The addition of guitarist and singer Steve Von Till into the Bay Area hardcore act Neurosis in the early '90s coincided with the band's shift from brutal thrash punk (the original cover of the group's first album, 1987's Pain of Mind, featured a news photo of Pennsylvania Attorney General Robert "Budd" Dwyer committing suicide during a live televised news conference earlier that year) into a more complex brew. Starting with 1992's Souls at Zero, Neurosis brought together psychedelic stoner metal, doomy goth rock, and nearly medieval folk tunes. Von Till was equally instrumental in the development of the Neurosis offshoot Tribes of Neurot, in which the band collaborates with outside musicians to create a form of improvisational neo-tribal music. Along with albums like the conceptual mindbender Adaptation and Survival: The Insect Project (an entire album's worth of electronically manipulated insect noises, originally released in 1998 as three vinyl records of varying sizes meant to be played at different speeds on multiple turntables at the same time), Tribes of Neurot also released a spate of EPs coinciding with the lunar equinoxes and solstices of the years 1999-2001.