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.
Gregor Samsa is an American band from Virginia, United States, formed in 2000 and fronted by Champ Bennett. It takes its name from the main character of Franz Kafka's novella The Metamorphosis.
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.
My Fruit Psychobells...A Seed Combustible is maudlin of the Well's first album, released in 1999.
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.
Tartar Lamb is an experimental avant-garde band, consisting of Toby Driver and Mia Matsumiya, both leading members of the experimental band Kayo Dot. The band originally was formed in 2006 as a means for Toby Driver to experiment with his ideas for a guitar-violin duo. The duo released their first album, Sixty Metonymies, in 2007. The band was augmented by trumpet and percussion by Tim Byrnes and Andrew Greenwald, respectively. In 2011, the band returned with their sophomore effort, Polyimage of Known Exits, under the name Tartar Lamb II. This album was funded entirely by fans via a Kickstarter project.
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. It was later released by another record company, Antithetic Records on CD and LP. The lineup remained the same, except Kim Abrams played drums on the album. Gamma Knife was received critically better than the past few albums, as SputnikMusic gave it a 3.5/5 and said "for the first time in years, Kayo Dot feels musically relevant."
Vaura is an American experimental band from Brooklyn, New York, United States, formed in 2009 by singer, guitarist and primary songwriter Joshua Strachan and featuring Kevin Hufnagel on lead guitar, Toby Driver on bass.
Coffins on Io is the seventh studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot, released in the UK on August 14, 2014 and in the US on October 13 through experimental metal label The Flenser. It is a follow-up to 2013's Hubardo. It's the first album from Kayo Dot to not be self-released since 2012's Gamma Knife. Coffins on Io marks a notable change in sound. It combines influences of Type O Negative, The Sisters of Mercy, Peter Gabriel, dark wave and other 80s electronic musicians. It combines aspects of electronic music, jazz fusion, post-punk, gothic rock and new wave. It was produced by Toby Driver.
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.
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