Nirrti

Tabernacle ov Thee Flesh is a Brazilian avant-garde/experimental black metal project from Joinville, released via Ultra Gash Records, featuring Naboth E. Coli (vocals, keyboards), L. Borgia Rossetti (guitar, also of Esmectatons and Os Legais) and Leal Barroso (drums, also of Esmectatons and Zombie Cookbook). Their sole album Versículos de Autoflagelo (2021) comprises 25 short tracks forming one continuous suite steeped in free improvisation, jazz and noise traditions.

Malconfort is a London trio named after a Deathspell Omega song, and on their 2024 debut Humanism (Transcending Obscurity Records) they take black metal apart from the inside. Guitarist/synthesist Fas, vocalist Nuun, and drummer/vocalist/synth player Kopczak build songs around dubbed-out basslines and jazz- and electronic-indebted drumming, with jutting, non-cyclical song structures. Harsh vocals appear sparingly, interlaced with whispers, barely audible crooning, laughter and spoken-word asides, drawing critical comparisons to Virus, Oranssi Pazuzu, and Mick Harris's Scorn.

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Kexelür is a Santiago, Chile trio formed around 2021 playing atmospheric, dissonant, and psychedelic black metal built around free improvisation. Their releases are billed as largely improvised live sessions, with reviewers noting 'jazz fusion inspired soloing/leads' layered over the black metal foundation. The band communicates only through single-letter pseudonyms (Λ., V., J.), with Λ. also running the solo project Fatalys (not in the E.M.M.A. atlas).

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Kekal is an Indonesian avant-garde/experimental act formed in Jakarta in 1995, one of the first Southeast Asian extreme-metal bands to reach an international audience. Beginning in black/death metal, they transformed across their discography into a genre-collapsing project spanning progressive metal, jazz fusion, trip-hop, electronic/IDM, ambient and post-rock — the 2003 breakthrough 1000 Thoughts of Violence being the pivot. Since August 2009 the band has operated as a 'memberless' collective, with former members and volunteer contributors assembling new albums.

Ætheria Conscientia is a progressive black metal quintet from Nantes, France, formed in 2016, known for using saxophone as a core instrumental voice rather than an occasional flourish. Across three albums — 'Tales From Hydhradh' (2018), 'Corrupted Pillars of Vanity' (2021), and 'The Blossoming' (2024) — the band pursues a continuing science-fiction concept about humanity fleeing a ruined Earth, blending black metal with progressive rock, jazz, ambient, and psychedelic textures. Critics place them at the crossroads of Oranssi Pazuzu, Mastodon, and Enslaved.

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Dola are a Polish avant-garde black metal trio formed in Poznań in 2018 and now based in Toruń. Their sound couples a dissonant, aggressive black-metal backbone with ritual ambient, sludge/post-metal heaviness and pronounced jazz elements, the latter carried by Maras's trumpet. Recent album 'Tabernakulum' (2024, Piranha Music) swings between brutal dissonance and the atmospheric avant-garde passages that define the band.

Norwegian avant-garde project (1998-2006) from Notodden founded by Ihsahn (Emperor), his wife Ihriel and her brother Lord PZ, on their own Mnemosyne Productions. It began as symphonic avant-garde extreme metal and drifted toward classical-tinged avant-garde rock full of twisted synths, electronics, operatic female vocals and Ihsahn's shrieks. Lost in Reverie (2004) is regarded as a landmark of the genre-transcending Norwegian avant-garde.

Altari is an Icelandic black metal band whose debut album Kröflueldar, released via Svart Records in April 2023, took roughly nine years to complete. The record folds clean, melodic guitar leads and influences from Blue Öyster Cult, Killing Joke and Interpol into a black metal foundation, co-produced by Stephen Lockhart (aka Wann), a central engineer/producer figure in Reykjavík's black metal scene.

Epectase is a Paris duo that folds frantic tremolo-picked black metal into long-form suites of 70s prog, jazz-tinged interludes, and hazy krautrock electronics, sliding between shrieks, operatic cleans, and meditative ambient passages within a single track. Since forming in 2018, multi-instrumentalist Vague and vocalist Avitus have released a steady run of albums and EPs on I, Voidhanger Records and Frozen Records, sitting among the more overtly progressive-rock-indebted corners of the French avant-black underground.

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Noosefiller is a South Lake Tahoe, California project centered on Loren Zibull (synthesizers, samples, drum programming, production, vocals) and Christophe Bassett (guitar, vocals, saxophone), with A.O.S Heirdrain contributing vocals/lyrics, releasing through Deafbox Industries. Their self-titled 2017 album is tagged atmospheric and psychedelic black metal alongside IDM, industrial metal, dark ambient, and avant-garde metal on Bandcamp, reflecting a sound that folds electronic programming and saxophone into a blackened, atmospheric metal base; the artist's wider Bandcamp tag cloud also includes atmospheric sludge metal, progressive metal, and noise rock.