Toby Driver: Madonnawhore CD/LP now shipping. On the heels of Kayo Dot’s 2016 album Plastic House On Base Of Sky, New York City based avant-garde musician Toby Driver sustains his inexhaustible output with a solo album titled Madonnawhore. After exploring a retro-futurist noir sound on Kayo Dot’s 2014 album Coffins On Io then delving even further into electronic music with his aforementioned last album, Driver was eager to write a different kind of song. Madonnawhore represents a foray into traditional songwriting, stripped of the progressive flourishes and unpredictability of Driver’s band. These six austere tracks are sparse and atmospheric, evoking empty spaces and the beauty sometimes inherent in death. They occupy a heretofore unexplored place in Driver’s oeuvre, and were recorded primarily as a solo effort but share some lyrical contributions from Jason Byron, who also writes for Kayo Dot. Although not a concept album, Madonnawhore is united by its exploration of the “madonna-whore complex,” a psychological neurosis first identified by Sigmund Freud whereby a man feels he can only love a woman who maintains a saint-like purity, but desires to be intimate with someone he considers to be debased. This sacred/profane dichotomy has far reaching effects that are seemingly inescapable in modern society and ripe for examination. Order. Bandcamp. Euro store. Spotify. iTunes. Kayo Dot "Hubardo" CD version now shipping. 3LP will be ready in the next couple of weeks. Finally back in print, the seventh studio album by the veteran avant-garde band Kayo Dot. Meaning “lantern” or “lamp” in the Enochian language of 16th century magicians John Dee and Edward Kelley, Hubardo follows the epic and heartbreaking narrative of a meteor falling to earth and the alchemical transformation of a lonely poet observer. This album displays aspects of the band’s many forms, even moments that hark back to the act’s former identity, Maudlin of the Well (including an appearance by MOTW vocalist Jason Byron). It is a dizzying trip through genres and moods that blossoms in wild directions, an out-of-control chemical reaction. From beautiful post-rock passages and demented ballads to tripped-out 70s prog fusion, jazz and black metal, Hubardo masterfully incorporates just about every style imaginable during its nearly 100 minute run time. Order. Bandcamp. Euro store.