In order to afford their fans a sneak peek of their forthcoming record, Trust Now, before its release date, Prince Rama recently launched a video series in which their musical friends perform karaoke versions of the songs from the new album. Participants for the series will be unveiled as the videos are released, but rest assured that the band has an impressive group of luminaries enlisted for the remainder of the project. The series launched recently via The Fader blog, with G. Lucas Crane of Woods performing the Trust Now track “Incarnation,” apparently in a room with very low ceilings. The second installment went live today featuring Sierra Leone’s Janka Nabay performing “Summer Of Love.”
BIO
Drawing from a collective mine of times and spaces, Prince Rama (made up of sisters Taraka and Nimai Larson) takes the threads of ancient symbolism and ritual and weaves a surreal universe that is wholly their own. Their often-unpredictable live shows graze the space between psychedelic ceremony, performance art and initiation rite.
Trust Now, their 5th full-length album and 2nd album to be released on Paw Tracks was born out of this fantastic ritual space. Spawned from the vernal heat of the Florida swamps amidst swirling patterns of pine orchards and pre-Columbian artifacts, Prince Rama was whispered into the ears of Taraka Larson, Nimai Larson, and Michael Collins in the summer of 2007 by the clanging of prayer bells and goat-skin drums. They left the Hare Krishna farm where they were living to attend art school and form a creative nucleus in Boston. The visceral, devotional and raw “Threshold Dances” and “Zetland” were released as the culminations of those early collaborations. At this time Taraka also began working for the controversial visionary artist Paul Laffoley, and inspired by his architectural diagrams of utopic space, composed Architecture of Utopia.
After a series of extensive tours (one of which resulted in a tragic car robbery where all their equipment got stolen), the trio moved to Brooklyn, rebuilt themselves from the ground up and wrote Shadow Temple, produced with the help of Avey Tare and Deakin of Animal Collective and released on Paw Tracks in September 2010.
A few months later, Michael Collins took a hiatus from the band and the two sisters went on to refine and reinvent their sound through the recording of Trust Now, recorded in a 19th century church with Scott Colburn (Sun City Girls, Animal Collective, Arcade Fire). Just this past year Prince Rama was also chosen to be artists in residence at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, where they currently reside and continue their exploration of the link between music and utopia, conducting group exorcisms to the score of old VHS workout music and re-staging apocalypses through chopped and screwed pop songs.
Tour Dates
THU 09/08 BROOKLYN, NY UTOPIA = NO PLACE artist residency @ issue project room
SAT 09/17 BROOKLYN, NY 285 Kent *
SAT 09/24 BEIRUT, Lebanon– Beirut Indie Sessions
SAT 10/1 HOUSTON, TX Fitzgerald’s #
MON 10/3 AUSTIN, TX Mohawk #
TUES 10/4 MARFA, TX TBA
WED 10/5 PHOENIX, AZ Crescent Ballroom #
THU 10/6 LOS ANGELES, CA TBA +
FRI 10/7 SAN DIEGO, CA Casbah #
SAT 10/8 PIONEERTOWN, CA Pappy & Harriet’s #
MON 10/10 BIG SUR, CA Henry Miller Library #
TUE 10/11 SAN FRANCISCO, CA Independent #
WED 10/12 ARCATA, CA TBA
THU 10/13 PORTLAND, OR Holocene #
FRI 10/14 SEATTLE, WA Neumos #
SAT 10/15 VANCOUVER, BC Biltmore #
TUE 10/18 MINNEAPOLIS, MN 7th Street Entry #
WED 10/19 MADISON, WI Majestic #
THU 10/20 CHICAGO, IL Lincoln Hall #
FRI 10/21 MORGANTOWN, WV 123 Pleasant Street #
Sat 10/22 NEW YORK, NY CMJ
11/11/11 BROOKLYN, NY 11/11/11 UTOPIA = NO TIME Concert For The End of the World Artist Residency @ Issue Project Room
* = w/ Javelin
+ = w/ Sun Araw, matthewdavid
# = w/ Gang Gang Dance
Prince Rama :: Trust Now
(Paw Tracks) :: Street Date: Oct. 4, 2011
- Rest In Peace
- Summer of Love
- Trust
- Portaling
- Incarnation
- Golden Silence
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