Rex
The more thought I put into this list (which is pretty haphazardly thrown together) the more I am coming to realize that this is less about bands generally unknown to music fans, but rather bands who also seem to hover under that all important tool of the music journalist -- the name drop. For some reason, there are some universally celebrated groups whose names have simply dissapeared from the lexicon, and like a slowly dying language, must be used or will be permanently lost.
One of these bands, who for some reason are often excluded as a reference in reviews of similar bands, are Brooklyn's Rex who for a brief spell in the mid-90s released some truly memorable, epic rock. Led by singer/guitarist Curtis Harvey (who played in The Letter E) and the untouchable Doug Scharin on drums/percussion, Rex were both pastoral and grandiose, using dynamic crescendo in ways less predictable than Mogwai and more engaging than the Constellation Records family (Godspeed, Do Make Say Think). At times they were as directly emotive as Red House Painters, and like Kozelek's crew, they understood the occasional importance of patiently unraveling a groove over six or 7 minutes. Not nearly as true to the slowcore ethos as Low or Codeine, they like similarly motivated acts Idaho and Acetone, did take the time to express themselves, and if you were lucky enough to catch them live, you know the shows were never long enough.
Since you can get a nice bio of the band here I will spare the details, and ask you to listen to the posted tracks in the context you often reserve for slower, more idyllic music. The MP3s are taken from their last two albums (since the recording of the first, self-titled record does not do the band justice) and I included "Oafish" which features Bundy Brown on guitar for all the Directions in Music nerds like myself.
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