It's not unusual for a small independent record company to be defined by its first major success, and that was certainly the case for the maverick Texas label International Artists. IA began life in 1965 as a fairly ordinary regional outfit releasing pop/rock stuff, but when they scored a nationwide hit with the 13th Floor Elevators' proto-psychedelic anthem "You're Gonna Miss Me," the label's de facto A&R chief, Lelan Rogers, dove headfirst into Texas acid culture and IA became a home for consciousness-expanded acts such as the Golden Dawn, the Bubble Puppy, Endle St. Cloud, and the truly crazed Red Crayola. Never Ever Land is a three-CD set designed to give a reasonably comprehensive picture of International Artists' strange and memorable five-year lifespan.
Years before Trent Rezner-inspired horror music began to appear within the soundtracks of big-budget serial killer flicks, Skinny Puppy founder cEvin Key laid the frightening electronic groundwork that would influence Nine Inch Nails and a whole generation of industrial artists. Key, along with fellow Skinny Puppy member D.R. Goettel, formed the side project Doubting Thomas around 1990 in order to delve more specifically into instrumental "soundtracks for movies that never existed." With their first full-length release, The Infidel, Key and Goettel generously shuffle bleak film and television audio clips into their oppressive synth padding and industrial drum machinery to form their own audio storylines…
Since 1945, Netherlands big-band the Metropole Orchestra (aka Metropole Orkest) has been globally renowned for their live and recorded performances of jazz, pop, electronic, classical, world, and avant-garde music; the orchestra is comprised of musicians from those genres and more.