The Banishing BELIEVERS ROAST
Psychedelic polymath draws a line under the past with great results.
Since his emergence in the early 90s, Iranian-born, Plymouth-raised multi-instrumentalist Kavus Torabi has remained a singular and distinctive figure in the spheres of psychedelic and progressive music.
Along the way, he’s lent his six-string talents to a number of idiosyncratic names including Cardiacs, Guapo and Chrome Hoof, while remaining at the heart of the lysergic funk of The Monsoon Bassoon and third-eye rinsers Knifeworld. More recently, he’s participated with Mediæval Bæbes, become an integral member of the post-Daevid Allen line-up of Gong while starting the unlikely yet successful experimental project The Utopia Strong with former snooker champion Steve Davis and musician Michael J York. And that’s just scratching the surface.
The Banishing, Torabi’s second solo album, is where that deeper scratching reveals more of the man behind the music than any of his previous work. Recording began in the wake of its predecessor Hip To The Jag in the spring of 2020, but a deterioration in Torabi’s mental health saw him become not only estranged from his family, but also leaving the city that he’d called home for the previous 30 years. And while the title refers to his move to the more bucolic environs of the West Country, Korabi also sees it in more magical terms as a banishing ritual.
For all that, The Banishing isn’t an album that feels sorry for itself. Instead, this is a naked confessional. While the lyrical concerns take a razor-sharp scalpel to cut away the dea
