{"id":2029234,"date":"2025-09-17T16:15:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T16:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2029234"},"modified":"2025-09-17T16:15:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T16:15:12","slug":"new-music-the-utopia-strong-the-atavist-rocket-recordings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/new-music-the-utopia-strong-the-atavist-rocket-recordings\/","title":{"rendered":"New music \u2013 The Utopia Strong \u2013 The Atavist (Rocket Recordings)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/arcana.fm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/utopia-strong-2025.jpg\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>adapted from the press release by <strong>Ben Hogwood<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Utopia Strong<\/strong> (<strong>Steve Davis<\/strong>, <strong>Kavus Torabi<\/strong> and <strong>Mike York<\/strong>) have shared a new track, the latest to be taken from their forthcoming album, <em>Doperider<\/em> out via <strong>Rocket Recordings<\/strong> on 10 October 2025.<\/p>\n<p>You can listen to their new release, <em>The Atavist<\/em>, below. It is a wonderfully atmospheric piece, a cloud of synthesized sound with a passing similarity (in a good way!) to Mark Snow\u2019s music for <em>The X-Files<\/em>:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Utopia Strong \u2013 The Atavist\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_mKwqA4EhDU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The life of a psychonaut can take one to many plateaus of reality. Opinions vary as regards which of these are either desirable or optimal. All things considered though, it\u2019s fair to say that once the average cerebral wanderer finds themselves a stoned skeleton on a motorbike, it\u2019s a sign that they\u2019re going places.<\/p>\n<p>Such were the movements of The Utopia Strong, in making their third and arguably trippiest full-length album for Rocket Recordings. As the band explain: \u201cWhen recording we tend to have books, bits of art and interesting things lying around the place. (Kavus) had recently bought the Paul Kirchner compendium, Awaiting The Collapse. Paul\u2019s character Dope Rider (the skeleton in question) drives around the desert, getting into all manner of high jinx and spouting cosmic philosophy, highlighting the absurdities of life, death and the American mythos. \u201cWhen we had created that particular track, one of our most beautiful and outr\u00e9, it seemed to name itself. Certainly, we were looking at the comic strips while listening to it and something about its wide-screen vibes and the beautiful desert seemed to marry together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Serendipity has always played a strong role in The Utopia Strong, with the improvisatory approach of Steve Davis, Kavus Torabi and Mike York \u2013 as well as the innate chemistry between the trio \u2013 allowing them to take extensions through dimensions that frequently end up as much of a surprise to the band as the listener.<\/p>\n<p>The band has summarily found ways to evolve its approach to facilitate the most adventurous exploratory missions possible. In this realm, the band\u2019s formidable history \u2013 Steve as a snooker champion and bona fide household name, Kavus as a psychedelic and progressive polymath in the like of Gong, Cardiacs et al, and Mike in his work with Coil, Current 93 and as one of the UK\u2019s foremost bagpipe makers \u2013 is transcended and usurped by their combined psychic chemistry.<\/p>\n<p>Yet more than anything else this remains an evolutionary process. \u201cAll the pieces on Doperider began as purely electronic pieces, with Mike and Steve on modular synths and Kavus on an analogue synth\u201d the band relate. \u201cWe were deliberately trying to not repeat ourselves and, for this reason, made a point of changing the model a little. Not that we\u2019ve ever been necessarily conventional but I think this album goes a little deeper than the previous two studio albums.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Doperider does indeed take the band down a variety of auditory pathways previously unexplored, and further into the realms of more surrealistic visions akin to the systems-built bliss of Caterina Barbieri, the unforgiving noisescapes of Hiro Kone or the alien soundtracks of latter-day Laurie Spiegel. \u201cCertainly, Steve\u2019s listening habits have changed somewhat since the first album, he has gone deeper into abstract electronica and musique concrete as well as becoming increasingly adept with his modular set up. This seems to have formed a backbone to how the music developed\u201d reflects Kavus.<\/p>\n<p>Hence the coruscating intensity of the title track and the elegiac rapture of \u2018Unity Of Light\u2019 showcase a still more moving and melancholic approach to their art, alongside the blissful \u2018Harpies\u2019, which features the vocals of Katharine Blake (Miranda Sex Garden\/Mediaeval Baebes). Elsewhere curveballs strike such as the strident and stentorian curtain-raiser \u2018Prophecy\u2019, which utilises the influence of Magma and Zeuhl music \u2013 a longstanding passion for all three members \u2013 for the first time in earnest.\u00a0 \u201cIt sits better at the start of the album as otherwise it would disrupt the decent into the beautiful hell hole that unfolds\u201d as Steve notes.<\/p>\n<p>Essentially however, the mission of The Utopia Strong remains intact \u2013 to offer a transformative pathway to wonders anew. \u201cWell, we are making psychedelic music or, if you will, head music\u201d reflects Kavus. \u201cWe put an awful lot of detail into each piece. It\u2019s certainly not minimalist. Often after our shows people will remark that we had made them feel like they were on drugs. That\u2019s the idea really. We\u2019ll take you on a voyage of self-discovery that won\u2019t preclude showing up to work on time the next day. Although really the core message of our music is \u2018Quit your job and start a commune.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As Steve notes: \u201cHopefully we\u2019ve done justice to the comic book character Dope Rider and that he\u2019d have loved riding along on his Harley Davison on another quest, with the wind blowing through his rib cage, listening to this album. If the audience choose the psychonaut road, then we are delighted to have been of service.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Doperider<\/em> is out on vinyl, CD and digitally on 10 October 2025.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"120\" style=\"position: relative; display: block; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/v=2\/album=256214722\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Published post no.2,660 \u2013 Wednesday 17 September 2025<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span id=\"wordads-inline-marker\" style=\"display: none;\"\/>\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><script>(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&amp;appId=249643311490&version=v2.3\"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));<\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source arcana.fm \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>adapted from the press release by Ben Hogwood The Utopia Strong (Steve Davis, Kavus Torabi and Mike York) have shared a new track, the latest to be taken from their forthcoming album, Doperider out via Rocket Recordings on 10 October 2025. You can listen to their new release, The Atavist, below. It is a wonderfully [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2029235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2029234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-music-\u2013-The-Utopia-Strong-\u2013-The-Atavist-Rocket.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2029234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2029235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2029234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2029234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2029234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}