Comradeship // Freechat

This is a bit of a trick question because there are bands that are fairly well known in certain countries and in specific genre scenes but internationally and with general audiences they would definitely be considered obscure.

I find it too hard to pick just one so i'll list a few of them:

• German folk-metal band "Subway to Sally", they were most active and well known in the 90s and 00s, but i think they are still around today

• "Faun", another German folk band, also not exactly unknown, pretty big in their scene especially in the 00s and early 2010s

• "The Dreadnoughts", Canadian folk punk band most active late 00s to mid 2010s, probably too well known in the punk scene to count as truly obscure but it's a niche genre so a lot of people may not be familiar with them

• French folk rock band "Malicorne", fairly popular in the 70s and 80s, pioneered some groundbreaking innovations for the genre, would be surprised if many people outside of France still know them nowadays

• Romanian prog folk bands "Phoenix" and "Sfinx", active in the late 60s, early 70s, with the former having a bit of a revival a few decades later; very well known in Romania especially among the older generations but quite obscure outside of Romania

• British jazz folk band "Pentangle", quite popular in the 70s and 80s, not obscure among folk fans but probably fairly obscure for most other audiences

• 1970s Irish folk band "Planxty", not as well known as other popular Irish folk groups but still pretty big in their genre; had a big influence on later groups, such as English folk band "Pilgrim's Way" (founded in 2010)

• "Girlpool", indie duo from LA, broke up by now i think but they recorded some really good albums in the late 2010s. Some of their videos got quite a lot of views and they had a decent amount of popularity in the indie scene for a while, so not that obscure.

Now of you want some really obscure stuff that is pretty unknown even in their respective genres and countries, here are a few that come to mind:

• "Songs for Moms", indie band from Oakland, California, very obscure, published two albums in the late 00s

• "Spectaculatius", a small German medieval music re-enactment troupe who mostly play medieval festivals, or what you would call "Renaissance Fairs" in the US

• Romanian folk band "Focul Viu", started in the late 90s, mostly play local clubs and folk festivals around Tîrgu-Mureş

Obviously this list leans heavily into the folk and partly indie genres, not because i don't listen to or enjoy other genres too, but because these are the easiest genres for me to find "obscure" music in that i still listen to on a regular basis. My tastes in other genres are more "vanilla" and would not be sufficiently obscure for this list.