Clown Core

The Sound That Ends Creation is the one-man experimental mathgrind project of Chris Dearing, based in Allen, Texas, launched in 2016 and citing Daughters, Psyopus, and See You Next Tuesday as key influences. The project has evolved from deathgrind/mathgrind roots toward incorporating big-band and orchestral elements, culminating in 2021's Boomers, Zoomers, Desperate Coomers, which Metal Injection called a 'jazzy mathgrind explosion' arguably closer to 'mathjazz.' Dearing layers piano into nearly every track alongside tapping-heavy, panic-chord guitar work, building a chaotic, carnival-like sound across eight-plus full-lengths.

A Northern California one-man band whose 'Never Was' (2024) and 'Shriek' (Lou Kelly...and Friends) LPs bounce between jazzcore, mathcore, grindcore, crust punk and harsh-noise-wall under a self-described 'Progressive-Violence-Jazz' banner, all written, performed and produced solo. The 'Shriek' record began as a drunken online invitation for strangers to sing over Kelly's instrumentals and grew into a 14-track collaborative curio on the tiny label THE HILLS ARE DEAD Records. Listeners have likened the results to a heavier Mr. Bungle/Mike Patton side-project, though that is a stylistic comparison only — no verified personal connection exists.

Fantômas is the avant-metal supergroup Mike Patton assembled in the wake of Faith No More's breakup, uniting him with Melvins guitarist Buzz Osborne, Mr. Bungle bassist Trevor Dunn, and ex-Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo. The band treats metal as raw material for conceptual games: a debut sung as pages from imaginary sci-fi comics, The Director's Cut warping horror-film themes into grindcore-tinged miniatures, and Delìrium Còrdia stretching one queasy piece across an entire album around the concept of surgery without anesthesia. Whiplash dynamics, cartoon-splice editing, and Patton's wordless vocal acrobatics made it a cornerstone of the experimental metal canon, with every record released on Patton's own Ipecac label.

Der Golemplay in the dock

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The Number Twelve Looks Like You is an American mathcore band formed in Bergen County, New Jersey in 2001 (initially as And Ever), taking their name from a 1964 Twilight Zone episode. Their dystopian screamo/grind fuses metal, hardcore, and Frank Zappa-esque experimental shifts across albums including Mongrel (2007) and, after a 2010–2016 split, the comeback record Wild Gods (2019). The band is fronted by longtime vocalist Jesse Korman and guitarist Alexis Pareja, with a lineup that has turned over repeatedly since its early-2000s inception.

Ruin the Smileplay in the dock

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Girth is a Seattle instrumental trio — guitarist Dave Webb and drummer Peijman Kouretchian expanding to triple-guitar with Blane Patnode and Mark Corier of Swarming Hordes — playing dense, through-composed 'tech hardcore' described by one zine as splitting the difference between Orthrelm and Guapo with oddball electronic and jazz detours. Their breakthrough 2006 EP 'Sleeper, Awaken!' is a single 19-minute, four-movement piece recorded with engineer Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Earth) and released on Trey Spruance's Web of Mimicry label, directly tying the band into the Mr. Bungle/Secret Chiefs 3-adjacent avant-metal underground. The project wound down after 2009's 'deconstruction.', with members moving on to Wah Wah Exit Wound and Satya Sena.

The Conjuration is the solo outlet of Danville, Virginia's Corey Jason Cochran, running since around 2010 through albums like Gospel and the sprawling 2.5-hour The Trip (2025). Cochran writes, plays and produces everything himself, ping-ponging within single songs between tech-death riffing, metalcore breakdowns, jazz-fusion detours, industrial electronics and spoken-word skits. Reviewers have called it an unfiltered 'primordial soup' of ideas.

Celebrity Sex Scandal is an avant-garde metal band from San Antonio, Texas, formed in 2011 by guitarist Greg Combs after the dissolution of Dog Fashion Disco, effectively continuing that band's eclectic funk/ska/metal/pop hybrid with a horn section. Debut album Derivative (2013) was Kickstarter-funded, followed by Integral (2015), The Fundamental (2020) — which featured Dog Fashion Disco alumni John Ensminger and Jeff Siegel — and Convergence of Infinite Sequences (2023) on Razor To Wrist Records.

Unmitigated Worshipplay in the dock

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Five Pound Pocket Universe is a Zurich, Switzerland jazzcore trio founded in 2016 by drummer/composer Michel Barengo, saxophonist Andi Bissig, and guitarist Valentin Baumgartner. Their sole album, 'Brain Bubble Party' (2018), swings between pre-arranged jazz-metal themes and improvised noise built from samples and prepared/effected guitar, self-described as 'hyper sweet pastel jazzcore madness... spliced with lost cartoon snippets found in the places between channels.'

Duct Tape Mustache were a Chicago-area experimental/metal/jazz band active in the early-to-mid 2000s, releasing a self-titled EP in 2002 and 'Mise En Scéne' in 2004 before disbanding in 2005. The lineup blended saxophone, keyboards, and dual guitars into a genre-hopping, horn-driven sound described online as circus-tinged avant-garde metal. Following the split, members scattered into other Chicago-scene projects including Ideamen.

Oxbow were a San Francisco experimental/noise-rock band founded in 1988, built on the partnership of vocalist Eugene S. Robinson and multi-instrumentalist and composer Niko Wenner. Their music blends noise rock, avant-garde jazz, musique concrete and blues into caustic, paranoid soundscapes framed by Robinson's high, anguished voice. Their eighth and final album, Love's Holiday (2023), was their first for Ipecac Recordings; the band dissolved in 2024.