Ruminations from the Dark Side with Alan Dearling
Drones, loops, synths, guitars and darkly evocative music in the company of Kavus Torabi and Spaceship (with Mark S. Williamson’s field recordings and film from the Calderdale ‘tops’ high up in the Pennines). The event took place upstairs at the Golden Lion in Calderdale. Swirling smoke, and solo works from latest Kavus Torabi album, ‘The Banishing’ plus some from ‘Hip to the Jag’ and more, including works in progress.
Here is how Kavus was described on-line in advance of the live show:
“Kavus Torabi is a British/Iranian composer, multi-instrumentalist, performer, author, artist, broadcaster and DJ. His largely autobiographical solo work marries the human with the celestial.
Since 2016 he has fronted legendary psychedelic band Gong with whom he is principal songwriter. He is a member of the semi-modular experimental/psychedelic trio, The Utopia Strong. He is a former guitarist of British cult band, Cardiacs and avant rock instrumentalists Guapo. As part of a DJ duo with Steve Davis, he has performed festivals throughout the UK, recently performing at Wembley Stadium between bands for Blur’s comeback performance.”
This was not a night for a rock ‘n’ roll knees-up. Instead, we enetered into the worlds of disembodied music sampled by the mortician, songs from the morgue, the mausoleum. Absolutely Discordian!
Kavus channelled his inner Nico. If you’ve ever come across the richly textured ‘Marble Index’ album from Nico, it would be ideal late night listening, for the talented Mister Torabi! Adding lonesome vocals, wild loops of harmonium drones and his staccato, solo guitar repetitive riffs, a little in the Talking Heads’ mode from Adrian Belew, Kavus created a monochromatic tapestry – sounding like howls from the Underworld, and other deep, dark places filled with the unspeakable. “…Keep the other worldly groans coming” sang Kavus, after telling us that, “My metier is sad songs with happy chords!”
My photos of Kavus are more darkroom creations than realities…but hopefully, they echo the sounds and sights of spirits escaping into the night…before the dawn arrives. Kavus told us that “…spirits keep me company, by my side”, and before beginning his second encore, he described it as, “A sort of a pop song”, I think called ‘Cemetery of Light’, vocally exploring the implications of “…another suicide I couldn’t stop.” In amongst this there were some screaming guitar crescendos reminiscent of the glissando playing from Steve Hillage and Daevid Allen from earlier line-ups of Gong, which Kavus currently fronts.
Although the material was really rather macabre, Kavus comes over as a very intimate, personable, relaxed, humorous, self-deprecating guy. The audience seemed transcended into his worlds. And there are indeed many different ones. The solo show appeared to be part of his personal process of dispelling Demons!
The Banishing is fairly extreme…
We learn from Kavus at Bandcamp:
“As I started to attempt to document and make sense of what had happened, I wanted to call the album ‘Now I’m The Antichrist’, much to the consternation of almost everyone I told about it” Kavus reveals. “As I got towards the end of the recording, however, I settled on ‘The Banishing’ which, while referring to my banishing from London really describes how I thought of the process of making it which, in magical terms, was a banishing ritual”
“Recording ‘The Banishing’ became a form of therapy, a dialogue with myself” Kavus reflects. “I started to ‘live’ the album and the completion became an act of alchemy; to transform the pain, hurt and sadness into somethingbeautiful.”
Far from merely banishing the dust of the everyday, it’s a psychic spring-clean that renders the world anew, a journey that opens more doors than it closes.
https://kavustorabi.bandcamp.com/album/the-banishing
Support came from Spaceship
I was at the 2019 performance and album launch of the Spaceship ‘Outcrops’ album. Mark’s performance is a mix of a film projection, and musical accompaniment. Tonal, and sometimes atonal, geology. Rocks, moorlands and valleys, outcrops, monoliths and the famous Bridestones.
Mark S. Williamson is a musician, sound artist, film maker and educator based in Todmorden, West Yorkshire.
His work reminds me of the TV film made of Nigel Kneale’s ‘The StoneTapes’, which is premised on the notion that stones record and can replay the sounds they have previously heard and witnessed. So, Mark’s soundscapes offer an audio connectivity with the natural environment. The single piece we were treated to, combined elements from field recordings, layered with electronic and acoustic instrumentation.
Mark has recorded for wiaiwya, Apollolaan, the Dark Outside and his own Forged River Recordings. His work has been reviewed by The Wire, Electronic Sound, Shindig and The Quietus. He is also the proud custodian of the Primitive Percussion Youth Orchestra, which utilises the lithophone, a xylophone, employing different sized rocks to produce different pitches. Real primitive percussion!
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