Prince Rama – Trust Now

Paw Tracks

“Rest in Peace”, the opening track of the latest Prince Rama album opens with a slightly strangulated House howl, the kinda thing you might have gurned circa 1990, which is then savagely dismissed without a thought, a discarded, non-devotional whore… the drum rumbles begin and then the Dead Can Dance Indian sweeps and suddenly we’re deep into what might be a psychosexual memory of Sinbad movies… a primary imprinting on chiffon and chant and painted ladies inside golden pots, concealed by red smoke… I should be clear, this isn’t intended as a slight… I’ve been playing this album a lot, perhaps because I’m imprinted that way too…

No punctuation, or at least no full stops…only accurate way to understand where this record is coming from… it’s breathless dandyism, artful sabre-tossing and ultimately a little melancholic because the sounds of the east appropriated here (or rather, churned over; this isn’t a Transglobal Underground-style appropriation) are the sounds of Holly/Bollywood’s understanding of the east pre 9/11, when it was exotic and tameable… when no one was even thinking about atrocities or Hassan I Sabbah…when the evilest Arab you saw was Tom Baker in full-make up…

…it’s not all Sinbad (a lot is Sinbad); “Trust” starts off with an aeroplane drone and then add voices that sound like they’re trapped in another room before building into some cargo cult version of Gary Numan circa Cars, with some added flourishes from Danielle Dax…

…the Dax references continue into “Incarnation,” which may be a soundtrack to a James T. Kirk honour duel on some far off Essex planet while “Portaling” starts somewhere inside a mountain during the heart-sucking scene of Temple Of Doom and then sort of detours into handclaps and, bizarrely, pub rock-soul circa 1974…

You’ll get a lot of fun out of this record; its brain is grimy enough to past muster with all the Pocahaunted TDK fetishists but its bones want to be in the middle of a Bollywood set; lip synching and twirling imaginary balls of bird fat… it has colour, has odd breadth (and odd breath)

But almost no punctuation.

-Loki-

PRINCE RAMA – GOLDEN SILENCE on Vimeo.