The Utopia Strong / Andrew Liles (live at The King Arthur)

Glastonbury
11 October 2025

Andrew Liles is all over the place, in the best way. It’s a kinetic set, full of about-turns and derailments, helped towards the chaos by an equally propulsive and sacrilegious video backdrop incorporating George Michael’s “‘Freedom” dance convulsions, Romy Shneider and various forms of ecstatic crucifixion. The music follows and Liles pays close attention to the video backdrop at times, manipulating his machines to match the music.

We find ourselves flying through Liles’s considerable repertoire of genres: blackened metal guitars, eschatological dark ambience, fractured techno, even the odd descent into white noise and acid bleeps. At one point we’re treated to the sighs and whoops from what sounds like ancient psychedelic soul singers turned into a sort of swimming, drifting disco.

Things move quickly, ADHD-like in its twitchiness and uncertainty. A groove gets on, is manipulated into submission and then disappears. It’s a beguiling set in the heat and darkness of The King Arthur, always a forbidding pit, and a perfect (if on the surface paradoxical) introduction to what’s coming next.

I’ve seen The Utopia Strong a few times now and their music, live and on record, is often characterised by a strangely thrilling reluctance to let loose: this is music that creeps up on you slowly, that builds and builds and suggests release without falling into easy get-outs. There are peaks and troughs but you have to work for them.

The opening builds slowly with harmonium drones, gongs and subtle modular electronics. The crowd are mostly quiet and respectful, give or take the odd over-drunk boor wondering what the hell was going on and insisting on asking. One guy in front of me asked the same thing several times to a woman who, after showing heroic tolerance, eventually sent him packing with a psychedelic flea in his ear.

The set slithers and slides. Kavus Torabi does a little bit of God-like vogueing, letting the music flow into him. Michael J York starts blowing into various strange wind instruments and the music flutters along with these new drones, the modular electronics bubble and get more insistent. But again, this is not music made for crescendo; it has its own stately pace. It gets where it wants to go.

There’s moments which could be Cluster, especially their work with Brian Eno. At other times, the pipes remind me vaguely of Magma-related projects like Eskaton — I think Steve Davis has a Magma t-shirt, which makes a lot of sense. There’s moments where you feel the crowd want to surge and let loose, but the band members keep themselves in check; this is restorative music, strange adult lullabies.

One track flows into the next, refrains reappear in slightly altered form. Release is promised and then retracted. Time passes quickly like this and the gig is over before anyone is ready. The call for an encore is swift and, with a little hesitation, The Utopia Strong are back on stage.

The encore gives some of the release the audience have been craving, a delirious bagpipe-led trance concoction, which drifts just the other side of the line between Dionysian and line-dancing. Even the band seem a little surprised, as if this had come from somewhere they hadn’t previously been prepared to go. The King Arthur is a bit like that sometimes.

-Loki-