Psychedelic polymath Kavus Torabi of Gong, Cardiacs and Knifeworld notoriety, will be gracing Sheffield’s own Dorothy Pax on August 23rd at 7pm, delighting those lucky attendees with a FREE evening of his unique blend of bombastic and beautiful music, punctuated by prepossessing poetry that will swim through your soul for aeons.
Our Aitch met with him to talk about his recently released 2nd solo album, The Banishing. This is what happened:
You recently said in an interview for the Quietus, that “We’re all who we pretend to be – it’s only a flesh avatar, you know?” I wondered, if you could have any flesh avatar, what would it look like?
I think we create ourselves -so you’re looking at it. I had an opportunity to create it by arriving at a realization of “do I want to be done to or do I want to do?”. Which is not to say i want to impose my will onto other people but I want to at least impose my will onto this veil of illusion. It’s heartbreaking when people who potentially can do extraordinary things, and for whatever reason – the nervous system they’re inhabiting, or their experiences, or because people tell them that they can’t, or whatever – they end up being done to, and can’t seem to get these incredible ideas in their brains, out into the wider world. That was the kind of realisation it took me to about 40 to get to. And that really changed everything. We’re all crippled by self-doubt, I think. Well, I certainly am, but that realisation was a real help with where I was at with my music and my art, and everything really. I approached what I was doing much less self-consciously and was able to talk about things or sing about things I’d always sort of alluded, to but kept quiet, because I felt a little self-conscious or embarrassed talking about them.
But it’s weird the experiences we collect. I could never have imagined experiencing what happened to Tim Smith, from Cardiacs, and just how much all of our lives were affected by that. All of the people around him completely changed after 2008 and it really challenged so much about the way I thought how life, how existence worked. It’s a very different time now. I don’t want that to be my theme, “oh that’s the guy just harping on about his mate”, but it was such a profound shift from what was happening two days before or a day before or the night before. It was a really profound shift for everyone I know, and it completely altered our relationships with each other as well. You realize the power of this guy, who had created this almost…this system, and that system completely collapsed. It was really strange.
There’s been a lot of collaboration and relationships and friendships in that [Cardiacs family] group – how do you think that system collapse has affected the way those people are working and how you think about your own music and collaborations following Tim’s death?
It sounds like a terrible thing to say, but in a way it was quite liberating. You’ve got this figure who’s very benevolent but extremely powerful, who set the bar so high for all of us. Just seeing how he worked and everything he did was art – I think when you see that way of operating, you don’t want to sell yourself short. What’s been really strange since he’s died, is that this new record, ‘The Banishing’, and actually the last The Utopia Strong album International Treasure and the last Gong record Unending Ascending – were the first records I’ve ever made that Tim didn’t hear. It made me realize how much I wanted his approval. And that’s gone now. But then consequently, I think those last three records are the three albums I’m the happiest with.
You said in a recent Guardian article, that “whoever we’re with, we’re a different person”, that we influence, intersubjectivity, one another – I found that a really interesting idea in terms of solo and collaborative work. How does working on your own differ from collaborating with someone who inevitably influences you, and you them?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot, especially while I was making The Banishing. I don’t know if I would only want to work alone, but my solo work, The Utopia Strong and Gong, these are my three main things now. I’ll be quite happy if my 50’s are spent just focusing on those three things and I never do another side project again. Although when Iron Maiden give me the call it’s all bets are off.
But I love being able to do this stuff by myself – just this full immersion into something, to create something musically, lyrically, sonically, and visually with the artwork and everything – to put all of myself into something, and not have to negotiate or compromise. That doesn’t mean that I won’t change my mind about a particular song. There’s songs on The Banishing that took me ages to get right – I just wanted to govern all aspects of this thing. That’s a very different situation from being part of The Utopia Strong, which starts off as improvisation. The way we work is not like anything else I’ve really done before. But it’s had such a big influence now on everything else I do. I didn’t know that this improvised, semi-electronic band, with modular synths, was really going to change the way I thought about music. But in a way, it’s had just the same effect as working with Tim Smith did.
And I think what makes The Utopia Strong different from when I hear a lot of strictly ambient stuff or new-agey stuff, it’s actually harmonically, quite simplistic. So when you listen to our stuff, it’s actually pretty hectic. While not having a lot of beats, there’s a lot of information, a lot of architecture being built. And then with Gong, that’s very much a band and it operates in a way that a band normally does. I think we’re all five of us, generally going in one direction.
Yeah, so I’m getting the sense there’s like those three projects, those three ways of working are kind of hitting all the things for you.
Yeah, for me now they are, yeah. I mean, you could even call it mind, body, spirit or something, you know. Yeah, the solo stuff anyway, that, lyrically just seems to be my travails in the material world and my woes or whatever. But it kind of came together with The Banishing, I sort of realised I’m setting up this project now for the rest of my life. These solo records will become a diary of where I’m at psychologically, where I’m at with my abilities as a songwriter, a composer, lyricist, producer, and where I’m at as an artist. And I’m going to keep doing it as long as I can – as things start to deteriorate, you’ll get this diary where you will see the deterioration. You’ll see the drawings get worse. You’ll hear my voice get worse. You’ll hear my playing get more shaky. You’ll hear the songs get worse. Maybe now I’m just charting this decline, but hopefully it gets better, better before it gets worse. I’m trying to understand myself by doing this. I’m, trying to get deeper into self – in as much as there is a self. Once you start peeling away all the layers, there’s actually nothing really there.
You seen to be really very busy, whether exploring your self through your solo music, or playing as part of bands. I wonder, how do you relax? Or is that your relaxation? Making music.
I don’t know. I had three months of real intensity and at the end of it, I said, right, that’s it. I’m going to have a few days. I’m just going to get stoned and read comics, you know, and sort of halfway through the first day I was bored. So yeah, I mean, I don’t know. I live out in the sticks now. I walk about four or five miles a day. And I like the voyage inwards, to think about stuff. I suppose that’s relaxing in a way.
I interviewed Charley Stone (indie queen, artist, thinker) recently & she mentioned you’d had an epiphany about the nature of the universe, music and time while on such a walk.
Yeah, we’re vessels of time. That’s what we are. That’s why we have to get old because if we don’t get old, if we don’t atrophy, we can’t experience music or art. But it was like “it’s so simple –why did it take me this long to sort of realize that?”. It was right at the end of finishing The Banishing. The last song I finished was Mountains of Glass. There’s a different universe where that one would have ended the album and it felt right to have had the epiphany of just, okay, I’m not in this terrifyingly dark place that I was before, but for some reason Untethered seemed like a better closer. I just liked the idea of ending on this shorter, snappier song, rather than it being the last song I finished. And it’s a funny thing for the order, but you know, hey, everything’s happening all at once, so it doesn’t have to be in that narrative order.
Mountains of Glass
Untethered
Exactly. Block universe theory would say everything happens at the same time. And for me it feels quite aspirational, quite positive, to have Untethered at the end; as if you are (metaphorically) free to do whatever you need to or want to.
Actually I hadn’t thought about it like that. But that’s another strange thing about art, that it’s often not until after the event, sometimes years after, you realize what it was that you were saying. You can be saying stuff that feels like kind of, a stream of consciousness. And then four years later, you go back and go, “oh, hang on, I know what this is about now”. The mystery is a big part of it, though. I love the mystery. That’s why I have difficulty with music critics that try and explain to you what’s happening or, you know, you’ll get these people who explain what’s going on in a film and they’re trying to explain David Lynch and it’s like, just stop – the mystery is the thing, you know.
A very experiential, quite spiritual view of art, that reminds me of a review of Medical Grade Music by a friend of mine. He wrote about you growing up in a home without music, that you experienced a “…mystical vision of The Stray Cats on Top Of The Pops in 1980” that “sent you on a lifelong quest for freak perfection, that psychedelic sweet spot, the endless Now”.
I used to really respond to music, but there wasn’t really music on in the house. I’d only ever hear hymns at school, which I loved, and still love, and TV theme songs. With seeing Stray Cats on Top of the Pops, that was really when everything sort of came together, through this singular, almost shamanic figure of Brian Setzer; with his eyeliner, looking absolutely beautiful but dangerous. It was like Syd Barrett, this archetypal singer, songwriter, guitarist archetype and I thought “that’s who I want to be”. Even the androgyny of him. If I’d been two years younger, five years younger, maybe it would have been Mark Bolan I was seeing. But seeing Brian Setzer, with that tool of the guitar and the voice and the songs and the idea of a band and a gang – everything came together at the right point. And I was like, “okay, this is this is what I want to do”.
So, I tried to build a drum kit out of a gypsum render tub and gravel. Then I tried to make a snare out of a biscuit tin covered with cling film, with dried beans in it, but, you know, it wasn’t for me. Then I tried to build a double bass out of a wooden castle my Dad had built us. But finally, my cousin Arash got given a really crappy nylon string guitar. And when I played that, when I felt the feeling of the strings on my fingers, I remember going “oh yeah, this is my instrument.” Maybe it’s just the feel of it, the tactility of it or maybe something like what Robyn Hitchcock said about his guitar- that it was the spine around which he grew himself. I still get as much joy from picking the thing up and playing it as I did when I was 11 or 12. It’s a constant learning process and I can’t imagine life without this tool. It feels like…not exactly a way of dealing with anxiety, but I feel good when I’ve got it on my lap. I feel really fortunate to have experienced, at that age, the feeling that “This is what I want to do”. And it never changed.
It was very hard for my parents. I mean, I can’t remember if I was ever that interested in school, but my grades just plummeted. I could see from their perspective it was like a curse, but they couldn’t feel what I felt, in the way that that none of us can feel what anyone else really feels you know; they couldn’t feel that I knew this was my path. My Dad came from a very education-based background in Iran. It’s very status-based, very big on education. I think for him, music is just entertainment, it doesn’t have any profound meaning. I understand now how hard it was to have this son that fails everything, drops out, goes on the dole, and makes music. As far as he’s concerned, it was this frivolous thing, rather than, for want of a better word, a spiritual journey – fundamentally who you are. I really feel that was hard, that was a hard place.
I wonder if that relates to your realisation that who you’re with influences who you are. I wonder, how do you see your relationship with Steve Davis in terms of his influence on you and vice versa?
It’s interesting; in many ways it’s not like any other relationship I’ve had. I think in some ways we’re kind of wired up quite similar, I think. And I think we really saw that in each other. I always felt that there’s something inherently musical about him, the way he processes and understands music, the way he thinks about music. Even though he wasn’t a practicing musician when we met, his journey as a musician, and his growth and confidence as a musician, has not been surprising to me at all. I can see why this was the guy was able to win all those world titles, because I can see his focus and I recognize that. I think it’s very different from someone like Ronnie O’Sullivan, who seems to be more like a sort of Tim Smith figure in snooker. He’s just purely shamanic, like something has been channelled. You watch that extraordinary 147 break done in five or six minutes, and you’re watching something almost supernatural, otherworldly, some kind of flow state. I think I can relate more to where Steve’s coming from, because I understand that sort of focus – being able to absolutely shut down everything else but the thing you’re focusing on.
I wonder if that was the kind of feeling you had with The Banishing – I know you’ve said you struggled with some tracks, but were there any tracks that you felt kind of flowed in an unexplainable manner?
Well there’s no one way of doing it really. In terms of the basics of the songs, the melody and chords – I can’t really feel like the author of those, they just sort of appear and if it’s good, you sort of follow it. As long as the combination of melody and chords kind of vibrates or has what Jim Woodring refers to as a “fluorescence” then that’s okay. Then it becomes your responsibility to try and decorate that music in the best way. That’s the bit that takes ages but also it’s fairly instinctive. And the hardest thing for me is to find the right words. The lyrics aren’t always the hardest part – I mean sometimes they just spaff out – but usually, that’s where I’m tying myself in knots, because the wrong words will spoil the magic of the music. So I’m very careful in that. Sometimes even just one wrong word – it’s like you’ve decorated a Christmas tree really nicely and then you just put up a cat shit or something. But it’s a really, really enjoyable process, but it’s hard. Hard and enjoyable. There’s nothing I’d rather be doing, you know, it’s my favourite challenge.
You’re saying you need to put the right baubles (and no cat shit) on the tree – but how do you know when it’s finished?
This comes from just getting older – once you’ve got x amount of things over the line you start to recognize a pattern, that usually about two-thirds of the way though something, I lose all faith in it and I can’t get beyond the thought that I’ve fucked it, I’ve ruined it, and it’s only the last few years that I’ve started to recognize what’s happening. Now I know that it’s part of the process, but I’ve given up on stuff that was really hard to go back to. I got kind of broken by an album I made in 2012, The Unraveling by Knifeworld. I couldn’t get it over the line. It actually made me depressed. I’d taken time off work and the whole family were having to tighten our belts so I could finish it. It’s a terrible situation to be in really, expecting people to go through this with me, knowing it’s probably going to appeal to a few hundred people.
So to be able to finish a thing, I think it’s learned. Because you can get to that point where it’s never finished – you keep working until it falls to pieces again. I think it’s just being able to realise you’ll never achieve perfection, but also knowing that I’ve done everything I can. When I stop hearing all the things that need fixing that are glaringly obvious, then it’s finished. It’s often the last 5% that’s really important though. In fact, I haven’t listened to The Banishing since it was mastered.
But you’ll be revisiting the tracks from The Banishing when you play at the Dorothy Pax in Sheffield at the end of August won’t you?
Yeah, yeah! There’s one track that’s really hard to play, but I like the challenge of it. It was written when I was in the most chaotic place, and it was really, really tough to do that one. But now when I play it I know I’ve kind of moved on from that place. I’m a different person to the one that wrote that song, two years ago.
And it does it still feel like a musical challenge?
Well I played briefly in a band called Chrome Hoof. I couldn’t really be the guitarist for that band. I mean, I was the guitarist, but I couldn’t give that band what it needed. The music was far simpler and far more…I wouldn’t say, basic…but it worked on a different level to, say, Cardiacs music. When Tim (Smith) asked me to join Cardiacs I knew I could do it, I knew that this was a band I could join. Cardiacs music made complete sense to me.
I think many people felt that “oh, this is it!” feeling with Cardiacs music
Yeah, which is why they can be so fucking insufferable, as I myself was when I was a teenager, trying to convert people to being fans. You don’t convert people. You lose friends that way. Like you say, some people emotionally connect with the complexity. It’s the same with lifestyle or politics or whatever. You find a system that works for you, a system that you feel is honest – whether it’s your diet, or your exercise regime, whether it’s how you feel about the world or how you relate to other people, you try and find the best system for you. But God, I wouldn’t impose my system on anyone. If it works for me then that’s enough. I would never seek to then say that my way is right. When I was a teenager I was this sort of missionary for Cardiacs, and I was insufferable. I was the same about vegetarianism, and politics. I’m a long way from being that guy now.
Acknowledging that feeling of not wanting to push a band too hard, are there any new bands that you’ve come across recently that you would recommend?
I always dread this question. I’ve been dreading this question in every interview for about three or four years. Up until then, I would give you a really long list – I haven’t stopped listening to music by other people, but I’ve stopped actively listening to music in the way I used to – when you attach yourself to a band and you have to find out all about them. I had to get everything to do with that band. And it becomes, almost a form of collecting or an obsession. And that’s just kind of gone. And I don’t miss it. I know it’s been a big part of my life, and it got me to where I am, but that’s just not where I’m at.
That kind of compulsive taking in of something has been transferred to comics for me now. Comic books have become a real focus. And I’m realizing that I’m getting from them what I used to get from buying records. I realized that a great deal of music I was listening to, I was listening to it because it was like sustenance. Like Apollonia Sinclair, this erotic artist that works in pen and ink – her work has just knocked my head off. The record collecting part of me has gone into exploring illustrators and comics. So I could recommend loads of brilliant comic artists and creators – more than I could bands and music, really.
Okay. So please do recommend a graphic novel/comic then…
Probably the work that has been the most affecting to me is by an American artist called Jim Woodring. He creates these long, beautifully illustrated stories that are completely wordless, about this almost anthropomorphic figure called Frank. They are morality tales, beautifully rendered in pen and ink; it feels like Woodring is getting to the guts of existence – it nourishes the inner part of you.
Well I was watching an interview on Jim Woodring about a month or so ago. It was so exciting – they’re asking him about music, and after saying he was very into The Residents and Captain Beefheart, he says “But there’s one thing I’ve become completely obsessed with…” and it was almost a second before he said it, that I kind of knew what he was going to say. And he said, “Cardiacs” and it was like “oh my fucking god! Jim Woodring knows about Cardiacs”. And I thought I have got to write to him. And a friend of a friend introduced us. So Jim Woodring and I started communicating, and it’s been amazing. I sent him my music and he said he loved it. It was like when Tim (Smith) told me he loved my music. So I just need David Lynch to tell me he loves my films (not that I’ve made any) then I got the full house.
The time is nigh, hungry fish, for a truly rich bounty to enrich your eardrums and eyeholes. Kavus Torabi is playing a free gig for our delectation, at The Dorothy Pax in Sheffield, on the 23rd of August.
Be swept away by the “psych-pop hand-greeting sunshine orientation” (Echoes and Dust) of ‘The Sweetest Demon’, be jolted and jarred by the “angular math-rock and swirling psychedelia” (The Quietus) of ‘The Hanging Man’. And best of all, do it without paying a penny to enter the building!
Come join us – what do you have to lose but your mind?
Sites & Socials
https://kavustorabi.bandcamp.com/
https://twitter.com/Knifeworld
https://www.instagram.com/kavus_torabi/
https://www.facebook.com/KavusTorabi
Intro & ending blurb by Jay Wright, interview & featured image by Aitch Nicol