All right, a little bit of cheekiness is intended in the forum title...

But this idea of there being a lot of musical "collectives" around these days seems to keep turning up in various articles and discussions around here, so I figured it was probably worth raising as a topic of conversation.

Obviously, sometimes this concept really (or at least mostly) works -- see our interview with United Bible Studies, and all their related groups/projects/etc. (Agitated Radio Pilot, Murmansk, Amygdala, Magickal Folk of the Faraway Tree, Lost Roman Legions, Team Discovery Channel, and probably a few dozen associated groups I don't really have time to type right now). And what makes them work from my pov is a consistent vision of musical expansiveness but a genuine diversity in how it's expressed -- not to mention a remarkably consistent level of quality.

But it's pretty easy to think of lots of stuff like this going on at the present time, from all our Finnish friends, to the Jeweled Antler folks out in San Francisco, to Davenport in the midwest, to the likes of Feathers and Tower Recordings and Wooden Wand in the east, and of course there's the whole Music Your Mind Will Love You gang in Australia (Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood, Terracid, so many many more)...

So I'm interested in folks' thoughts about a) how's come there's so much of this going on these days; b) what makes it work or not work for you; and c) particular favorites (or otherwise) among all the groups and releases out there. I constantly have the feeling I'm missing out on things, in spite of being up to my gills in CDs I've not even played yet, so would love to hear some thoughts and ideas...