Bent Leg Fatima is a quartet from Philadelphia (Keyboardist Dale Jimenez, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Jeff Bradbury, bassist Jamie Robinson, drummer Chris Powell) that bridges progressive-rock and trance-oriented rock. The imaginative tracks of Bent Leg Fatima (File 13, 2000) harked back to Soft Machine (Hemingway, Seamless Suite) and early Pink Floyd (Saucer And Cup, Cat Crow And Snake). But ethereal compositions like Greetings And Farewells have no predecessor. Occasionally, their songs bring back to mind giants of rock music like Robert Wyatt and Syd Barrett. Quite an accomplishment for a debut album.

Dale Jimenez, Jeff Bradbury, Chris Powell, plus bassist Chris Reggiani and saxophonist Larry Brown, formed Need New Body and released the 22-track album Need New Body (Cenotaph, 2002), permeated by Eastern and jazz influences but largely unfocused and fragmented (on purpose).

The 23-track album UFO (File 13, 2003), recorded without Brown and with the addition of Jamie Robinson (now on piano) and percussionist Jim Reggiani, is a much more effective and even violent work, that dispenses with both the jazz and the Eastern variables of the equation while retaining the anarchic attitude. The disjointed flow of the songs is a treat in itself, from the Zappa-esque ballad Moondear to the demented Popfest (which is not pop at all).

Perhaps indulging too much in the same old joke, Need New Body failed to attain the same level of superhuman dementia on Where's Black Ben (5 Rue Christine, 2005), the first album without Chris Reggiani. Its pieces (and their barbaric incursions in all sorts of musical genres, from hip-hop to jazz) sound gratuitous and incoherent where they used to sound challenging and meaningful.

Chris Powell also plays in Icy Demons that released Fight Back (Cloud, 2004).