Here we are, ladies and gentlemen. The latest follow-up from Knifeworld’s maestro, Kavus Torabi, has arrived. After his first two solo albums, Hip to the Jag and The Banishing, Torabi continues to prove that there is much more to his musical universe than his work with Guapo, Gong, Cardiacs, The Utopia Strong, and, of course, Knifeworld. His latest album, October by Name, shows that he is still capable of taking listeners on an ultimate trip, beyond the stargate and deep into the psychedelic, hallucinogenic journey he has prepared for us.
Looking back at my own introduction to Torabi’s work, I believe I first heard Knifeworld on an episode of Sid Smith’s Podcasts from the Yellow Room many Milky Way’s ago, while I was finishing my final semester at Houston Community College in 2014. Since then, Kavus has continued to fill his music with surreal imagery, and October by Name is no exception. I always knew he had another card up his sleeve, and with Torabi, you never really know what to expect.
Inspired by a dream, this album feels like entering a surreal slumberland that Torabi has constructed before us, almost as if he had written the soundtrack to Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo comic strips from the 1900s and 1910s. The piano creates a calling from an abandoned ballroom on the opening track, ‘Signals Shine,’ while Torabi’s reverberating vocals bring in the dancers. A psychedelic waltz slowly emerges, eventually leading toward a mournful graveyard in the distance, accompanied by militant drumbeats that sound as if they are marching off to battle.
You feel as though you’re walking through the remains of a ghost town as Torabi drops you into the middle of a sandstorm straight out of a 1960s spaghetti western. It has that Ennio Morricone atmosphere, with Kavus tipping his hat to the maestro while adding his own surreal twist.
Meanwhile, ‘From the Storm’ carries a Terry Riley-meets-Eno quality, while ‘Ancestor’s Song’ feels like Ash Ra Tempel meeting the Ohr-era Tangerine Dream. ‘In Her Radiance’ moves into a raga-like meditation, carrying the spirit of Berlin School electronic music while returning to a Barrett-era approach. There is even a lullaby-like sing-along about a mysterious young woman approaching through time and space, taking us toward other worlds waiting to be discovered.
Then we descend deeper, into the Atlantic Ocean, as Torabi turns ‘Water into Wine’. Medieval poetic textures surround an underwater city revealed in all its glory, accompanied by sweeping, epic atmospheres. But what’s this? Is Kavus returning to his Knifeworld roots on ‘My Shameful Namesake’? Yes, he is.
Torabi hasn’t forgotten his Knifeworld roots. The track reaches back toward The Unraveling era, picking up where ‘Destroy the World We Love’ left off and giving that journey a proper conclusion. What follows is a dystopian, chaotic whirlpool filled with hallucinogenic imagery and a psychedelic vibration that feels unmistakably like Knifeworld.
As I always say, it is always, always good to see what Kavus Torabi is up to and what ideas will pop out of his head next. From 2020 to the present, he has continued to explore strange new corners of his musical universe. October by Name may take several listens to fully absorb, and it may take some time to figure out exactly where he is taking you. But that is part of the adventure. With Kavus Torabi, you never really know what you’re going to encounter, and that’s exactly the fun of it.
