Kayo Dot - Blasphemy - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

LP (180g vinyl, black) incl. Printed inner sleeve and protection sleeve. Kayo Dot, the endlessly eclectic project, spearheaded by composer and producer Toby Driver, was formed in 2003 by the members of the legendary aethereal metal band, Maudlin of the Well, marking a giant-inspired evolutionary leap. Since then, Kayo Dot's muse has shown it's face through slow and massive cascades of guitars and violins, and soundscapes spanning from InchBi**hes BrewInch-inspired tripped-out goth fusion to hyper-fast, angular and atonal suicidal black metal. Kayo Dot's members and collaborators come from a huge range of backgrounds; DIY punk kids to the most erudite conservatory-educated New York performing musicians. Driver's list of collaborators includes names like Randall Dunn (Wolves In The Throne Room, Myrkur, Sunn 0))), Secret Chiefs 3 (Trey Spruance of Mr. Bungle), John Zorn, and G. Stuart Dahlquist (Burning Witch, Asva), among many others. The diversity of musicians feeds Kayo Dot's ability to wind, twist, and leave you wanting with no ceiling on how it will evolve, while creating sounds that are both timeless and contemporary. Now fifteen years on, Kayo Dot's new album, InchBlasphemyInch, is once again based on an allegorical story by Jason Byron. It explores greed, especially politically, and surrounds three characters on their search for treasures; only to be destroyed by the very treasure they sought - a sleeping girl with terrible power named Blasphemy. Produced by Randall Dunn (who helmed Kayo Dot's InchHubardoInch, InchCoyoteInch, and InchBlue Lambency DownwardInch), is Kayo Dot's most forthright statement ever; directly confronting the world at-hand, foregoing the encouraged escapism found ubiquitously throughout the rest of Kayo Dot's catalogue, and embracing the perspective a band in such a rare position as this can bring. Much more energetic than the ebb and flow

Photosynthesis is a concept album about how plants convert sunlight into energy, how they transform carbon dioxide into the oxygen that all fauna need to breathe. The album's eight tracks each deal with an aspect of photosynthesis, from the macro InchWaterInch to the micro InchPalisades,Inch which reflects the theme of botanical lungs on a microscopic level. The album culminates with InchOxygen,Inch holding high the imagery of InchVerdant Alveolus Diaspora,Inch the album's core visual theme, depicting the world's forests as a functioning lung system's individual cells, scattered throughout the globe. Photosynthesis is the fourth InchcollectiveInch album in Botanist's greater discography, meaning it is composed of a group of individuals. Band originator Otrebor (hammered dulcimers, vocals, keyboards) composed the music and lyrics to the drums of returning member Daturus (Botanist's live drummer since 2017, who played on 2019's Ecosystem) and new bassist Tony Thomas.Photosynthesis sees Botanist returning to The Flenser stable, whose partnership yielded three albums, including 2014's VI Flora, perhaps the project's most noteworthy work.This was recorded in the Verdant Realm in California. The album production was handled by Dan Swanö, a musician whose legend is equally for his enormous contributions to the Swedish melodic and progressive death metal scenes in the '90s and '00s, as he is for his output of top-shelf album productions from his Unisound studio. The application of Swanö's creative genius in more artistic, avant-garde areas of the metal spectrum is a match of dreams for Botanist, resulting in an album that achieves a new level of the project's expanding vision with production excellence.

On their eleventh regular studio album, InchEvery Rock, Every Half-Truth under ReasonInch, conceptual and experimental artists Kayo Dot commemorate the 20th anniversary of InchChoirs of the EyeInch by reuniting the original line-up. This bold musical statement from the ever-changing composer and mastermind Toby Driver marks both a return and a progression from the band's seminal debut by revisiting the compositional practices that defined it while pushing forward into uncharted territory. Rejecting traditional rock structures and the more predictable contours of metal, InchEvery Rock, Every Half-Truth under ReasonInch shapes a sound that feels familiar and alien at once, where custom-designed microtonal organs and guitars weave an effort to reconcile the impossible tension between past and future. Moving away from the typical emphasis on low-end frequencies, it floats instead in the upper spectrum, where the textures become more fragile, more intimate, and more abrasive and terrifying. This Kayo Dot album is also haunted by the ghost of a future to come the spectre of AI-generated creativity. The increasing presence of artificial composition, predictive modelling, and algorithmic aesthetics casts a long shadow over all creative work today, which caused Driver to write in ways that resist prediction, to compose music that does not reveal itself to pattern recognition. Much of the album is an effort to move against the grain of legibility, to make something that slips from the grasp of systems designed to anticipate us. After the split of much loved MAUDLIN OF THE WELL, Toby Driver formed the avant-garde music project Kayo Dot as a new outlet for his burgeoning creativity in 2003. In the following 20 years, Kayo Dot released an impressive number of full-lengths, EPs, splits, and live recordings that are all marked by considerable stylistic differences and a wide array