore collective,' they fuse doom, drone, black metal and noise through conceptual improvisation, with 2020's 'Extinct' marking their fifth full-length.

The Axe Will Breakplay in the dock

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