Sleep Paralysis

Winterquilt is a Liverpool, UK solo project blending black metal roots (citing Leviathan and early Anaal Nathrakh as influences) with MIDI-based vaporwave production discovered around 2016. The 2020 LP O'discordia, described by its own label as 'multi-genre black metal infused experimental midi vaporwave with baroque undertones,' was pressed on colored vinyl by Repose Records and reissued via Season of Mist, and includes a featured collaboration with Fire-Toolz. The artist has said the project has drawn black metal and vaporwave listeners into each other's scenes.

O'discordia (feat. Fire-Toolz)play in the dock

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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.

Nirrti is a solo psychedelic black metal project based in Orlová, Czechia, signed to Depressive Illusions Records. The project's music has been described as eerie, dissonant, and 'progressive black metal played through the lens of psychedelics and jazz,' aiming to convey darkness, uncertainty, and glimpses of other dimensions rather than adhering to traditional black metal norms. Releases include 'Psychonautix' (2022), 'Palindromos' (2023), and 'Cyberpsychosis' (2024), the latter continuing the project's cyber/psychedelic conceptual throughline.

Doedsmaghird is an avant-garde/industrial black metal project formed in 2022 by Yusaf 'Vicotnik' Parvez of Dodheimsgard - its name a literal anagram of its parent band - with fellow Dodheimsgard guitarist Camille Giraudeau co-writing the material. Debut album Omniverse Consciousness (Peaceville, 2024) pushes Dodheimsgard's electronic and industrial tendencies further still, layering glitchy synth textures, samples, and choirs over blasting black metal, and has been described by press as Dodheimsgard's 'more grim and malevolent twin.'

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Pryapisme is a French instrumental avant-metal band from Clermont-Ferrand, formed in 2000 around the stable trio of Benjamin Bardiaux, Nicolas Sénac, and Aymeric Thomas since 2006. Their genre-hopping compositions fuse black-metal tremolo strings, Erik Satie-influenced piano, jazzy moods, and 8-bit electronics, often within the same few bars of music. Their 2017 album Diabolicus Felinae Pandemonium took over three years to produce across 861 recorded tracks, and reviewers have compared the band's sound to Mr. Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3, and Estradasphere.

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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.

Creatvre is the solo project of French multi-instrumentalist Raphaël Fournier (Paris), who performs every instrument himself — guitars, bass, drums, synths, trombone, trumpet, and saxophone. His 2025 album Toujours Humain (released via I, Voidhanger Records) is described by critics as progressive black metal fused with electronica, industrial metal, and choral/symphonic elements, built around a 'cyber-industrial' concept of humanity dissolving into technology. The prior album Eloge de l'Ombre (2021) was named album of the year by Metal Hammer Spain.

Mord'A'Stigmata is a Polish avant-garde black/post-black metal group formed in Bochnia in 2004, built around blending blackened riffing with electronic textures and, on later records, baritone saxophone and goth-rock atmosphere. Signed to Pagan Records since 2013's Ansia, the band has moved steadily from raw black metal toward hypnotic, atmosphere-first songwriting across albums like Dreams of Quiet Places (2019) and Like Ants and Snakes (2022).

Dødheimsgard (DHG) are a Norwegian band formed in Oslo in 1994 that mutated from the raw black metal of Kronet Til Konge (1995) into the fractured avant-garde industrial black metal of 666 International (1999). Led throughout by Vicotnik, they became a touchstone of the experimental wing of Norwegian black metal. Kronet Til Konge's lineup featured Darkthrone's Fenriz on bass, and its closer 'When Heavens End' carries an additional-songwriting credit for Ulver founder Sigmund 'Grellmund' Løkken.

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.