Here's a show review I did for Relix Magazine's website. Check it out below:
Prince Rama
Glasslands Gallery
Brooklyn, NY
February 23
Glasslands Gallery provided a perfect vessel for Prince Rama’s performance last Thursday night. Smoke machines, glowing velodoras, the faint smell of burning incense and glitter – lots and lots of glitter – provided a memorable backdrop for the entire night. Was I attending a concert in a dreamy-haze or sitting in on an initiation ceremony?
Brooklyn-based Prince Rama consists of sisters Taraka and Nimai Larson. The group came into fruition at a Florida Hare Krishna farm in 2007. After their stay at farm they traveled, with then band-mate Michael Collins, to Boston to solidify their one-of-a-kind eastern-psych-avant sound at art school. After extensive touring throughout the U.S. and recording a handful of exploratory albums the band landed a gig at SXSW in 2010, where they attracted the attention of Animal Collective’s Avey Tare. Prince Rama was signed to the band’s label Paw Tracks the same year. Their most recent album Trust Now, which features the two sisters on their own, is their second release on the label.
Although Taraka explained to the crowd that they were a bit tired and jet-lagged after just getting back from a tour in Australia, their performance proved otherwise. “We’re going to start with an exercise,” Taraka said in a child-like voice. The two entered the crowd with a shaker and tambourine in hand, chanting incantations to the concert-goers before stepping back onto the stage. Using material from their Summer 2011 release 15 Minute Exorcise, the band began a set that flirted with performance art and a full on group yoga-cardio exercise. With gold and blue leotards, legwarmers, and an encouraging voice telling you that “you look great”, the first half of Prince Rama’s set looked and sounded like it was plucked straight from the 1980s VHS workout circuit heyday. “Down! Center! Up! Center! Down!”, recited Taraka happily to the crowd. A few eager participants joined the two sisters in their exorcising workout while the rest of us watched mesmerized.
The second half of the set began in a more traditional way. After a quick wardrobe change, the Larson sisters assumed their positions, Taraka by the mike and synthesizer and Nimai behind the drums, and played three songs from Trust Now. Taraka’s bollywood-tinged vocals hovered above heavy synths and Nimai’s thundering ritualistic drums on their first song “Rest in Peace”. Halfway through the second song “Incarnation” the sisters both raised their hands to the sky chanting, before bring the music back with lumbering beats. They rounded out the set with “Golden Silence” a slower paced gamelan-evoking jam that Prince Rama also used to close out Trust.
The visual element of Prince Rama’s performance is just as important as the music. The band employs the use of video projections, displaying scenes of flowing water and rolling clouds. Taraka’s petite body grooves to the sounds as her fingers move across the keys and Nimai plays sans drum seat. She doesn’t just merely stand there either. Behind the drum set she rocks her body back and forth to the music while her sticks methodically hit the drums and she kicks up her back leg. It almost looks like a choreographed dance.
And just when you thought the show was over, Taraka and Nimai came back out to reprise their exorcise. With the same amount of energy as the beginning of the set, Prince Rama kicked, posed, and stretched their way through the end of the show.
