Prince Rama
“What the hell is that?” is a question pretty familiar to the controversial Brooklyn band Prince Rama. The answer is far from simple; sisters Taraka and Nimai Larson have lived in ashrams, worked for utopian architects, written manifestos, delivered lectures from pools of fake blood, conducted group exorcisms disguised as VHS workouts, delivered live shows incorporating elements of psychedelic ceremony, and invented an apocalypse on which to base their pseudo-compilation album, Top Ten Hits of the End of the World, comprised of ten singles “channeled” from fictional deceased pop bands.
Prince Rama have released six albums and toured in four of the seven continents, recording with members of Animal Collective and Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. Their art has been exhibited internationally at the Whitney Museum of Art, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, and the MoMA PS 1 VW Dome. In January 2015 they had their first solo retrospective at CULT Exhibitions in San Francisco. Taraka has also published a manifesto on the “NOW AGE” that puts forth Prince Rama’s aesthetic and metaphysical philosophies.
One thing is certain: whatever it is they are, Prince Rama are constantly breaking the mold of what is acceptable to forge a dizzying universe that is wholly their own.
