Album Review: Blue Lambency Downward by Kayo Dot

Review Summary: Toby Driver and his endless cast of extras have crafted a record that easily aligns itself with the current avant garde scene in New York while still retaining the Kayo Dot touch.Determining a supposed criticism of Kayo Dot's "Blue Lambency Downward" is a difficult thing. While "Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue" and "Choirs of the Eye" were both extremely eccentric records they both seemed to have clearly present goals. Perhaps something changed in head composer Toby Driver's mind over the course of the past few years because "Blue Lambency Downward" seems wholly different from the rest of his output.

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The opening cut begins as an airy, seamless, beautifully and expansively constructed psychedelic pop tune that begins to disintegrate into tempered noise, reverbed guitars, and tautly driven kit work, and then just takes off into other sonic realms. This may be experimental music, but it carries a sense of rock dynamic, vanguard classical harmonies, and shifting time signatures. It is simultaneously very weird yet utterly accessible.

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