organ

ALBUM OF THE WEEK - organ 267, july 24th 2008


KAYO DOT - Blue Lambency Downward (Hydrahead) - This is not fast food. This is a banquet of rare ingredients and exquisite constructions, to be digested over days, not minutes. It's sweet and beautiful and not for the faint-hearted, dripping with opiate languor in one place, curling into unsettling, chilling landscapes (landscapes out of the films of Jan Svankmeyer and Brothers Quay) in another, building slowly slowly to a peak o. Kayo Dot - for all intents the work of composer/multi-instrumentalist Toby Driver - are masters of the slow boil, the long journey. Listen to the samples of their 2003 album Choirs Of The Eye on kayodot.net and you'll hear ranging avant-thrashouts that melt down to whispered poetry, and woozy, heat-hazed songs that gradually work up to thunderous metal denouements like an escalating arms race no-one can remember starting. Kayo Dot are, in common with any truly great creativity, almost impossible to describe.
A good deal of Blue Lambency Downward can be compared to the more abstract passages of A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers, the legendary twenty-minute masterwork of Van Der Graaf Generator. Kayo Dot are that avant, psychedelic sensibility concentrated and amplified; lusher, more sensual. Their contemporaries are Time Of Orchids, equal in mastery of the romantic and hypercomplex. The lyrics are magnificently obtuse, a fever dream of Dada and Coleridge, both absurd and deliciously tactile, and it all comes together on the opening, title track's swooning, stuttering, richly strange climax. Driver's elegant voice is endlessly listenable, part torch singer, recognisably from a rock background and wrapping effortlessly around some edgy melodics, hinting at middle-eastern quarter-tone singing. Violin (from, sax, clarinets, malletophone, organ and synthesizers take equal parts to the band setup (and the synth throbs and drones are treated as part of the arrangements in a way few if any have succeeded with). Indeed, despite echoing the more psychedelic, stranger moments of Led Zeppelin this is barely a rock band, more a contemporary classical work that can stand up to the high standards of that world, crossing over into classic and avant jazz. Having said that... The Awkward Wind Wheel is the heaviest, most straight-up piece on this album, showing The Mars Volta how it should be done (apparently Kayo Dot are worshipped by contingents of Mars Volta campfollowers) and maybe referencing Voivod a little. Elsewhere, Right Hand Is The One I Want and the opening build of Symmetrical Arizona meander into limpid backwaters, easy to get lost in if you're in a hurrying mood. That's the essence of listening to Kayo Dot, and Driver's previous band Maudlin Of The Well: take the whole journey with them, wherever it goes go with it - the getting there makes the peaks and depths that much sweeter - www.kayodot.net

I love this band, even though (especially because?) I have absolutely no idea what it is they're doing or how they do it. well out there on their own as far as I can see (except for time of orchids, but I've somehow never been seduced by their mapping of similar territory - not sure why...perhaps because ToO seem forced while KD seem to simply exhale this stuff).

you know they're touring with torche and pelican later this year, aye? not that I can be arsed with those two bands, but the presence of KD is highly, highly tempting.

Indeed, here are those dates from the Organ news pages, if only they were headlining with Torche in the middle someone a little more interesting as opening support, I can't say I get what everyone hears when it comes to the borefest that Pelican. I kind of like that Torche album though. Marina has not let me get near the Kayo Dot album enough for me to get in to it yet (that's her review)


KAYO DOT have some UK and Irish dates is September, the dates are with PELICAN and TORCHE and here they are now: 12th Brighton, Engine Room, 13th Sheffield, Corporation, 14th Glasgow, Oran Mor, 15th Belfast, The Limelight, 16th Dublin, Whelans, 17th Birmingham, Medicine Bar, 18th London, Underworld, 19th Bristol, Croft. The Kayo Dot album is Organ album of the week this week, read the review here or go explore the obligatory My Space pages here: www.myspace.com/torche or www.myspace.com/kayodot or www.myspace.com/pelican

Here's the Torche album review from Organ 259 - May 29th

TORCHE – Meanderthral (Hydrahead) – One of them there slightly alternative, slightly stoner, rather out there bands who touch on good things that taste of the finest Melvins and plumpest Jesus Lizards. There we were letting it ferment and stew and cook and brew and we were somewhere around Amnesian on the edge of desert when the music began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a little lightheaded; maybe you should type...” And suddenly there was a beautiful roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge riffs, all swooping and screeching and diving around the room, which at the time was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Pirana. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn songs?” Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was hitting the repeat button “what the hell are you yelling about? Play it again” he muttered, staring up at the light bulb... Why the hell did it take a whole play of the thing for it to hit home? This is an album from a band on the move, and a band just right enough to be totally confident. God's mercy on you swine, you know the bits in between, the great American dream and the Mint 400. Here’s a few clues for you, never did swooping bats sound so good! Melvins good and riff colossus, all there ready to take you, go let it.
Footnote: We like the way the CD came face down in the tray – strange that we thought, CD face down, and it was shrink-wrapped as well, CDs are usually face up, then it all made sense and we realized why, these little artistic details matter and deserve noting... www.hydrahead.com / www.myspace.com/torche

NO KAYO DOT!

8th AUG - PELICAN and TORCHE go head to head on a whirlwind UK tour. This just in from Hydrahead Records “This is the first we've seen of Pelican since last year's self proclaimed "pop album", 'City of Echoes' - a series of (r)evolutionary instrumental ruminations on touring and the homogenous effects of globalization. As the reverberations from their own amplified gloriousness rest upon your heads, so too will Torche. Mastermind Steve Brooks and his fellow hook heroes produce the finest in bomb-string stoner pop/thunder rock/doom pop classic from mastermind was released earlier this year.” – No mention of the preciously reported appearance of KAYO DOT on that bill so I guess that news was wrong. The dates September: 12th – Brighton Engine Room, 13th - Sheffield Corporation, 14th – Glasgow Oran Mor, 15th – Belfast Black Box, 16th – Dublin Whelans, 17th – Birmingham Medicine Bar, 18th – London Underworld, 19th - Bristol Croft

i see them Cardiacs fans are waking up since you put up thems links for the downloads...

that's right, there's a load of links t ofree (legal) KAYO DOT downloads with this week's Organ

I keep meaning to check Kayo Dot out actually, what's the best record to start with then?

Pretty everyone i know who likes the music i like loves Kayo Dot, and yet i've never got round to checking them out. Just not sure where to start...


joe x

touring the UK this September...

11th September, London....