Kavus Torabi

Torabi was born on 5 December 1971 in Tehran, Iran to an Iranian father and an English mother. His family moved to the UK when he was eighteen months old in 1973; originally planning to return once his father had made sufficient money, but ending up settling permanently following the 1979 Iranian Revolution. He recalls his mother having three or four albums and knowing between two and four chords which she tried to teach him, which he said caused an aversion to learning chords that was "probably the starting point" to his peculiar musical style. Torabi, a devoted fan of Cardiacs, was a 16-year-old student when he heard the band's first proper album A Little Man and a House and the Whole World Window in 1988 which a friend had lent him. In his early 20s and late teens, Torabi often took LSD and wrote music with it. He credits psychedelics with rewiring his mind in a positive way and allowing him to turn his life around from the "very miserable life" he could have had, given his upbringing. Torabi made decision to move to London and take music seriously while on LSD. He moved from Plymouth to London when he was 21. == Career ==

1988–2001: Die Laughing and the Monsoon Bassoon, working with Tim Smith Torabi's first significant band was the Plymouth-based band Die Laughing, formed in 1988, in which he played guitar and first met his close friend and collaborator, Dan Chudley. (Chudley – a fellow guitarist and singer – has been part of Torabi's life for most of his musical career, and the two are noted for their interlocking, highly complex guitar style.) Die Laughing released three demos before they eventually split in 1993. In 1994, Torabi reunited with Chudley, who had been playing in a band called Squid Squad since the previous year. The two formed a new band called the Monsoon Bassoon, Torabi a founding member, in which they were joined by bass player Laurie Osbourne and two more Squid Squad members (singing clarinet/flute/sax player Sarah Measures and drummer Jamie Keddie). Their musical – an energetic and tuneful form of psychedelic math rock – was built around Torabi and Chudley's singular compositions. The group soon relocated from Plymouth to Leyton, East London and began to gain underground attention, releasing recordings on their own Weird Neighbourhood Records label. Torabi, a guitarist and vocalist of the Monsoon Bassoon, was one of the band's three frontpeople and the visual focus. The band's debut single "Wise Guy" was described by Matt Evans of The Quietus as "an extraordinary 7" single – five minutes of herky-jerky guitar pop, bafflingly intricate interlocking guitars, innumerable time changes, passages of crushing heaviness, stop-start absurdity and lush three-part male and female vocal harmonies, culminating in a lengthy instrumental math-rock/free-blowing woodwind meltdown." Since the mid-1990s, Torabi had had a close working relationship with Smith, who produced the majority of the Monsoon Bassoon's recordings. Despite scoring several Single of the Week awards in New Musical Express, the Monsoon Bassoon failed to get signed to a larger label or make a significant commercial breakthrough, although they did receive critical acclaim and a cult following for their unorthodox approach and sound. The band released a lone, well-regarded studio album (I Dig Your Voodoo) and five singles, and split up in 2001 following the exit of Keddie. Many of the band's recordings remain unreleased. Before the split of the Monsoon Bassoon, Torabi toured as guitarist with former Pogues member Spider Stacy's group, Wisemen (which also featured other ex-Pogues). After line-up changes, the group became The Vendettas. Torabi co-wrote and produced an album with Spider in 2003, but the project was shelved in the wake of the Pogues' reunion that year. Torabi has subsequently expressed an interest in releasing the album on his own Believers Roast label. which featured Torabi as a guitarist and vocalist in later points in the band's career. Prior to becoming a member, Torabi had spent eight years working as the band’s guitar technician. With a four-piece line-up of Tim Smith, Torabi, Jim Smith and Bob Leith, the best takes from the three-night stand were released in the two-hour 2005 live album The Special Garage Concerts as two different volumes, which the writer Eric Benac called Torabi's "most significant contribution to the band's history". Torabi and Leith were given free rein to do what they wanted with the songs, Benac noted that Torabi's guitar and arrangement skills added a psychedelic edge to the band's sound. Torabi got a call in 2005 from Dave Smith or Daniel O'Sullivan of the band Guapo, when the band were on Ipecac, that they wanted him as their guitarist. 2007–2008: Cardiacs studio work until activies ceased Torabi met the snooker player Steve Davis when the two were watching the band Magma in France, with Torabi inviting Davis to watch him play as the lead guitarist with Cardiacs at the Astoria. Torabi featured on Cardiacs' 2007 single, "Ditzy Scene", co-written by Smith and Torabi, The single was recorded as part of Org Records' Org-An-Ised single series as a teaser for the album LSD. Benac called the title track "a lurching psychedelic beast", crediting Torabi's influence with pushing Smith to more psychedelic sounds, even after the success of The Special Garage Concerts. Cardiacs, which had a lineup of Tim and Jim Smith, Torabi, Leith, Melanie Woods and Cathy Harabaras, stopped their activities in 2008 when Tim Smith was forced to retire from the scene due to neurological problems that caused him difficulty with speech, movement and muscle spasms which arose following a cardiac arrest. LSD, which was due to be released in October 2008, In August 2010, Torabi broke the news that Cardiacs would never play live again in a podcast interview for the website The Epileptic Gibbon. and the band's outsider, countercultural stance was hugely important to him. Allen reported that he had an "instant flash of recognition" that he had met a future member of Gong and that he and Torabi were immediately intimate good friends. In 2013, when playing with Marshall Allen in London, Daevid Allen asked Torabi if he would like to play guitar in Gong. Torabi told Allen that he couldn't play like Steve Hillage, and Allen responded that he wan't interested in what Torabi couldn't do, but in what he could. Allen recruited Torabi as an additional guitarist in 2014, despite having never heard him play. The first jam they had was in a rehearsal place in New Cross. Torabi debuted on the 2014 album I See You, where he joined founders Allen and Gilli Smyth along with their son Orlando on drums, Ian East on saxophone, Dave Sturt on bass, and Fabio Golfetti on guitar. After Torabi joined Gong, Charlie Cawood took over as the multi-instrumentalist in Mediæval Bæbes, a role Torabi asked if Cawood was interested in, knowing Cawood played saz, oud and non-Western instruments. On joining Gong, Torabi said he "didn’t feel too overwhelmed" as he had already played in Cardiacs, which was his favourite band of all time. Allen's farewell message email read "it is super clear to me that Kavus, you are the perfect fit with Dave, Ian and Fabio and that Cheb, you are the perfect fit with Kavus!". Torabi didn't see a future for the group beyond the tour until the band started rehearsing, which he said "completely put to sleep" any fears of Gong becoming "some sort of tribute act" once they played. In April, Torabi, East and Sturt appeared as Inspiral Gong at a concert to remember Allen. which Torabi admitted he had not been certain about. Jordan Blum of PopMatters opined that the album "proved that Gong could carry on exceedingly well as a brilliantly revitalized but respectfully familiar unit under Torabi’s watch." 2017–2019: forming and releasing first music from the Utopa Strong, The Universe Also Collapses by Gong, and playing with Steve Hillage In 2017, a double-header show at The Lexington in London had Torabi perform with both bands, as a full-time member of Guapo and a cameo appearance for the encore of Spratleys Japs, an outfit originally helmed by Smith, for a cover of the Cardiacs song "Flap Off You Beak". Steve Davis had taken up modular synth in 2016. After DJing at the 2017 Glastonbury Festival, Davis and Torabi met and bonded with multi-instrumentalist Michael J. York of Coil and the three decided to form a band. An experimental project, where they left a recorder running through their 13-hour session. Torabi is the frontman of the group. and the band have supported Steve Hillage and Magma on tour. They have been described as a supergroup. In 2018, Torabi released his first solo work, the three track EP Solar Divination, on Believers Roast. Ainscoe called the EP "a genuinely innovative talent benefitting from the freedom of working solo and giving head to his personal visions" and "an inventive and innovative teaser" for a full album. The band marked the album's announcement by releasing a radio edit of their track "The Elemental" and announcing a run of UK tour dates. Blum said that the album's arrangements "fuse the deep-rooted penchants of Allen with the thoughtful peculiarities of Torabi". which features a guest vocal appearance by Mediæval Bæbes' Katharine Blake. and was among the musicians who paid tribute to Smith on social media. Gong's 2022 joint tour with Ozric Tentacles was the first full-band outing for Ozric Tentacles in eight years and the first time both bands had toured together. Torabi said "As mind-blowing as [the tour] may have been for the audience, it was as beautiful for both bands off stage." 2023–2024: ''Heaven's Sun with Richard Wileman, Unending Ascending'' by Gong and touring with Miranda Sex Garden For the studio album ''Heaven's Sun'', released through Believers Roast on 2 June 2023, Torabi collaborated with Karda Estra's Richard Wileman. The album features the two tracks "Particles of Light" and "Derelict Creations", and contributions from Amy Fry (clarinet & vocals), Caron Hansford (oboe) and Mike Ostime (trumpet). Torabi said that Unending Ascending was the second of a loose trilogy of albums, joined by the three key themes of the universe, the moon, and water. Banks said that the track "All Clocks Reset" featured the ghosts of Torabi's other bands, specifically Knifeworld and Cardiacs, due to its "spiky Fripp-style riffing" and "precise, pointillist horns dancing in formation". Louder Than War's Nathan Brown noted the song's "time signature jumps and about turns you’d expect from the likes of the Cardiacs". In the line-up of the reformed darkwave sextet Miranda Sex Garden, which announced a run of live dates in July 2023 for September and October, Torabi replaced founding member and guitarist Ben Golomstock who died in 2018. The band is fronted by Katharine Blake the Mediæval Bæbes. In May 2024, reviewing the band at the Wave-Gotik-Treffen festival in Leipzig, Germany, Louder Than War's Michael Nottingham noted the "wailing waves" of Torabi's guitar during the track "Broken Glass" from Carnival Of Souls (2003). The same month, Torabi made a guest appearance with Cardiacs Family, a reunited incarnation of Cardiacs, for one of the Sing to Tim events of 2024. 2025–present: release of LSD and live dates from Cardiacs, Bright Spirit by Gong Torabi added extra guitar to the Wildhearts' 2025 album Satanic Rites of the Wildhearts as a guest on the album with Gong's Cheb Nettles playing drums. The iteration of the band's lineup for the album included Jon Poole as the bassist. Ginger Wildheart said that Torabi and Poole "were just like putting two foul-mouthed Furbies together." revealing that the surviving band members and additional musicians had been working under their aegis to finish the album. The pair were joined on the record by former Oceansize and Empire State Bastard musician Mike Vennart (vocals), as well as Rose-Ellen Kemp (vocals), Leith (vocals, drums), and the late Tim Smith, with Craig Fortnam of North Sea Radio Orchestra composing brass and string arrangements. LSD released on 19 September. All of the album's 17 tracks were written by Tim Smith with arrangements throughout provided by Torabi. In a review, Sean Kitching of The Quietus said that LSD occupied a special place in Cardiacs' back catalogue as the only album with Torabi, who provided "his own distinctive psychedelic riffing via some of his finest guitar work to date",In an article with Prog published on 3 November 2025, Torabi said that Gong were "now starting to make plans for what the third album" of their loose trilogy "will be like". The single "The Wonderment" released with a video on 6 January 2026, which Torabi exclaimed was on the birthday of Alan Watts and Syd Barrett. Torabi said that Bright Spirit was about "the Earth goddess and the divine feminine." Prog reported in November that Torabi had endured a breakdown while Gong were making the album do to the pressure of constant touring, and got increasingly worked up while trying to finish the lyrics, telling the band that he could not get the album done by the deadline. The show focussed largely on experimental, avant-progressive, psychedelic, electronic, folk and rock music with an emphasis on new releases. Guests included Daevid Allen, Chris Cutler, Charles Hayward, Bob Drake,The Fierce and the Dead, Sanguine Hum and Stars in Battledress. During, and subsequent to, the broadcast of The Interesting Alternative Show, Torabi and Davis worked together presenting live public DJ sets, including an appearance at the 2016 Glastonbury Festival. On 9 July 2023, Davis and Torabi DJ'd opening for Blur at Wembley Stadium. Torabi and Davis subsequently formed an electronic music band called the Utopia Strong in which Torabi plays guitar and harmonium, Davis plays modular analog synthesizer and Coil associate/Holy Family member Michael J. York plays pipes, drones, synthesizers and electronics. Their first album The Utopia Strong was released on 13 September 2019 and has been followed by a series of live recordings available as digital downloads and limited edition vinyl issues. In April 2021 they released the double autobiography Medical Grade Music. The book was listed in Louder Than War's 21 Best Music Books of 2021. Ainscoe called Torabi and Davis's association "bizarre but unsurprising", with Davis himself being "an aficionado of the psychedelically challenging". ==Artistry==

In 2016, Chris Roberts of The Quietus called Torabi "a major fan of, and contributor to, British progressive and psychedelic music over the past decade or so". Torabi has been described as a "psychedelic polymath", or a "left-field polymath", a "ravenous musical polyglot", Prog's Joe Banks said "Just as Steven Wilson has become the majordomo of all things nu prog, so Torabi has come to occupy a similar position in a tight-knit, post-Cardiacs world where the music is playful but challenging, gloriously melodic but often fearsomely complex." Emma Johnston of Classic Rock called Torabi a "prog hero". Torabi is reluctant to be pegged as a particular stylist, and his music has always drawn on a wide variety of influences. These have included indie and alternative rock (Pixies, Shudder to Think, XTC), British and American art/progressive rock (Cardiacs, Henry Cow, Yes, Hatfield and the North, Don Caballero), folk music, minimalist music, various forms of hard rock and heavy metal (Voivod, Melvins) and many others. His compositions are often typically dense, polyrhythmic and based in the Lydian mode. == Public image ==

grin" , nail varnish and red winkle-pickers in a 2023 Gong performance In 2011, Evans described Torabi as having been the visual focus of the Monsoon Bassoon, "unfeasibly tall and wiry, with a big ol' mop of omni-directionally wayward hair, resembling Buzz Osbourne reincarnated as a young spruce tree." Ainscoe said that Torabi conjured up images of Syd Barrett with his "unruly hair" and "occasionally wild eyes". Describing a chat with Torabi through Zoom in 2021, Miranda Sawyer of The Guardian noted: "his curly-haired head looms out of a starry universe background. Things aren’t much less cosmic when he manages to get rid of it and reveals himself to be sitting in a book-and-CD-lined sitting room with walls painted like a lilac sky." Sawyer compared Torabi's appearance to Steve Davis' suburban, straight-laced, undemonstrative one: Torabi wore a sage-green embroidered kurta with wild curly hair whilst Davis wore a T-shirt and black tracky bottoms, with a short grey crop. In the interview, Davis commented "As a result of being around Kavus, I'm very aware that I’m no longer allowed to wear any type of blue jeans. I'm wearing black chinos instead. As yet I've struggled to get into pointed boots. I find they're uncomfortable on the ankle." In 2024, Wright commented that Torabi came across "like a bit of a hippy" and "a kind of grounded psychedelic trickster" while interviewing him, and that the way Torabi dresses—with tousled hair, nail varnish and a fondness for primary colours—is influenced by his ideas of finding magic in everyday experience. Torabi said "I thought, once I started dressing up like this, that it makes life more fun. I was wanting to be that guy, so why not be that guy? It's ludicrous, swanning around in the pub wearing red winkle-pickers and stupid hair. People look at you and think, 'Who's this wanker?' But I don't care. We're all who we pretend to be anyways, it's only a flesh avatar, you know?" == Personal life ==

Torabi married Dawn Staple in 2003 and their daughter, Sima, was born in October 2009. The family lived in a basement flat in Hackney during the Covid pandemic and lockdown, which Torabi has called "a very, very difficult time for all three of us". A deterioration in Torabi’s mental health saw him become estranged from his family and leave the family home. He admitted "my relationship with my wife and daughter just seemed to deteriorate during lockdown. And try as we might, we couldn’t really get it back on track. After lockdown I went on a one-month tour with Gong, and when I came home afterwards it was clear they just didn’t want me back. I think I’d become unbearable to live with." By then in his fifties, Torabi soon realised that after thirty years living in London he could no longer afford to live there alone and still have enough space for his collection of musical instruments, so took up an offer from his Utopia Strong bandmate Michael J York to move to the Somerset Levels to be York's lodger. As of 2024, Torabi is based in Glastonbury. Torabi reflected on the challenges in his personal life in the writing of his second solo album The Banishing (2024). As of 2021, Torabi had a dog called Teddy, who made a brief appearance in a video Torabi created in the 2020 lockdown for the song "Cemetery Of Light". ==Discography==

Solo Albums • Hip to the Jag (2020) • The Banishing (2024) Collaborative albums • ''Heaven's Sun'' (2023, with Richard Wileman) Extended plays • Solar Divination (2018) Singles • "Cemetery Of Light" (2020, Hip to the Jag) • "The Sentinel" (2020, Hip to the Jag outtake) • "Snake Humanis" (2024, The Banishing) • "Heart the Same" (2024, The Banishing) As member ;With Cardiacs • The Special Garage Concerts (live, 2005) • "Ditzy Scene" (single, 2007) • Some Fairytales from the Rotten Shed (2017 DVD) • "Vermin Mangle" (single, 2020) • "Woodeneye" (single, 2025) • "Downup" (single, 2025) • "Volob" (single, 2025) • LSD (2025) ;With North Sea Radio Orchestra • North Sea Radio Orchestra (2006) • Birds (2008) ;With Chrome Hoof • Crush Depth CD (2010) (guitar) ;With Guapo • History Of The Visitation (2013) • Obscure Knowledge (2015) ;With Gong • I See You (2014) • "The Thing That Should Be" (single, 2016) • ''Rejoice! I'm Dead!'' (2016) • "The Elemental" (single, 2019) • "My Sawtooth Wake" (single, 2019) • The Universe Also Collapses (2019) • "My Sawtooth Wake" (live, single, 2021) • Pulsing Signals (live, 2022) • "Tiny Galaxies" (single, 2023) • "All Clocks Reset" (single, 2023) • Unending Ascending (2023) • "Stars in Heaven" (single, 2025) • "The Wonderment" (single, 2026) • Bright Spirit (2026) ;With Miranda Sex Garden • "Velventine" (single, 2024) Other credits ==References==