Avant-prog

History and characteristics

A host of groups and artists mainly from the United States, but also from Europe and Japan, "started to write mostly short instrumental pieces that focused on complexity and stripped down instrumentation, while avoiding the pomposity and stage props of the big progressive rock acts." Some groups, such as Thinking Plague and the Motor Totemist Guild, kept working with long durations and rich instrumentation but also forayed into free improvisation, sound collage, and other avant-garde techniques. These artists cumulated on record labels such as Cuneiform (United States), Recommended (later ReR Megacorp, England) and Rec Rec (Switzerland).