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Electrocution 250 was a short-lived instrumental trio from Minnesota — guitarist Todd Duane, keyboardist Lalle Larsson, and drummer Peter Wildoer — who recorded a single album, 'Electric Cartoon Music From Hell' (2003/2004), fusing jazz-fusion virtuosity with Carl Stalling-style cartoon-music motifs and occasional thrash-metal bombast. Larsson and Wildoer are separately known for progressive/metal session and band work (Karmakanic, Darkane, among others), but this project stands as a standalone one-off. It is unrelated to the atlas's Ulver electronic era.

Fletcher the Mouseplay in the dock

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Volto! is an American jazz-fusion jam band based in Los Angeles, best known as the side project of Tool drummer Danny Carey. Formed in the early 2000s from improvised sessions with guitarist John Ziegler and bassist Lance Morrison at a San Fernando Valley jazz club, the group spent nearly a decade as a live-only act before releasing its debut album Incitare (2013) on Fantasy Records. Their heady, genre-spinning instrumental sound bridges King Crimson, Liquid Tension Experiment, and 1970s fusion, foregrounding the improvisation that Carey has cited as his main motivation for the project.

Tocinoplay in the dock

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Titan to Tachyons is a New York instrumental quartet led by guitarist Sally Gates, built around a two-bassist frontline (Trevor Dunn and Matt Hollenberg) with drummer Kenny Grohowski, fusing free-jazz improv, prog counterpoint, and metal violence into sci-fi-themed instrumentals. Their 2022 album Vonals was released on John Zorn's Tzadik label (following 2020's Cactides on Nefarious Industries), and the polyrhythmic, two-bass arrangement gives the compositions an unusually dense, contrapuntal low end. Every member's other credits (Mr. Bungle, Fantômas, Tomahawk, Secret Chiefs 3, Cleric, Imperial Triumphant) wire this band into the Zorn/downtown-jazz and Patton-adjacent avant-metal orbit.

Blue Thought Particlesplay in the dock

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Panzerballett is a Munich jazz-metal quintet founded in 2004 and led by guitarist-composer Jan Zehrfeld, fusing delicate interlocking funk grooves with brutally hard, polyrhythmic Meshuggah-informed riffs and genuine jazz improvisation. Alongside Zehrfeld's originals they stage virtuosic reinterpretations spanning Deep Purple, Meshuggah and Weather Report, and are known for comedic, theatrical live shows. Signed to ACT Records, their guest-heavy albums (e.g. Planet Z, Übercode Œuvre) recruit elite fusion drummers.

Cartel Carnage is a French quintet of jazz-scene musicians (guitar, bass, trumpet, tenor sax, drums) fusing free jazz, heavy metal, pop and progressive rock into what reviewers called a 'musical UFO.' Their sound and stated influences — Naked City, Fantomas, Mr. Bungle, Zorn, Ornette Coleman, alongside Meshuggah and Slayer — place them squarely in genre-collision RIO/avant-prog territory, though no sourced personnel or label ties connect them to the existing atlas. Their sole full-length, Incorporated, was released in 2012 on Great Winds/Musea Records.

Houx-Wardiougueplay in the dock

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Los Angeles metal-jazz quartet fronted by trumpeter Dan Rosenboom and guitarist Jake Vossler, pairing lyrical, Miles-Davis-lineage trumpet against Vossler's distorted, noise-inflected guitar over double bass and drums. Their 2017 debut Reclamation (Tzadik) was tracked in 72 hours as a politically charged 'jazz protest record,' moving between free improvisation, heavy thrash riffing, and balladic passages.

The Pitts Minnemann Project is an instrumental progressive-rock/jazz-fusion collaboration between keyboardist Jimmy Pitts (Scholomance) and drummer Marco Minnemann, joined by rotating guest virtuosi on guitar, bass, saxophone, and violin. They released two albums, '2 L 8 2 B Normal' (2014) and 'The Psychic Planetarium' (2016), both blending heavy fusion with progressive-metal complexity.

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.

The Salamanderplay in the dock

BandcampSpotifyTidal

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Ruins is a Japanese progressive-rock duo formed in 1985 by drummer/vocalist Tatsuya Yoshida, intended as a power trio until the guitarist never showed, leaving a manic bass-and-drums unit. Heavily indebted to French zeuhl pioneers Magma, Ruins performs written-out, fiendishly complex compositions sung in an invented Kobaian-like tongue, veering through prog, jazz fusion and noise rock. Yoshida, the band's only constant, is one of the pillars of Japanese avant-rock; Ruins released several albums on John Zorn's Tzadik label, including Hyderomastgroningem (1995). The bass seat rotated across the group's history.

Hyderomastgroningemplay in the dock

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Red Side Visible is a Cleveland/Akron, Ohio project built around multi-instrumentalist Tim Mirth, fusing odd-metered metal riffing with genuine free-jazz improvisation and alto saxophone. Press copy invokes Meshuggah, Mr. Bungle and Zappa as touchstones; the 2021 album 'A Break from Normality' collects material written and re-recorded across a decade since the project's 2010 debut 'Enter Entropy'.