Estradasphere

Orange Tulip Conspiracy is Estradasphere guitarist Jason Schimmel's own instrumental bandleader project, formed in 2008. Its self-titled debut (Web of Mimicry) moves through prog fusion, 1950s-style jazz, Romani melody and 1960s Italian film-score homage, with Secret Chiefs 3's Trey Spruance and members of Estradasphere guesting.

High Castle Teleorkestra is a remote avant-fusion "supergroup" assembled during the pandemic by Estradasphere alumni Tim Smolens and guitarist Chris Bogen, with members scattered across the US, Norway, Australia and France. Their 2022 debut, "The Egg That Never Opened" (released on Art As Catharsis), retells Philip K. Dick's "Radio Free Albemuth" through a cacophonous fusion of Eastern European folk, swing jazz, exotica and technical metal. The lineup draws on Estradasphere, Mr. Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3, Farmers Market and Umlaut.

Red Fiction is the renamed continuation of Jason Schimmel's Atomic Ape, releasing Visions of the Void (2020) on John Zorn's Tzadik label. The instrumental group threads metal, klezmer and Eastern European folk through math-rock structures and noir/spaghetti-western color, scored for an unusual ensemble including bouzouki, sitar, saxes and accordion.

Atomic Ape is a Los Angeles-based experimental ensemble led by composer and multi-instrumentalist Jason Schimmel (Estradasphere, Secret Chiefs 3), formed out of his earlier project Orange Tulip Conspiracy. Their sole album, Swarm (Mimicry Recordings, 2014), took over four years to record and fuses surf-rock, avant-rock, Balkan and jazz idioms into cinematic, odd-metered instrumentals. The record drew on a large cast of collaborators, including Secret Chiefs 3 leader Trey Spruance, violist Eyvind Kang and members of Estradasphere. The band later changed its name to Red Fiction.

Secret Chiefs 3 is guitarist-composer Trey Spruance's genre-dissolving ensemble, formed in the mid-1990s out of Mr. Bungle and expanded into a rotating cast of virtuosos. Its music braids surf rock, Persian and neo-Pythagorean modal systems, Indian raga, film-score exotica, electronics and death metal, and since 2007 has been presented through 'satellite bands' (UR, Ishraqiyun, Traditionalists, Holy Vehm, Electromagnetic Azoth and others), each embodying a different facet of Spruance's mystical and musical preoccupations. Spruance also runs the Web of Mimicry label that anchors much of this extended universe.

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Cojum Dip is an avant-garde jazz-metal project founded by multi-instrumentalist Bora Karaca in Ann Arbor, Michigan around 2004, fusing metal, jazz, opera and math rock beneath a mythology of five costumed fictional 'members' portrayed by live musicians. The band is known for raucous theatrical shows (wrestling masks, capes, acrobatics, on-stage video games) and for the 2012 Videojuegos volumes of instrumental Mega Man covers, while the 2014 self-titled record features guest vocals from Joe Hawley of Tally Hall — a band for which Karaca served as an honorary 'orange-tie' member. It stands well apart from anything currently in the atlas.

Self Spiller is a one-off avant-garde metal studio project helmed by Agalloch bassist Jason William Walton, assembling contributions from fourteen musicians worldwide into the 2015 album 'Worms in the Keys.' Compared to a collision of Mr. Bungle's California and Arcturus' La Masquerade Infernale.

Alamaailman Vasarat ("The Hammers of the Underworld") is an avant-garde Finnish instrumental band formed in Helsinki in 1997 as a side project of members of the prog group Hoyry-kone. Guitar-less by design, they build a dark, cinematic sound from distorted cellos, pump organ, brass and saxophones over primal drumming, welding klezmer, Balkan and European folk to jazz and metal into what they dubbed "kebab-kosher-jazz-film-traffic-music." Led by multi-reedist Jarno Sarkula, the band released a run of acclaimed albums from Vasaraasia (2000) through Valta (2012) before going quiet after 2014; Sarkula died in 2020.

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Graal were a Ukrainian avant-garde black/death metal band from Sumy, evolving out of the earlier acts Temptation (1992) and Brainstorm (1992-97) before adopting the Graal name. Their sole full-length, Sigullum Naturae (1998), is remembered in cult circles as one of the strangest metal records of the 1990s, splicing black/death riffing and shrieked vocals with flute, bayan, cimbalom, freeform jazz, flamenco-style bass, and circus-music interludes. The band split up not long after, leaving one album and one split release behind.

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Fishtank Ensemble was a gypsy rock group that first formed at The Fishtank in Oakland, California in 2004, blending Balkan, Romanian, Romani, French hot jazz, flamenco, Turkish, Greek, and rock 'n' roll into a high-energy, virtuosic live show. Fronted by singer and multi-instrumentalist Ursula Knudson and French violinist Fabrice Martinez, the band released albums including Super Raoul (2005), Samurai Over Serbia (2007), Woman in Sin (2010), and Edge of the World (2014). Though not a metal act, it sits within the Estradasphere web through shared personnel, including bassist Tim Smolens, shamisen player Kevin Kmetz, and accordionist Aaron Seeman.