San Diego multi-instrumentalist Jimmy LaValle launched The Album Leaf in 1998 as a solo project while playing guitar in post-rock band Tristeza, initially self-releasing limited cassette experiments in ambient texture and field recordings. The project gained international recognition after Sigur Rós took LaValle on tour, leading to the acclaimed Sub Pop release In a Safe Place (2004), a landmark of delicate, orchestrated instrumental ambient music. LaValle has continued releasing records under the name, expanding the project to include a full live band and occasional vocals.

Thomas Giles is the solo project of Tommy Giles Rogers Jr., vocalist and keyboardist for progressive metal band Between the Buried and Me, who has used the alias to explore territory incompatible with his main band's aesthetic. Pulse (2011) on Metal Blade Records launched the project formally, followed by Modern Noise (2014), Velcro Kid (2016), and Don't Touch the Outside (2018), each drawing on electronic music, synth-pop, and experimental rock over increasingly pure departures from metal. Rogers has described the project as a space for material that cannot fit within Between the Buried and Me, giving it a deliberately open-ended, genre-agnostic character.

Troller is an Austin, Texas trio formed around 2012 whose music fuses darkwave, post-punk, industrial textures, and shoegaze into a brooding, synth-driven sound. Vocalist and bassist Amber Star-Goers anchors the band's atmospheric crawl, which draws favorable comparisons to Bauhaus, Clan of Xymox, and early Cocteau Twins. Their two albums — a self-titled debut (2012) and Graphic (2016) — were released on Relapse Records.