Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Performance art, art rock, experimental rock, heavy metal - all are styles of music that have been used to explain one of the more hard to explain bands in all of rock, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Some critics have compared the band - which hails from Oakland, California - to one of the quirkiest bands of all time, Mr. Bungle, and they may have a point (after all, like Bungle, SGM are not opposed to any musical style, and one of their albums was originally released by a label run by an ex-Bungle member, Trey Spruance). Strange costumes, makeup, and instruments that are both traditional and homemade turn out to be some of the key ingredients to Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, who have built a sizable cult following along the way…

Free Salamander Exhibit is a 5-piece progressive band comprising members of the now defunct art rockers Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Employing a variety of homemade instruments in addition to guitars, bass, and drums, Free Salamander Exhibit doles out barbed rhythms, pungent harmonies, and itchy textures that are somewhat softened by occasionally lyrical and even joyful interludes. With lyrics exploring the slippery passage of time, the fantastical visions of Joyce, and the prison musings of Leonard Peltier, Free Salamander Exhibit delivers a thought-provoking, cathartic experience for the eyes, ears and mind.

Charming Hostess is a whirl of eerie harmony, hot rhythm and radical braininess. Our music explores the intersection of text and the sounding body– complex ideas expressed physically, based on voice and vocal percussion, handclaps and heartbeats, sex-breath and silence. We live where diasporas collide, incorporating piyyutim and Pygmy counterpoint, doo-wop and niggunim, work songs and Torah chanting. The texts speak of mysticism and sex; angels and demons; and the trials and joys of love and sex…

Charming Hostess is a whirl of eerie harmony, hot rhythm and radical braininess. Our music explores the intersection of text and the sounding body– complex ideas expressed physically, based on voice and vocal percussion, handclaps and heartbeats, sex-breath and silence. We live where diasporas collide, incorporating piyyutim and Pygmy counterpoint, doo-wop and niggunim, work songs and Torah chanting. The texts speak of mysticism and sex; angels and demons; and the trials and joys of love and sex…

This NY-based studio collective consists of Matthias Bossi (Skeleton Key, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum), Joel Hamilton (Sparklehorse, Elvis Costello), Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu, Frank Black, They Might Be Giants), and Carla Kihlstedt (Tom Waits, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum). With guests Carla Bozulich, Megan Reilly, Jon Langford, David Thomas, Mike Watt, and Tom Waits, their debut bills itself as "a tribute to the American Rust Belt". They paint a haunting modern-day portrait of cities like Cleveland, Youngstown, Toledo, and Detroit; places that once were the definition of American motivation, progress, and industry, but now are home to ruined monuments of a bygone era. The sonic landscape is painted with scraping, swirling guitars, soaring string arrangements, rupturing bass, and plate-shattering drums.

The Book Of Knots has had the pleasure of collaborating with some of the worlds most talented musicians, including Tom Waits, Mike Patton, David Thomas, Blixa Bargeld, Jon Langford, and Carla Bozulich. Founding members Matthias Bossi (Skeleton Key, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum), Joel Hamilton (producer/engineer for BlakRoc, Pretty Lights), Carla Kihlstedt (Tin Hat Trio, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum) and Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu, Frank Black, Bob Mould) forge a sound both epic and intimate, empowering and devastating. Cinematic, symphonic landscapes give way to crumbling acoustic chamber ballads. Broken guitars and beautifully warped orchestras describe the ungraceful demise of boats, blast furnaces and bloated industries. Accounts of the failed adventures of tragic would-be heroes are given voice in the band's two previous critically-acclaimed releases. Their newest album serves as the final chapter in the bands "By Sea, By Land, By Air" trilogy.

Yolk is an Avant-prog band from France. Their music, characterized by its subtle approach to voices, effects and electronics, has taken singular directions under the influence of bands and artists such as Gong, Fred Frith, The Residents, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and others.

Cocktails with Carnivores is the third self-released CD by Juan Prophet Organization. Great, unusual, weirdcore, post-rock, folk-rock ensemble who might be a bit comparable to a more acoustic, more Americana-based Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. The instrumentation consists of guitar, bass, drums, violin, viola, piano, vocals, accordian, banjo, trumpet, cornet, clarinet, glockenspiel, percussion and general weirdness and oddity.

With a whirlwind of instrumental styles fusing classical, rock, blues, jazz, world music, progressive, as well as the quintessential California musical genre surf music, the California Guitar Trio's stunning virtuosity and sly sense of humor have earned them an enthusiastic following and wide notoriety, with significant crossover in the progressive, acoustic and classical music scenes.