Front Line Assembly (FLA) is a Canadian electro-industrial band formed by Bill Leeb in 1986 after leaving Skinny Puppy. FLA has developed its own sound incorporating elements of electronic body music and electro-industrial. The band's membership has rotated through the years, including Michael Balch, Rhys Fulber, and Chris Peterson, all of whom are associated with several other acts.
Avant-garde metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music loosely defined by use of experimentation and innovative, avant-garde elements, including non-standard and unconventional sounds, instruments, song structures, playing styles, and vocal techniques. Avant-garde metal is influenced by progressive rock and extreme metal, particularly death metal, and is closely related to progressive metal. Some local scenes include Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, and Seattle in the United States, Oslo in Norway, and Tokyo in Japan.
Toby Driver is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, songwriter, producer, label owner, and artist, best known for his work as the leader of the experimental bands Kayo Dot and Maudlin of the Well.
Kayo Dot is an American avant-garde metal band. Formed in 2003 by Toby Driver after the break-up of Maudlin of the Well, they released their debut album Choirs of the Eye on John Zorn's Tzadik Records that same year. Since then, Kayo Dot's lineup has drastically changed over the years. Toby Driver is the only founding member of the band still remaining, save for frequent lyrical contributions from former motW member Jason Byron. Up until 2011, the lineup was constantly shifting, and Kayo Dot's sound consistently changed over the years, featuring a wide variety of instrumentation including guitar, drums, bass, violin, saxophone, vibraphone, synthesizers, clarinets and flutes. Underground metal audiences warmly received the group upon its early existence, with the 2003 album Choirs of the Eye and the 2006 album Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue both becoming underground hits in the progressive metal scene.
Mia Matsumiya is an American violinist who is a former member of Kayo Dot, Gregor Samsa, and Tartar Lamb. She has also performed on albums with Daughters and Ghastly City Sleep. In 2015, her Instagram account chronicling the sexual and other harassment that had been directed toward her on social media during the past ten years received international attention.
Maudlin of the Well is an avant-garde metal band from Boston, Massachusetts. Their music contains elements from many different genres including jazz, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, post rock, art rock, progressive metal, doom metal, death metal, and gothic metal, as well as chamber music, ambient music and electronic music. After a five-year hiatus, the band re-united to record their latest album, Part the Second, which was funded by fan donations and released online May 14, 2009 for free.
Choirs of the Eye is the debut studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot, released on Tzadik Records in 2003. It was released shortly after the breakup of maudlin of the Well, with the band consisting of several members from the former band as well as guest performers who are friends of band members. The album is titled after a lyric from the maudlin of the Well song "Blight of River-Systems", on My Fruit Psychobells...A Seed Combustible. SputnikMusic voted it as one of the best metal albums of the 2000s. The group performed the entire album in 2010 to two sold out nights in Brooklyn, New York.
Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue is the second studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot, released on Robotic Empire in 2006. The album received high praise from Pitchfork, Lambgoat, and Sputnikmusic, the last of whom named it the #2 album of 2006.
Bath is maudlin of the Well's second album. It was released alongside its companion album Leaving Your Body Map in 2001 on the Dark Symphonies record label, shortly before their break-up.
Blue Lambency Downward is the third studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot, released on Hydra Head Records in May 2008. After much of the group left to pursue outside projects, the only members who remained were frontman Toby Driver and violinist and long-time collaborator Mia Matsumiya. The two began recording the album in early 2007 using a revolving door of contributing musicians. The album is heavily influenced by chamber and orchestral music and jazz, and features an abundance of woodwinds. It is widely considered to be Kayo Dot's least heavy album to date.
Leaving Your Body Map is maudlin of the Well's third album, and was released alongside its companion album Bath on the Dark Symphonies record label in 2001, shortly before their break-up.
Coyote is the fourth studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot, released April 20, 2010 on Hydra Head Records. The album is a single narrative-driven, long-form composition in five movements. The story and text were provided by a close, terminally-ill friend of the band, Yuko Sueta, in the final stage of her life, while the music was written by Toby Driver in a so-called "goth fusion" style, combining elements of early Cure, Faith and the Muse, and Bauhaus with further influences from Herbie Hancock's psychedelic jazz album Sextant and Scott Walker's recent experimental album The Drift. Sueta's story and lyrics were constructed with deliberate melodrama as part of the intended gothic aesthetic, expressing the protagonist's loneliness and longing to be in a better place, and her journey through her own personal looking-glass through a hallucinatory world of fear and wonder.
Kim Abrams is an electronic artist and rock drummer, known mostly for her work with Time of Orchids and PAK. She was a frequent collaborator both with Ron Anderson and Jesse Krakow.
Gamma Knife is the fifth studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot. The album was self-released through frontman Toby Driver's Ice Level Music via Bandcamp on January 4, 2012, following the group's departure from Hydra Head Records. The bulk of the album was recorded live at Brooklyn, New York venue Littlefield on October 5, 2011, with the remainder recorded at Driver's residence in late 2011. It was mixed by longtime producer Randall Dunn. It is notable for beginning the return to Driver's metal roots and harsh vocals used in Choirs of the Eye. The vinyl and CD copies are both available via the group's Bandcamp.
The Flenser is an American record label founded by Jonathan Tuite in 2010 from San Francisco, California. It describes itself as a "dark music" label and a "dark experimental record label".
Hubardo is the sixth studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot. It is a concept double album self-released and funded through pre-orders on frontman Toby Driver's Ice Level Records in 2013. It is the follow-up to Gamma Knife, which was released in 2012. It is Kayo Dot's longest album and its first double album, and contains aspects of black metal, post-rock, jazz fusion, and chamber music. It was picked as the 4th best album of 2013 on indie music website SputnikMusic.
Plastic House on Base of Sky is the eighth studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot. It was released on June 24, 2016 via The Flenser.
Blasphemy is the ninth studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot. It was released on September 6, 2019 via Prophecy Productions.
Moss Grew on the Swords and Plowshares Alike is the tenth studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot. It was released on October 29, 2021 via Prophecy Productions. It reached number 100 in the German Top 100 album charts for the first time during the week after its release, November 5, 2021. It is the first album since 2006's Dowsing Anemone With Copper Tongue to feature founding member Greg Massi.
Chat Pile is an American rock band from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The band is composed of four members using the pseudonyms Raygun Busch (vocals), Luther Manhole (guitar), Stin (bass), and Cap'n Ron (drums). Their debut album God's Country was released on July 29, 2022.
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