Kayo Dot

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Kayo Dot
Background information
Genre(s)	Experimental rock Alternative metal Post-rock Avant-garde metal
Years active	2003 to Present
Associated acts	Maudlin of the Well Tartar Lamb
Website	http://www.kayodot.net/
Members
Toby Driver Mia Matsumiya
Former members
Jason Byron Greg Massi Terran Olson Sam Gutterman Nicholas Kyte Ryan McGuire Forbes Graham John Carchia Tom Miller

Kayo Dot is an American experimental rock group that was formed in 2003 by Toby Driver. They released their debut album Choirs of the Eye on John Zorn's Tzadik label that year.

The music of Kayo Dot bridges several genres, from heavy metal to classical music. Their songs involve complex instrumentation (composed by singer and frontman Driver). They are substantially longer than typical rock songs, often ranging from 8 to 15 minutes in length.

Tzadik's descriptive label on that album read: "Kayo Dot powerfully integrates elements of modern classical composition with the layers of guitars and vocals more common to rock and metal. With a compositional map that is strict in form yet malleable in execution, Kayo Dot uses a vast array of instrumentation to create an exciting convergence of violence and serenity."

1 Current members
2 History
3 Discography
4 External links

[edit] Current members

Toby Driver - voice, guitar, clarinet
Mia Matsumiya - violin, viola, bells

Kayo Dot in Santa Cruz, CA

Violinist Mia Matsumiya

[edit] History

Kayo Dot sprang from the ashes of the band maudlin of the Well, a progressive heavy metal band which formed in 1996 and disbanded in 2003. Their music contained elements from many different genres including sludge/doom metal, fusion, indie rock, progressive rock and new age. They released three full-length and now out-of-print albums before disbanding: 1999's My Fruit PsychoBells...A Seed Combustible and 2001's Bath and Leaving Your Body Map. These last two albums were considered companion albums, and were reissued with bonus tracks in January 2006 on the indie label Dark Symphonies (www.darksymphonies.com).

Many past members of maudlin of the Well--Josh Seipp-Williams, Sam Gutterman, Terran Olson, Andrew Dickson, and Toby Driver--studied at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts from 1996-2000, where My Fruit PsychoBells...A Seed Combustible was recorded. At Hampshire, Driver, Olson, and Dickson were students of jazz musician Yusef Lateef, whose theories of autophysiopsychic music influenced maudlin of the Well's, and to a greater extent Kayo Dot's, albums.

Driver has gone on to say on their website:

Some members of this project worked in the progressive-metal project-band maudlin of the Well from 1996 - 2003, at which time motW dismembered. Kayo Dot isn't much different from maudlin of the Well musically - rather it's more like a continuation in the direction motW had been progressing.

and has also said:

"People are too preoccupied with whatever connection there may be between maudlin of the Well and Kayo Dot."

In May 2005, Tom Malone joined the band as their new drummer after drummer Sam Gutterman (who also played in motW) left the band in March 2005 for reasons unknown. Kayo Dot then signed to Robotic Empire Records and released their second album, "Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue" in January of 2006.

In 2006, near the end of their latest tour, four members - playing guitar, bass, drums, and trumpet - left the band for personal reasons. On the tenth of December, Greg Massi also left Kayo Dot on good terms stating he was going "to try and figure out other aspects of my musical life and take some time to figure out where i want to be going."

Despite many rumors, Kayo Dot did not disband. The band is now signed to Hydra Head Records and is set to record another album in late spring/early summer of 2007 for a release in early 2008.