 | | Long Beach, California's Crystal Antlers began turning heads in 2008 with their recording debut, EP, a release that was produced by Ikie Owens (known for his work with the Mars Volta) and noted for its blend of psychedelic, garage rock, and prog rock sounds. |
 | | Spacious and textural, Implodes have their own brand of exploratory, ambient psychedelia. The Chicago quartet, featuring Ken Camden, Matt Jencik, Emily Elhaj, and Justin Rathell, crafts its atmospheric excursions with layers of reverb-drenched guitar, synthesizers, and ghosty vocals, with the various textures gathering like rain clouds that eventually burst into a sonic storm of swirling and moody experimental rock. |
 | | Rangers is the name of the lo-fi tape collage project performed by Joe Knight. Now based in San Francisco, Knight was raised in North Dallas, gaining a love of music from an early age starting with classical guitar studies. |
 | | Pontiak's neo-psychedelic rock is created by three brothers from the Blue Ridge area of Virginia -- Van (lead vocals, guitar), Jennings (bass, organ, vocals), and Lain Carney (drums, vocals) -- who were separately involved with numerous bands in the U. |
 | | Atlanta-based trio All the Saints derive their sound from blues-rock, psychedelia, and early heavy metal. |
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 | | Rock band Morningbell were formed in Gainesville, FL by Travis Atria (guitar/drums/vocals), his brother Eric Atria (bass), and his sister-in-law Stacie Thrushman (keyboards). |
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 | | White Rainbow is the solo project of Portland-based experimental/psychedelic musician Adam Forkner, who also played with Yume Bitsu and Surface of Eceon and works with Valet's Honey Owens as the duo World. |
 | | Although this psychedelic art pop quartet formed in Dalston, London at the end of 2008, they had met earlier in the decade at the Edinburgh College of Art. |
 | | Inspired as much by the space-tinged stoner rock of Kyuss and Monster Magnet as by progressive rock icons like Pink Floyd and early UFO, Tortona, Italy's UFOmammut was formed in 1999 by Urlo (bass/vocals), Poia (guitar/keyboards), Alien (keyboards/guitar), and Vita (drums). |
 | | Formed in the summer of 2002 in New York City, Excepter, originally consisted of DJs John Fell Ryan (vocals, synths, drum box, and electronics) and Dan Hougland (synths, drum box, electronics, and piano) along with husband-and-wife duo Calder Martin (vocals, guitar, and percussion) and Caitlin Cook (vocals and dancing), who all came together to explore the more esoteric nature of house and experimental music. |
 | | Expanding upon his psychedelic-inclined, '70s-styled solo albums, Devendra Banhart recruited Priestbird percussionist Greg Rogove in 2008 for the side project Megapuss. |
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 | | Following a stint as bassist in angular emo-rock trio the Convocation Of..., Baltimore native Guy Blakeslee relocated to Chicago in the early 2000s and began performing solo under the name Entrance. |
 | | Danish retro-rockers On Trial are caught in time warp of their own devising. Though they only formed in the mid-'90s, vocalist Bo Morthen Petersen, guitarists Anders Skjodt and Henrik, bassist Nikolaj Lykkenielsen, and drummer/organist Guf "Lorenzo Woodrose" Lorentzen play psychedelic music reminiscent of late-'60s acts like Love and 13th Floor Elevators. |
 | | After performing with such bands as Toho Sara, Ohkami No Jikan, Musica Transonic, and Mainliner, Japanese guitarist Makoto Kawabata decided to continue his musical explorations by bringing together like-minded individuals to create trippy psychedelic freak-outs inspired by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krautrock, and '70s progressive hard rock. |
 | | Bauhaus guitarist Daniel Ash created Tones on Tail as a side project in 1981 with bassist Glen Campling, who was also a roadie for Bauhaus. |
 | | The Japanese trio All Tomorrow's Party play rock with debts to both the classic rock of the '60s and '70s and the indie rock of later decades. |
 | | Formed in London in 1980, the Legendary Pink Dots moved to Amsterdam in the middle of the decade. Members throughout the band's career have been Edward Ka-Spel (vocals, keyboards) and Phil Knight (keyboards), also known as the Silver Man, with a shifting supporting cast over the years. |
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 | | As much a concept as a band, the Olivia Tremor Control was one of the most visible and innovative members of the Elephant 6 collective, a coterie of like-minded, lo-fi indie groups -- including the Apples in Stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Secret Square -- who shared musicians, ideas, and sensibilities. |
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 | | Los Angeles-based band Mothers of Gut offer a sprawling, cerebral blend of psychedelia and Krautrock-influenced experimental rock. |
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 | | Best known as the in-house producer and proprietor of the Shimmy-Disc label, Kramer (first name Mark) has also had an extensive career as a musician, mostly with other bands or collaborators, but occasionally solo as well. |
 | | Ignatz was the name of a mouse from the celebrated prewar cartoon strip Krazy Kat by George Herman, and now it is also the name of a solo project of Brussels-based artist and musician Bram Devens. |
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 | | Japanese cult favorite sludge/doom rock trio Boris take their name from a song on grunge godfathers the Melvins' Bullhead album. |
 | | Composer, guitarist, and producer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, in 1975. He spent his formative years in South Carolina and El Paso, TX, setting up camp in the latter and forming the hardcore band Startled Calf at the age of 15. |
 | | Philly-based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Kenny Vasoli is best known as the lead singer/bassist for the pop-punk outfit the Starting Line. |
 | | Even within the eclectic world of alternative rock, few bands were so brave, so frequently brilliant, and so deliciously weird as the Flaming Lips. |
 | | 19-year-old Southern California native Alex Jacob began recording under the moniker Therapies Son(the name was settled on after a “horrible breakup”) in 2010, and within months of releasing his first single, he had become the latest in an increasingly crowded field of 21st century bedroom pop auteurs. |
 | | Ayuo is a New York-born Japanese composer. His name, literally translated, means "fish life." With the play as his muse -- he has a lifelong obsession with it -- Ayuo creates a terrain that doesn't cross all borders so much as create a new terrain upon which the concept of a "borderline" is alien. |
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 | | Perhaps best known as the leader of the Japanese psychedelic rock collective Acid Mothers Temple, Makoto Kawabata is one of the more prolific figures in the Japanese underground. |
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 | | Equally inspired by lo-fi indie rockers such as Guided by Voices and psychedelic popsters such as Olivia Tremor Control and Apples in Stereo, Bloomington, IN's the Impossible Shapes began playing and recording together before they were old enough to drink. |
 | | As much a performance art troupe as a band, Bongwater was the brainchild of guitarist (Mark) Kramer -- chief of the Shimmy-Disc label and a former member of Shockabilly -- and actress Ann Magnuson, best known to mainstream audiences for her role in the ABC sitcom Anything But Love as well as the feature film Making Mr. |
 | | Los Angeles-based ambient rock outfit Woven formed in 2001 around the talents of Steve Abagon, Rich Abagon, Marc Viner, and Ory Hodis. |
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 | | Not your typical jam band (they have just as many disco and electronica influences as anything else), Particle started in 2000 in Los Angeles with keyboardist Steve Molitz, drummer Darren Pujalet, bassist Eric Gould, and guitarist Dave Simmons. |
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 | | Trippy rockers Sleepy Sun began in 2005, when UC Santa Cruz students Bret Constantino (vocals), Matt Holliman and Evan Reiss (guitar), Hubert Guy (bass), and Brian Tice (drums) formed the bluesy garage-rock act Mania. |
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