OKComputer1016
07/06/08, 01:56 PM
Kayo Dot - Blue Lambency Downward
Record Label: Hydra Head Records
Release Date: May 6, 2008
Just as anti-radio as everything else on HydraHead - and therefore just as excellent - Kayo Dot’s Blue Lambency Downward sounds like the soundtrack to some hair-raisingly uncomfortable situation. It’s slow-building and suspenseful, borrowing expressively from the dissonance of progressive jazz but not fitting too clearly within the genre (or any genre for that matter). These seven endless tracks are a mix of tranquil styles that wander where they please and disregard any notion of musical convention that would have bogged down the adventurous spirit.
For example, the distant, haunting piano and vocals of “Right Hand is the One I Want” will make your skin crawl right as you’re tapping your toes. There’s just so much tension in the melody that it’s reminiscent of some 1950’s sci-fi show where something horrible is about to happen. It’s that modern classical style where the notes are so totally random you’ve got no choice but to hear the art in the music before the actual music itself. But don’t get me wrong: this isn’t some pretentious showoff group, it’s just a musical experiment seemingly composed by people who have never been introduced to the major scale system before.
“Symmetrical Arizona” has even got a bluesy-jazz-Opeth type guitar solo that could fit right onto either Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here or Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s F#A#Infinity. Long story short, it’s about a million times less flashy than the words “guitar solo” imply; it’s mainly used just like all the other instruments on the album to scare the bejesus out of you while every chord ever invented switches in the rhythm.
The shortest song on the album, the 2:40 “Useless Ladder,” still feels like an eternity, like a life sentence spent pondering one’s thoughts. You can attribute that to the choir of moaning vocalists who slink along in their elastic, time signature damning pulse of choice. Whether “Useless Ladder” is meant to convey a sense of being trapped or some kind of allegorical scenario, you’ll definitely feel like you’re in a dungeon while you listen to it.
Blue Lambency Downward will test your patience to its furthest limits. It’s one of the worst albums that you could listen to in any social setting, but by yourself, alone with your thoughts, this is an album that you could come back to again and again. It’s a place that you could float off too whenever you wanted. It’s a lucid dream in audio, or the sound of rain hitting the rooftop when you’re almost asleep. Whatever it is, it’s not soon to be forgotten.
Guapo, Johnny Greenwood’s There Will Be Blood, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
myspace.com/kayodot (http://www.myspace.com/kayodot)
Record Label: Hydra Head Records
Release Date: May 6, 2008
Just as anti-radio as everything else on HydraHead - and therefore just as excellent - Kayo Dot’s Blue Lambency Downward sounds like the soundtrack to some hair-raisingly uncomfortable situation. It’s slow-building and suspenseful, borrowing expressively from the dissonance of progressive jazz but not fitting too clearly within the genre (or any genre for that matter). These seven endless tracks are a mix of tranquil styles that wander where they please and disregard any notion of musical convention that would have bogged down the adventurous spirit.
For example, the distant, haunting piano and vocals of “Right Hand is the One I Want” will make your skin crawl right as you’re tapping your toes. There’s just so much tension in the melody that it’s reminiscent of some 1950’s sci-fi show where something horrible is about to happen. It’s that modern classical style where the notes are so totally random you’ve got no choice but to hear the art in the music before the actual music itself. But don’t get me wrong: this isn’t some pretentious showoff group, it’s just a musical experiment seemingly composed by people who have never been introduced to the major scale system before.
“Symmetrical Arizona” has even got a bluesy-jazz-Opeth type guitar solo that could fit right onto either Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here or Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s F#A#Infinity. Long story short, it’s about a million times less flashy than the words “guitar solo” imply; it’s mainly used just like all the other instruments on the album to scare the bejesus out of you while every chord ever invented switches in the rhythm.
The shortest song on the album, the 2:40 “Useless Ladder,” still feels like an eternity, like a life sentence spent pondering one’s thoughts. You can attribute that to the choir of moaning vocalists who slink along in their elastic, time signature damning pulse of choice. Whether “Useless Ladder” is meant to convey a sense of being trapped or some kind of allegorical scenario, you’ll definitely feel like you’re in a dungeon while you listen to it.
Blue Lambency Downward will test your patience to its furthest limits. It’s one of the worst albums that you could listen to in any social setting, but by yourself, alone with your thoughts, this is an album that you could come back to again and again. It’s a place that you could float off too whenever you wanted. It’s a lucid dream in audio, or the sound of rain hitting the rooftop when you’re almost asleep. Whatever it is, it’s not soon to be forgotten.
Guapo, Johnny Greenwood’s There Will Be Blood, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
myspace.com/kayodot (http://www.myspace.com/kayodot)