The Utopia Strong — International Treasure

The Utopia Strong are a progressive electronic trio consisting of former Cardiac and British/ Iranian musician and composer, Kavus Torabi (guitar and harmonium), Michael J York (formerly of Coil, on pipes, drones, synthesizers and electronics) and snooker legend, Steve Davis on a modular analogue synth. They released their first album in 2019, the self-titled debut was warmly received and David was thrust back into the limelight for an altogether different reason. There can’t be too many sportsmen who could go out and reinvent themselves in the way that Davis has, but fair play to him, he's created something that is a joy to experience, whether on record or in a live setting, The Utopian Strong, are currently wowing people across the country with their own brand of ambient electronic prog rock.

The album opens with Trident of Fire, a fairly short slab of electronica that wouldn’t sound out of place on one of John Carpenter’s recent Lost Themes albums. It’s a great way to get the album underway, highlighting the quality of the musicianship and the song craft right from the off. That is followed up by Persephone Sleeps, which, after an ambient opening settles into something that sits in between The Ghostbox style hauntology of Belbury Poly and The Orb, borrowing ideas from both whilst hanging on to its own identity. Shepherdess is up next and after an ambient opening it quickly settles into something that wouldn’t sound out of place on an early Orbital album. This track features some nice use of samples of a variety of different instruments that give it an Asian drone vibe. One gets the feeling of sitting somewhere high up in the Himalayan Mountain range, watching a shepherd work while listening to Buddhists chant at some retreat. Beautiful, peaceful, and refreshing. This is followed up with Spirits from the Deep, a short floaty piece a short floaty piece of ambient electronica that gives the sense of underwater exploration. The short, glitchy  The Islanders is next and features some massed sounds that resemble human voices, but that I think are a mix of samples and synth lines that mimic the sound of the human voice. 

Disaster 2 kicks the second half of the album off with the sound of falling rain before settling into something reminiscent of some of the better New Age albums that were popular during the 1990s. There is a sound of bagpipes that I believe to be a replication by a synth, either way it sounds great and really adds to the track’s overall appeal. Revelations has a quite melancholy feel to it, featuring some rather lovely sounding analogue synth sounds . At times the track reminds me of Kate Bush’s rather wonderful Waking the Witch from her seminal Hounds of Love album. This is followed by the album’s title track, International Treasures which after a slow, sparse piano ladened intro slowly begins to build by adding loads more little bits of synth work going on. It reminds me of Tangerine Dream in some ways and it’s probably one of the album’s key centrepieces. The album comes to an end with Castalia, a pleasant and surprisingly uptempo number that actually features some electronic drums. This is a pleasant way to end the album.

Overall, at a fairly short 40 minutes, it’s quite refreshing. I’ve always found this to be around the optimal length for a single album, and it has to said that this one never outstays its welcome. Some modern prog albums lumber on for an hour or more and often suffer for it, that’s never an issue here. The album is succinct and to the point. All but two tracks (Shepherdess and International Treasure) are under five minutes long (they both clock in around 7 minutes each), and the whole thing sounds fresh. Of course, the influences are there to be heard, The Orb, Orbital, and Tangerine Dream all come through in the mix but never so much as to sound derivative. If you like any of those aforementioned artists then you’ll probably love this, it’s a very impressive, and most enjoyable record that deserves to be far more successful than it probably will.