An interesting group of 5 German musicians who have formed so far 7 different bands. Each band has its own identity, but they mostly lie in the region of experimental and dark metal. I'm sure most of us are familiar with at least one or two of the bands, but the full list is:

Island
Klabautamann
Ekpyrosis
Valborg
Woburn House
Gruenewald
Slon

Info about each is here. Most of their releases are released by (or will soon be released by)Vendlus Records or Paradigms Recordings. Thoughts on this assembly of AGM musicians? Favorite project?

I know only Island, Klabautmann and Valborg. Would prefer Klabautmann, but I would like to hear new material from Island, def.

They all seem very interesting, haven't listened to them all but I do fancy Grünewald, Valborg & Island. Nice to see a very small and insular scene again.
It's them and the Smohalla clan in France.

As I have close contact with one of these creative spirits since the ISLAND review & interview excpect more of these bands up here soon!

I've checked allmost all of them (except Ekpyrosis and Valborg ) great bands with mgreat ideas I only wish I could get more music.....and yeah close to the Smohalla family :p

I'm not sure I'm familiar with the Smohalla family other than Smohalla themself...what else is there?

Well, there are a number of side-projects; Slo has like as many bands & projects as he has fingers, Camille too.
Twilight Congregation,
The Sect,
Sveta Istina Vjestica,
Howlin Poetry*,
Dreams of the Drowned*
Callahan, and a few more. I mean... come on. Come on. Some people just have too much free time, haha! Though it might be wrong to call it a scene in the same way as these bands all come from two persons +/- a few others. But there are even more bands surrounding these in what I guess you could call a scene. There's just something about the French water.

Thanks for linking those, some interesting stuff in there.

i didnt know that they were like a ring...

anyways i have heard only woburn house and klaubautmann and both are baosultely killer...the former's really good doomy dirgey rock and the latter is one of the better bm bands in operation today...i will be checking out the others

When I did review Ekpyrosis, I didn't even know the band was related to these guys.

I just realized that I actually hadn't heard a few of these bands, so now I know what I'll be doing this evening!

About this french water thing, you guys should check out as well Stagnant Waters ( www.myspace.com/stagnantwatersfr - album cumming soon), Pryapisme ( www.myspace.com/pryapisme - album cumming soon) and Textinreverse ( www.myspace.com/textinreverse ) !

Yes, Stagnant Waters! Forgot about them/you. Will look into Textinreverse.

oh yeah in general, France is a great place right now for AGM. Lots of established bands and demo-bands.

But overall, if I were to compare the Smohalla people with the Zeitgeister people, I would have to pick the Zeitgeisters. Their projects are a bit more developed and appealing to me.

I bump this thread because it's the origin of my interest on these people, so thank you mr. alliaphagist for opening this thread!! Also I got to discover some french weirdness that was hidden to me (not at all but this increased my curiosity).
Well, after bothering mr. Florian from the Zeitgeister with tshirt sizes I will be buying some cds from them soon, don't know if I must buy them now or wait for the Island release on this month's final days. I'm addicted to Island as much as I was to Ekpyrosis, and I hadn't realised the reviews/interview on this site even until now. So will read as soon as I can.
Do not dig Klabautamann as much for now, but Island, Ekpyrosis and more recently Woburn are on my top recently discovered works. Yes I downloaded them (well, not Woburn and I won't), but I'll buy probably the three of their albums because they deserve my moneis.
Favourite? Maybe Island's Orakel for now. At first it was Ekpyrosis. Let's see if Island's selftitled carves deeper than Orakel.