The Sound That Ends Creation

miRthkon are an Oakland sextet of two guitars, two woodwinds, bass and drums, self-described as 'an amplified chamber ensemble masquerading as a rock band,' with material fully scored down to the drum parts. Across Vehicle (2009) and Snack(s) (2013) on the Italian AltrOck label, critics describe a satirical, Zappa-inflected collision of thrash riffing, big-band horns, and jazz harmony staged with circus-like theatrical framing. Keyboardist/bassist Matt Lebofsky doubles as keyboardist in Secret Chiefs 3, giving the band a direct, sourced line into the Estradasphere/Secret Chiefs 3 orbit already on the atlas.

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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.

Mats/Morgan is a Swedish avant-fusion duo of keyboardist Mats Öberg (blind since birth) and drummer Morgan Ågren, playing together since the early 1980s. Their music is a hyper-virtuosic, genre-splicing brew of jazz fusion, avant-prog, free improvisation, electronica and modern classical, delivered with a mischievous sense of humor. Discovered as teenagers by Frank Zappa after he heard them perform in Stockholm in 1988, the pair went on to appear in his Zappa's Universe projects and have recorded prolifically for Cuneiform Records.

Rubber Skyplay in the dock

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Koenji Hyakkei (Kōenji Hyakkei, "Hundred Sights of Koenji") is a Japanese zeuhl band founded in Tokyo in 1991 by drummer/vocalist Tatsuya Yoshida as his tribute to the operatic, chant-driven Zeuhl idiom pioneered by France's Magma. Fronting frantic, meticulously composed avant-prog sung in an invented language, Yoshida remains the band's only constant across an evolving cast, steering the sound from folk-tinged prog toward the jazz-fusion complexity of Angherr Shisspa (2005). The group records for Yoshida's own Magaibutsu label in Japan and Skin Graft Records in North America.

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Clown Core is an anonymous, clown-masked American experimental duo whose members are widely speculated (though never officially confirmed) to be drummer Louis Cole of Knower and saxophonist Sam Gendel. Their self-released records — Clown Core (2010), Toilet (2018), Van (2020), 1234 (2021) and Live (2024) — cram grindcore, free jazz, noise and extreme metal into songs that rarely run past two minutes, with videos staged in absurdist locations. The project has an album entry on Metal Archives, making it chart-eligible as metal-adjacent.

Peculate is the solo avant-garde/progressive metal project of American composer Ben Norton, self-releasing everything for free since 2012 under a self-styled 'Metal in Opposition' banner. Norton fuses djent and mathcore aggression with 12-tone technique, Zappa-esque jazz-fusion tangents and polished production, occasionally detouring into satirical protest-song territory (2015's viral 'This Sick Beat™'). It reads as a bedroom-scale answer to the Zorn/Zappa strand of metal-adjacent avant-composition.

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Black Heart Sutra is a New York experimental/mathcore project centered on composer-violinist Earl Maneein (SEVEN)SUNS) and drummer Kenny Grohowski (Imperial Triumphant, Secret Chiefs 3, frequent John Zorn collaborator), expanded on record with guest vocalists including Jessica Pimentel. Their 2017 debut album "Zersetzung" (Still Water Recordings) mixes progressive-jazz harmony with mathcore's chaotic, Locust-like structural shifts.

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Trevor Dunn's Trio-Convulsant is the avant-garde jazz vehicle of Mr. Bungle bassist Trevor Dunn, active since 1997 and built on the idea of a compositional jazz trio that also wields rock's power chords — AllMusic called the result "moody jazz with convulsive rock." The group debuted with Debutantes & Centipedes (1998, Buzz Records) featuring guitarist Adam Levy and drummer Kenny Wollesen, then re-emerged on Ipecac with Sister Phantom Owl Fish (2004) in a new lineup with guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Ches Smith. That trio returned on Séances (2022, Pyroclastic Records), expanded by the chamber quartet Folie à Quatre — including Sleepytime Gorilla Museum violinist Carla Kihlstedt — for music inspired by the 18th-century French Convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard.

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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.'

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.