DJ partners Kavus Torabi and Steve Davis, alongside Michael J. York of Coil, Teleplasmiste and Guapo, have teamed up under the band name The Utopia Strong.
Above, you can listen to their first single ‘Brainsurgeons 3’, which features on their self-titled debut album, set for release on September 13. The ten-minute ‘Brainsurgeons 3’ stands as a centrepiece for the album and has already been popular with audiences of Torabi and Davis’s DJ sets.
“Some nights the track got the most thumbs up of the set. We broke Shazam with it!” Davis said.
He also said that the name of the band came from the euphoria that came from collaborating with York and Torabi, a sentiment which Torabi echoed.
“The overall sound was pretty accidental,” he said. “I certainly didn’t expect the music to sound so ecstatic and positive. Without wanting to puncture the mystery, there really felt like an element of magic at play in making this album.”
The album’s final track, ‘Moonchild’, will feature the vocals of Katharine Blake of Miranda Sex Garden and Medieval Baebes. Her vocal work’s transformation into the unearthly sound of the Utopia Strong surprised even the members of the band. However, to Torabi, that surprise is a pleasant one.
“In twenty years of making records it’s certainly been the easiest and most enjoyable to make,” he said. “Now, this may have been partly due to us having no preconceptions or expectations but it wasn’t just that. There was absolutely no conflict, and we spent a lot of time together working on it – in my experience that’s a total fucking miracle.”
