kayo dot represents pitchfork music's indie cred

[metaghost]

This same author did a similar thing for Pelican's last album. I think he's a musician and he once sent a demo to Hydra Head and it was ignored.

I don't know if dude is a musician, but this is a song from a band on his "label":

Finale by Impale Golden Horn

Impale Golden Horn is Jenks Miller's solo debut as Horseback. This recording offers four lengthy tracks of fuzz-bliss guitar, submerged piano, bristling drones and restrained vocals. Each composition builds, floats and disintegrates with a sense of detail, patience and timing that's rapturous and mesmerizing. Jenks is backed on "Blood Fountain" by Heather McEntire

I'm pretty sure these two things, uh, intimate a certain, shall we say, "hypocrisy", hm? i.e. where's the fucking hooks, dawg?

 

[Neoteric]

Who gives a fuck about pitchfork. A bunch of posers they are.

 

[xfer]

9/10 from the Norwegians. anyone got a translation?

http://www.metal-norge.com/?p=review&id=5118

 

[FuSoYa]

Musikk for alle? Neppe,

I like how "Neppe" must be the word for "Nope"

 

[xfer]

so basically norwegian is like english but all funny-spelled

 

[aura]

i've noticed a few unfair comparisons to the mars volta in recent reviews of BLD. they haven't put out a solid album since deloused, so comparing anything to them is automatically going to make something sound shitty.

 

[xfer]

i liked frances the mute

 

[delonlimpidform]

so basically norwegian is like english but all funny-spelled

And lots of o's with lines through them.

 

[FuSoYa]

I think that the internet music critic scene is totally insular and circular, and is comprised of kids who all talk to each other all the time online via messageboards. For example, there's a big Kayo Dot thread at The Mars Volta messageboard. (before you freak out, no i don't read that thread but sometimes am aware of certain posts)

I would be interested to know how many readers of that thread have written a review of the record and posted it on some webzine? Or conversely, how many of the reviews that have been written for random webzines were written by readers of that thread. Specific example: In a post on that thread, someone misquoted lyrics from the record. Then shortly afterward, I saw maybe three reviews at separate webzines that all quoted the same line in the same incorrect way. Which means that those reviewers got their info from the Mars Volta messageboard.


This is our modern journalism.

 

[Astral Poetry]

faux-gonzoism

 

[pixiesfan]

i think the main thing is for some reason kids into hardcore and punk also really like kayo dot. therefore, kayo dot gets a lot of coverage in the same form that most punk and hardcore get. maybe it is because of the labels kayo dot has been associated with.

 

[4LAO]

I can understand one release being on Robotic Empire but I doubt 1/10 of those kids have even heard of Tzadik, John Zorn, or tenpura ice cream for that matter. It's actually because I started listening to Kayo Dot that this happened...

 

[WitheringWillow]

heh, TMV forums are full of Tzadik/Zorn fanboyism.

 

[4LAO]

But TMV isn't hardcore to the max?

 

[TearsToShreds]

Nah, but getting into TMV made the transition to listening to hardcore easier. At least, I think, since they're associated to At The Drive-In who make pretty 'accesible' hardcore.

 

[Weeping Oni]

9/10 from the Norwegians. anyone got a translation?

http://www.metal-norge.com/?p=review&id=5118

I did a quick translation for you (I hope you can understand it):

The third full-lenght from the multi-instrumentalist Toby Driver's playground Kayo Dot is now out on Hydra Head.

Toby Driver has never made it easy for an old reviewer. To try and explain this record is like trying to explain a dream, a sense impression, an emotion or a memory. I think Toby Driver's composing music that works in numerous dimensions. To boil this down to a few sentences to make the readers understand what the album is about, is stillborn.

It's not rock, it's not metal, it's not jazz, it's not classical music, but still it is all of the aforementioned. It's like listening to a book, watching a song and reading a movie. Wiser? Doubtfully (as in "do you understand what the record is about now? Doubtfully.").

Imagine the soundtrack to an acid trip that sounds like a mixture of the movies of David Lynch, the poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Zappa jazz and King Crimson at it's most unaccessible.

By the way, the master himself's playing these instruments: 'acoustic, electric, 12-string, baritone, and bass guitars, soprano clarinet, voice, piano, organ, gamelan, analog synth, laptop mellotron'.

I haven't mentioned anything about what I think of the record so far, but the result has simply become fantastic. A record I fall more and more in love with, and a record I've listened more to than the two previous records combined. This is an album that surely will be one of my favourites this year. It's simply the way prog rock annno 2008 is supposed to sound.

Music for the average listener? Doubtfully, but I think this has the potential to reach out to quite a few listeners. If The Mars Volta can make it to the Top Twenty Charts, I'm pretty sure there are people out there who'll fall in love with this record as well. I recommend this strongly to anyone who wants some fresh blood in their record collection.

And "Neppe" actually means "doubtfully" or "I don't think so"

 

[metaghost]

Interesting review.

 

[xfer]

thank you!

 

[Weeping Oni]

No problem. Just say if you need anything else translated from Norwegian, as it is a good way for me to practice my english now that I'm done with school, as well as being a bit usefull

Anyway, I think the reviewer did a pretty good job. I think it's much better when people try to give just some small hints as to what may be found inside to catch people's interest, rather than doing a track by track sort of thing - that way you can enter the album without or with as few expectations as possible and just let the music take you along (like listening to a book). At least when it comes to this kind of music.

there's not much memorable to grab onto

Actually, I think the music is quite catchy at times I've had 'whistled the lark as the arrow lost its way', 'people stuck on the rooftop' and 'countertenor' on my mind for weeks now. I don't think I understand what is meant behind every word, though, but then I try to create my own meanings, and that's pretty much the purpose of art, isn't it? To start a thought process in the mind of the spectator/listener.