Kayo Dot "Blasphemy"

Country: USA
Genre(s):  Experimental/Progressive/Avant Rock
Label: Prophecy Productions
Format: CD, digital, vinyl
Release date: September 6, 2019
Tracklist: 
1. Ocean Cumulonimbus
2. The Something Opal
3. Lost Souls on Lonesome’s Way
4. Vanishing Act in Blinding Gray
5. Turbine, Hook, and Haul
6. Midnight Mystic Rise and Fall
7. An Eye for a Lie
8. Blasphemy: A Prophecy

Line-up: 
Toby Driver - guitar, bass, synths, vocals, percussion, electronics
Ron Varod - guitar
Leonardo Didkovsky - drums
Phillip Price - drums
Tim Byrnes - trumpet (5)
Timm Mason - additional synth design

Media/Samples 
Teaser
Bandcamp

Links:
Web page
Facebook
Progarchives
Proggnosis

Kayo Dot “Plastic House on Base of Sky”

Country: USA
Genre(s): Progressive Rock
Label: The Flenser
Format: CD, digital, vinyl
Release date: June 24, 2016
Tracklist: 
1. Amalia’s Theme
2. All The Pain in All the Wide World
3. Magnetism
4. Rings of Earth
5. Brittle Urchin

Line-up: 
Toby Driver - voice, synths, guitar, bass guitar
Keith Abrams - drums
Ron Varod - guitar on “Brittle Urchin”
Daniel Means - saxophone
Sage Riesman - violin
Stacey Winegyn - violin
Bing Minz - violin
Roman Celine - viola
Dabe Wyche - viola
Alexis Travelion - cello
Landen Chelengs - contrabass
Lemuel Bardor - harpsichord
Bree Eng - pipe organ
Duggan Elston - hammond organ
Valentin Dublev - mellotron
Charmane Tressel - glass harmonica
Gloria Hattifer - celesta
Bhin Turmes - trumpet
Ephraim Narata - flugelhorn
George Chamdles - rhodes
Stelvio Nebulli - hand percussion
Guillaume Veltaj - hand percussion
The Adirondack Twilight Choir

Description/Reviews: 

On Plastic House on Base of Sky, Kayo Dot fully embraces Coffins on Io’s electronic allusions, incorporating a variety of synthesizers (many of them vintage analog) to create another work of ambition and magnitude that fuses the explosive musical imagination of a band like Magma with the forward-thinking experimentalism of Conrad Schnitzler or Morton Subotnick. This 40 minute-long, 5-song LP goes beyond the future-noir theme of Coffins on Io and is an innovative and biomechanical work of art. Think seemingly impossible architecture, dead satellites, trashed space stations, wasted old lady heroin addicts hanging out by cheap motel pools, broken people, and a hopeless dead and polluted world transitioning into artifice and mechanism and reacting by being self-destructive, either to the point of utter obliteration or a glorious transhuman condition.

Media/Samples 
Amalia’s Theme
Magnetism

Links:
Web page
Facebook
Progarchives
Proggnosis

Kayo Dot "Coffins On Io"

Country: USA
Sub Genre: Avant Prog, Art Rock
Label: Flenser Records
Release date: October 16, 2014
Tracklist: 
1. The Mortality of Doves
2. Off-ramp Cycle, Pattern 22
3. Longtime Disturbance on the Miracle Mile
4. Library Subterranean
5. The Assassination of Adam
6. Spirit Photography

Line-up: 
Toby Driver (Maudlin Of The Well) - voice, bass, synthesizers, organ, piano, Rhodes and percussion
Jason Byron (Maudlin Of The Well) -  vocals
Keith Abrams - drums
Daniel Means - alto sax, tenor sax and clarinet
Ron Varod -  guitars
Tim Byrnes - trumpet and horn

Description/Reviews: 

When it comes to Kayo Dot, change is the only constant. And like the best pop culture chameleons of the past, Kayo Dot’s evolution is governed by an inscrutable inner-logic. Despite the accessible songwriting of Coffins on Io and the emphasis on vocal melody and electronic percussion, Kayo Dot fans will find the record’s darkness and intensity familiar and relatable. For example: the dark wave of Coffins on Io album-track “Off-ramp Cycle” might be unrecognizable to Kayo Dot’s metal fans. “The sound is kind of like a sexy combination of Type O Negative, Peter Gabriel, Sisters of Mercy,” Driver says. But the track also encompasses the brooding menace of classic Bauhaus as well as current dark wavers Cold Cave and Crystal Stilts: artists young and old who live and die in those unknowable corners where heaviness meets delicacy and sincerity meets theatricality.
Elsewhere, Driver’s penchant for prog rock surfaces in the ethereal “Spirit Photography,” complete with a saxophone melody line—strikingly gentle when compared to Kayo Dot’s brutal back catalog. “Long Time Disturbance on the Miracle Mile” could be a Bryan Ferry-era Roxy Music cut, and “The Mortality of Doves” could be Eno-produced David Bowie. 

Driver says there’s also an element of sexuality in Coffins on Io.“Basically the vibe that we’re going for here is inspired by 80s retro-future noir— Blade Runner,” Driver explains. “I wanted to make a good record to put on while you drive across the desert at night under a toxic, post-apocalyptic atmosphere,” he says, adding, “There’s a weird underlying theme of murder, shame and death.”

Links:
Web page
Facebook
ProgArchives
Proggnosis

Kayo Dot "Hubardo"

Country: USA
Sub Genre: Avant Prog, Progressive Metal,
Label: self-released
Release date: September 1, 2013 (digital)
Tracklist: 
1. The Black Stone (10:38)
2. Crown-In-The-Muck (8:54)
3. Thief (6:52)
4. Vision Adjustment To Another Wavelength (4:53)
5. Zodelida Caosaji (To Water The Earth) (5:26)
6. The First Matter (Saturn In The Guise Of Sadness) (9:29)
7. The Second Operation (Lunar Water) (13:19)
8. Floodgate (7:23)
9. And He Built Him A Boat (7:28)
10. Passing The River (10:12)
11. The Wait Of The World (14:23)

Line-up: 
Toby Driver (Maudlin Of The Well) - bass, keys, guitars and vocals
Terran Olson (Maudlin Of The Well) - keys and woodwinds
Daniel Means - woodwinds and synth
Mia Matsumiya - violin
Tim Byrnes - trumpet and horn in F
Keith Abrams - drums
Ron Varod - guitar
   With
Jason Byron (Maudlin Of The Well) - vocals

Description/Reviews: 

Hubardo is an approximately 100-minute conceptual epic double-album, with story and lyrics written by longtime lyricist and former Maudlin Of The Well vocalist, Jason Byron. Musically, the album covers the spectrum of all of the band's works, from the sparse doomy elements of Choirs of The Eye, to the blast-beat, woodwind-driven Gamma Knife, the chorus-bass goth fusion of Coyote, and even lush orchestrated prog moments harkening back to the days of their previous band, Maudlin Of The Well, and, as with all the band's releases, Driver and Co. venturing into new territory. 

Media/Samples 
Teaser
Thief
And He Built Him A Boat

Links:
Web page
Facebook
ProgArchives
Proggnosis