Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (often abbreviated to SGM) is an American experimental rock band, formed in 1999 in Oakland, California. The band fuses classical, industrial, and art-rock themes throughout their music. The band was founded by Nils Frykdahl (guitars, flutes, vocals) and Dan Rathbun (bass, log, trombone, lute, vocals) of the band Idiot Flesh, with Carla Kihlstedt (violins, percussion guitar, autoharp, organ, bulbul, vocals.


 * Grand Opening and Closing (2001)
 * Of Natural History (2004)
 * In Glorious Times (2007)


 * Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
 * Everybody Hates Mathematics: Subverted, since most of their songs deal with mathematical themes and stories about dada artists and mathematicians (both real and ficticious).
 * Everything Is an Instrument: Bassist Dan Rathbun provides most of the custom-made instruments played by the band members. Some of them are made of kitchen tools, rare metal objects and even parts from other instruments.
 * Harsh Vocals: Vocalist Nils Frykdahl serves as the prime example, but the rest of the band members have proven to be succesful in using this technique proficiently from time to time.
 * Humanoid Abomination: The Donkey-Headed Adversary of Humanity is a character in the band's first two albums and an overall mascot as well.
 * Indecipherable Lyrics: See the "Word Salad Lyrics" example below.
 * Mad Mathematician: Several of them are quoted on their songs as a source to their fictitious storylines. An example can be found on FC: The Freedom Club, which quotes several lines from american mathematician and anarcho-primitivist Ted Kaczynski.
 * Mad Oracle: Throughout the fictional storyline of their first 2 albums, the band features a Humanoid Abomination known as The Donkey-Headed adversary of Humanity, who prophesies an impending doom for the human race.
 * Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness: Their music is mostly in 8, crossing sometimes into 9 territory. Songs like "The Donkey-Headed Adversary of Humanity Opens the Discussion" and "Helpless Corpses Enactment" are some of their best examples.
 * Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly
 * Sensory Abuse
 * Uncommon Time: A trademark of their experimental rock/metal style. The work on their first album was even regarded by the american music webzine Pitchfork Media as a mixture between Meshuggah and Secret Chiefs 3.
 * Word Salad Lyrics: Helpless Corpses Enactment is a direct extraction from James Joyce infamous novel Finnegans Wake, known by it's odd linguistic experiments and total abandonment of the conventions of plot and character construction, making difficult for the casual reader to understand what's really going on with the story (if there's any).
 * Xenophone