plenty of pickups. go down the boutique road theres bardens, suhr, lollar, WCR, fralins, evans, wolfetone, van zandt, anderson. plenty more out there but these are the more popular ones.
kinmans have a different vibe from the usual bunch. rather than have a vintage tone like what most boutique pickup makers are doing, kinmans have this really hi fi kinda sound to it. some may like it others may not. totally different from a vintage pickup though it claims to be vintage.
ive got the suhr single coils too. very clean and chimey and even under high gain retains that classic hollow and quacky sound. humbuckers just check the site for reference as theres a demo video done by nick sterling. wouldnt say its very vintage sounding as it seems to take on single coil characteristics.
emg 85 is very nice on drive settings but the clean doesnt really appeal to me in my opinion. but it doesnt sound like the usual pickups u have on the market. might fit the bill for exotic
but IMO if ure looking for something exotic i feel the amp u get plays a bigger part in the tone shaping than pickups. even wood plays a bigger part for me in the tone equation than pickups. but to hit the nail on the head the first thing u could do is to look into the main source of sound which is the amp.
