IN THE L..L..LIBRARY LOFT

In the L..L..Library Loft, Toby Driver's first and only solo album up to date, is a mind- wrenching trip through some menacing nightmare. On this album, Toby Driver focuses completely on creating a brooding atmosphere with minimalist compositions, that all take their time to carefully guide you around the horrendous library loft. It leaves you not a second to feel at ease.

No, the album's atmosphere is an incredibly intense one. It revolves about dissonance, tension and madness. This formula makes the album a very useasy listen. That, to me, is what makes this album such a magnificent thing. Most of the compositions begin quietly, but gradually lead to climaxes that make you want to seize your head tighly with your hands and swing it around frantically hoping all this menace will end. Well, I overreacted a bit there, but there are several moments on the album where I do feel a great discomfort indeed.

I will not go into detail with the different compositions on the album, but all of them have a certain uniqueness. This might also have to do something with the very interesting musicianship on here. Toby Driver wanted to experiment with unconventional ways of making music on each of the four compositions. This resulted in for example one piece featuring instruments that were played by two persons at the same time (including vocals) and a piece that was recorded from another room than the one in which it was performed.

Interesting as well is that the album is very different from anything else Toby Driver has done. Again, the structures of the compositions are less dynamic and the album is more minimalist than anything of Kayo Dot or Maudlin of the Well, but also the climaxes, which can be quite heavy at times, are very different. They tend to focus on fear inducing noise and intense dissonance more than the climaxes of Maudlin of the Well and Kayo Dot.

I don't think the dissonant minimalist atmosphere here will appeal many people, simply because it does not have much dynamics. Even compared to a band like Kayo Dot, which gets quite slow at pace at times as well. Nevertheless, those who feel like they can deal with minimalist mind-rape and perhaps are somewhat familiar with Toby Driver's output with other bands won't do any bad by at least giving this a try. My prefered way of listening to this album is after midnight in candlelight, which I suppose enhances the album's intensity.