Keiji Haino

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.

Nazoranai (なぞらない)play in the dock

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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.

Circle is a Finnish experimental rock institution formed in Pori in 1991, built around bassist/vocalist Jussi Lehtisalo, the band's only constant presence and de facto leader. Their restless, ever-mutating music fuses motorik krautrock repetition with heavy metal riffing, ambient, prog and psychedelia, a sound they half-jokingly branded the New Wave of Finnish Heavy Metal. Absurdly prolific across dozens of albums, they release most of their work through Lehtisalo's own Ektro Records, and their 2017 album Terminal appeared internationally on Southern Lord.

Kill Cityplay in the dock

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Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. are a Japanese psychedelic collective founded in 1995 by guitarist Kawabata Makoto as an outlet for a rotating cast of players, releasing their self-titled debut on PSF Records in 1997. Extraordinarily prolific, with well over 100 albums, they fuse acid-rock jams, krautrock motorik, raga drones and harsh noise into cosmic long-form freak-outs. The touring lineup has long centered on Kawabata with Higashi Hiroshi, Tsuyama Atsushi and, at points, guitarist Mitsuru Tabata.

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.

Larynxplay in the dock

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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.

Dumb Waiter is a Richmond, VA quartet formed in 2012 that fuses noise rock, free/fusion jazz saxophone, mathy post-punk structure, and metallic heaviness into a genre-resistant, frequently absurdist package. Fifth album Gauche Gists (2022, Ossein Records) drew comparisons to Pharoah Sanders and This Heat, with klezmer-tinged sax lines colliding against distorted bass and drums. They sit at the noise-rock/jazz-metal fringe rather than squarely inside metal, but their heaviness and structural weirdness keep them on the avant-garde-metal chart's radar.

Vegan Mustache Jazzplay in the dock

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Corrections House is an American industrial-sludge supergroup formed in 2012, bringing together Scott Kelly of Neurosis, Mike IX Williams of Eyehategod, Sanford Parker, and Bruce Lamont of Yakuza. The group methodically creates and destroys through dark, apocalyptic soundscapes built from riffs, saxophone, electronic loops, and Williams' corroded vocals. They released their debut album Last City Zero (2013) and its follow-up Know How to Carry a Whip (2015) on Neurot Recordings.

Sal y Mileto are Ecuador's most influential rock band, fusing progressive/alternative rock with hardcore, heavy metal, jazz and electronics into what they call 'Rock Libre Ecuatoriano.' Formed in 1994 in Latacunga, they've staged theatrical works blending poetry and contemporary dance and woven in Andean instrumentation like the traversa flute.

Aguantaplay in the dock

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Deddom is the solo vehicle of Andrii, a one-man 'orchestra' from Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine active since 2018, who plays every instrument himself: guitars, bass, drums, saxophone, piano, harmonica, jaw harp, synths and field recordings. His Bandcamp catalogue is tagged across free jazz, grindcore, noise, drone, ambient and math, and reviewers have described his long-form, aging-themed pieces as spanning 'black metal, free jazz, ambient, and more.'

Гуцульський мольфар отримує свою першу пенсіюplay in the dock

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