Prog’s most unlikely supergroup The Utopia Strong – featuring Kavus Torabi, Steve Davis and Michael J York – have delivered their trippy and more concise third album, Doperider. The electronic trio explain why they decided to streamline their sounds and share the secrets behind their “weirdo music.”
“It’s a simple choice,” says Michal J York, one third of The Utopia Strong. “You can make music on your own, or you can hang out with your mates and make weirdo music. It’s a no-brainer.”
When York joined forces with Gong and Cardiacs alumnus Kavus Torabi and six-times world snooker champion Steve Davis to form a band in 2018, even its members had limited expectations. The trio recently released their third studio album, Doperider, and wrapped up the latest of several UK-wide tours. All three have plenty to be getting on with, but The Utopia Strong seems to have become its own, creatively flourishing entity.
“I didn’t have it down at all as what I’d be doing at this age,” says the breezily intense Torabi. “It’s not like anything I’ve done before, and more than anything else, it feeds into all the other things I do now. It’s changed the way I think about making music – and there’s so much further we can go.”
“I don’t think we had any expectations other than to get together for a laugh and have a jam,” says Davis. “For me it’s all been pinch-me moments. I’m still trying to work out the reality of the whole thing.”
“The more you work with any given group of people, the more unique that chemical reaction becomes,” adds York. “This is really special to me.”
All three cheerfully confirm their commitment to making “weirdo music. Predominantly instrumental, profoundly psychedelic, and distant cousins of the kosmische and krautrock acts of the early 70s – Cluster and Popol Vuh included – their records are fearless and increasingly brilliant.
In addition 2019’s self-titled full-length album and 2022’s follow-up International Treasure, they’ve also self-released a series of longer-form explorations, while steadily forging a reputation as a bewildering but immersive live act. From confusing the hell out of blank-eyed breakfast TV presenters, to becoming a staple of the psychedelic underground, The Utopia Strong are motoring.
“Having those independent releases has freed us up to do more studio albums,” notes Davis. “I think we’ve got a balance now and it’s working nicely.”
York agress: “You might be trying to work on an album track and realise that you’ve got 25 minutes of gold dust. It’s like, ‘We can self-release this,’ rather than having to throw away stuff that we think is really excellent.”
“As I say, not entirely jokingly, we are mapping out the architecture of eternity,” Torabi grins. “That’s what we’re trying to do, and we’re really getting started now.”
When a new album is in the offing, it’s become a tradition that The Utopia Strong get together at the start of the year to jam for three days and to see where their mind-expanding ideas will head. Their latest album began in the same way, but developed a momentum that no one involved could have predicted.
“This one was a bit different,” Torabi notes. “When we started, we didn’t really know what the long-term plan was or what we’d be doing. But I think it’s been moving towards this – it’s not exactly composed, but we’re approaching it differently. It’s about having a plan for what we want each track to do, and actually trying to play out that plan.”
My life has generally not been a team thing, so it’s great to be part of one
Steve Davis
“I think we’re in a position where we don’t feel pressure now,” Davis adds. “Because we’ve become confident that we can, in that three-day period, create some sort of magic.”
The band’s first two albums had their cohesive moments, almost in spite of their improvised origins; but Doperider is a notable departure. Nobody sensible would describe tracks like Prophecy and Moths Of The British Isles as songs in any traditional sense – but the new material has a sense of purpose that was only dimly perceptible before.
“I think we’re consciously or unconsciously setting a seven or eight-minute limit on an album track now,” says York, “so we can show off enough different worlds over the course of a 45-minute vinyl.”
An opening track that single-handedly redefines the experience of listening to The Utopia Strong, Prophecy is the most startling composition they’ve released to date. Although their sound remains an amorphous blend of modular synths and other hazy instrumentation, there’s an almost rock-adjacent feel to the arrangement, and a definite whiff of actual prog.
“Prophecy hints at a sort of Zeuhl-like sound,” says Torabi. “So we said, ‘Let’s go down that road, then!’ And we put a riff on it. The same thing with the track Harpies. Mike said that we’ve never done anything using whole-tone before, so why not do a whole-tone piece? But then at the next stage we were recording double bass and Fender Rhodes on it. Those were the instruments we had lying around in the studio, so ‘that will sound good here,’ you know?”
I honestly don’t know anyone else that makes music like we do… I’m very glad when people know me and they like this too
Kavus Torabi
Davis says: “What’s fascinating for me, even though I’m part of it, is the committee decisions that are made during the process. One minute you’ve got this raw thing, then you have a discussion about what it’s going to be, and you end up with totally different tracks from what you personally thought was going to happen. It’s a process I haven’t experienced before. My life has generally not been a team thing, so it’s great to be part of one!”
Named after a comic book character created by cult artist Paul Kirchner, Doperider proves this collaboration is picking up steam. The new album’s closing title track is a particularly vivid piece of stridently undulating, cosmic synth-psych, with cinematic potential.
“With instrumental music it’s hard to come up with the right title,” says Torabi. “When the title seems to suggest the track, that’s the right one! We had this book of Paul Kirchner’s comics in the studio. Mike said, just before this particular piece, ‘Let’s just call it Doperider!’ It had such a charge to it. It was like: ‘Yup, this is Doperider.’ There was no discussion. That was the title.”
Davis notes: “If they ever make an animated film of the book, and the skeleton is driving along the road with a spliff, with all the smoke going through his bones, and Doperider was the soundtrack, we’d be honoured!”
Snooker isn’t a very musical world… they all think I’ve lost the plot
Steve Davis
There are more blissfully alien wonders on the album, ranging from the ethereal vocals from York’s partner Katharine Blake (Mediæval Bæbes/Miranda Sex Garden) on Harpies, to the out-of-body ghost techno of The Atavist (“We wanted it to sound like you’re at a festival, and there’s a rave tent in the distance” – Torabi). None of it sounds anything like anything else, and it all sounds like it was a lot of fun to make.
“I honestly don’t know anyone else that makes music like we do,” says Torabi. “We’ve really found our people and it’s lovely. I’m very glad when people know me and they like this too.”
“Snooker isn’t a very musical world,” laughs Davis. “I know that Neal Foulds likes a bit of Talk Talk, but otherwise they all think I’ve lost the plot! I did once show my modular synth to Dennis Taylor and Stephen Hendry, and I’m sure they still think it was some kind of DJ rig. There’s not much of an idea of what is happening. This Venn diagram is very small!”
Doperider is on sale now via Rocket Recordings.
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