Monday's Long Song

 

You could hear what happens when Steve Davis, a six-time former world snooker champion, and Kavus Torabi, a member of the prog rock band Gong, join forces on The Utopia Strong’s 2019 debut album. Nothing more and nothing less than an album featuring songs rooted in krautrock and brimming with modular improvisations. 

The centerpiece of the album, however, is the 10-minute track Brainsurgeons 3, which builds on a simple techno beat and minimal bass, featuring a crescendo of tambourines, bagpipes, and what sounds like a soprano saxophone, inviting listeners on a journey into space. This is what it might sound like when prog rock and electronic music meet in a recording studio.

International Treasure

 

It is more than two years ago when The Utopia Strong appeared the first time on this little corner of the internet when they released their first album. Now they are back with their new album and I it seems like their new one will be on heavy rotation at my place during the next times. The band is still ruled by former world snooker champion Steve Davis and Kavus Torabi an British-Iranian musician and composer. Their sound is still based on improvisations based on krautrock and progressive rock but now they added more sequencers, guitars, harmonicas and pipes to their own spaced out sound. Sometimes they have a calm but hypnotic The Orb like groove on Persephone Sleeps and on the other side they are able to make a kind of a progressive techno dance track on Castalia. All in all an album that is great in it's variety and easiness.