Prince Rama (USA)
I Want My Life Back
special project for Netmage
world premiere
The music of I want my life back, a new live-media conceived for Netmage 11 by Prince Rama with the collaboration of the video-maker Greg St. Pierre, is vibrant and even epic. It drags the dregs of psychedelic and post-hippie traditions, crushed together with the celestial elegance of inspirational Krishna mantras, horror soundtracks, misshapen rap and Kate Bush on peyote, in an ecstatic roar of percussion, voice, bass and electronics.
Legend has it that Prince Rama were born among the vapors and winter heat of the Florida swamps, where crocodiles, pre-colombian handwork, mangroves and pines live jumbled together in an impeccable ecosystem. Prince Rama in person ostensibly whispered the revelation in the ears of Taraka Larson, Nimai Larson and Michael Collins in the summer of 2007, spurring them to abandon the world of Hare Krishna in Gainesville where they were raised as children, to relocate to Boston and attend SMFA (School of the Museum of Fine Arts). It was there during a work-study program that Taraka ran across a course on architect and visionary artist Paul Laffoley, whom she later met and worked with for four years. The concerts of Prince Rama basically take the form of live articulated from psychedelic and holistic ascendencies, tightly woven in rhythm, energetic and imbibed with universes of folklore – more abounding in images than strictly religious – in which an inheritance of cosmic music, references to Gang Gang Dance and imaginary extravagance thicken. After Threshold Dances, the series of household recordings released by the English label Cosmos and Zetland,they produced Architecture of Utopia, the record directly inspired by the utopian architecture and topocosmic models of the paintings of Paul Laffoley, which took the trio to perform at Palais de Tokyo in Paris in the room dedicated to Laffoley, included in the exhibition Chasing Napoleon. The trio then transferred to Brooklyn, writing and directing (apparently in a cabin owned by Kurt Vonnegut’s nephew and in a church contaminated in 1875) Shadow Temple, produced with the assistance of David Portner (Avey Tare) and Josh Dibb (Deakin) from the Animal Collective, released by Paw Tracks. Prince Rama have been on tour with Magik Markers, Black Mountain, The Cave Singers, Fuck Buttons, The Super Furry Animals, Black Dice and Growing (both guests of Netmage in 2009), and recently performed at PS1 and New Museum in New York. Gregory St. Pierre, also known as GSP, is a video artist/performer working out of Baltimore. Gregory grew up in Providence, where he became greatly influenced by Fort Thunder and the DIY community. Gregory relocated to attend college at Goucher College in Baltimore, where he joined the experimental/neo-tribal band called Teeth Mountain. He got his start doing live video by extensively touring nationally and internationally with Teeth Mountain but now collaborates and tours primarily with the Baltimore based electronic musician Dan Deacon. Influenced by the notion of being in the “present” his video and light performances are based on multiple levels of interactivity with his collaborators. Gregory has also collaborated with other groups such as Lightning Bolt and Deakin of Animal Collective.