| # | Artist | Song (click to play) | Album | Year | CD label |
| 1 | French TV | The Odessa Steps Sequence | 6 The Violence of Amateurs | 1999 | Pretentious Dinosaur Records |
| That "American Clown Band" from Louisville, Kentucky. The music is all instrumental, complex, avant, jazzy, and at times humorous. Influences include Zappa, Canterbury and RIO. Very good stuff! | |||||
| 2 | Kehell | Galileo | Galileo | 1999 | Musea Parallele |
| Kehell is a guitar, bass, drums instrumental fusion trio fronted by the ex-guitarist of Mr. Sirius. Some similarities to early Holdsworth solo material, Brand X, Kenso, et al. | |||||
| 3 | Codice | Icons Suite (A Log of Dreams) | Alba y Ocaso | 1999 | Art Sublime |
| Codice's debut release is a 2-CD set of somewhat diverse styles. You can hear alot of their influences which they both imitate and borrow from, such as ELP, Genesis, King Crimson, Focus, ... Their style is generally in the symphonic mold with very long compositions that are moderately complex. I find the vocal tracks to be pretty weak, but, luckily there is not much of them. There is plenty to like in these 2 hours of music. | |||||
| 4 | Claude Lamothe | A la grecque | Cru | 1999 | Disques Musi-Art |
| Claude Lamothe is a violinist whose music is a unique mix of jazz, classical, and rock elements. The instrumentation is somewhat sparse and direct with the only other musicians being a drummer and bass player. It is some very nice string work, heavy on improvisation. | |||||
| 5 | Hochenkeit | I Love You | I Love You | 1999 | Road Cone |
| This is some very sparse music, which moves along very slowly almost ploddingly. The musicians seem to be beginners and do not play very well. It does very little for me. Ah well - somebody likes this stuff. | |||||
| 6 | Finneus Gauge | State of the Art | One Inch of the Fall | 1999 | Train Records |
| Finneus Gauge is Chris Buzby's post-Echolyn band. Also featured prominently is Scott McGill on guitar, who has a couple of his own albums out with his band Hand Farm. The guitar playing on Finneus Gauge is very Holdsworthian. The music is complex but accessible. There are some similarites to Echolyn especially in the vocal harmonies. The musical style is a mix of American symphonic progressive with some fusion touches. The band is now defunct as Scott McGill is now full-time with Hand Farm and Echolyn is reformed. Echolyn will be giving their comeback performance at Nearfest. | |||||