Welcome to the Now Age

March 1, 2016 11:25 AM

Xtreme Now began while the Larson sisters were living on a black metal utopian commune on Vȫrmsi, a remote island off the coast of Estonia during the summer of 2012. There, Taraka had a near death experience ... which sparked a recurring sense of time-schizophrenia, or the physical sensation of existing in multiple time periods simultaneously ... “In the year 2067, I witnessed an aesthetic landscape where art museums are sponsored by energy drink beverages and beauty is determined by speed. I saw a vision of ancient tapestries stretched across half-pipes and people base-jumping off planes with the Mona Lisa smiling up from their parachutes. I saw art merge with extreme sports to form a new aesthetic language of ‘Speed Art.’ I realized that time travel was possible via the gateway of extreme sports, and I wanted to make music that would provide the score.”

Mantra-obsessed, freak folk, ghost-modernist former skate-punk Krishha commune kids Prince Rama return with their most direct pop artifact yet, the extreme-sports inspired Xtreme Now (review). The album, due for official release on 4 March, can be streamed in its entirety on Stereogum.

Additional links:
Taraka Larson performs her Now Age Manifesto at the Brooklyn Museum. [Commentary. Website.]
Video interview with EarVader, 2013.
Live footage: Receive (2012), So Destroyed (2012), Radhamadhava (2012), Bahia (2013), Trust (2011), Lightning Fossil (2011).
Never Forever.
The raccoon/rabies incident.
Previously on Metafilter.

posted by Sonny Jim (13 comments total)

They remind me of half a dozen different acts that supported Hawkwind in the late 80s.
posted by pipeski at 11:45 AM on March 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

As Mr Wyatt so aptly put it: Ruth is stranger than Richard...
posted by aeshnid at 11:49 AM on March 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Base-jumping off planes?
posted by contraption at 11:52 AM on March 1, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is great. Thanks for linking the stream.
posted by michaelh at 1:06 PM on March 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

A utopian, black metal commune off the coast of Estonia? I must know more.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 2:32 PM on March 1, 2016 [6 favorites]

So Futurism? We're due.
posted by wotsac at 3:10 PM on March 1, 2016

Came in here to point out Hawkwind like pipeski. Also, I think I've seen this before: Buck Rogers Disco
posted by doctoryes at 3:53 PM on March 1, 2016

Base-jumping off planes?

You know how hard it is to find a plane taller than 40-50ft?
posted by rhizome at 7:16 PM on March 1, 2016

I saw Prince Rama on Dec. 20, 2012 -- that's right, the day before the world was supposed end -- when they were touring behind Top 10 Hits of the End of the World. That year had been a particularly bad one for me so I was more than happy to see it go in such a fashion.

These women are weird and awesome and while I think the aesthetic is more fun than the music itself, I still delight in it. They're having more fun than I am. I just love how, despite their influences, it's all just a little off and strange and uncomfortable. I think that's what makes it work. It's hard to know if these two are just putting you on or if they're actually this crazy. I love it.

I am trying to convince people to go see them with me on Friday.
posted by darksong at 7:19 PM on March 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

Apparently the rest of the world just spells it Vormsi, which is kind of a shame because ȫ is a really badass grapheme.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:27 PM on March 1, 2016

I'm digging it a great deal. It's like spacey, dancey, & unpredictable -- a little like the Avalanches, or Grimes. But soft -- it just ended. Time for a second playthrough!
posted by foodbedgospel at 8:43 AM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hinduism— how strange!
posted by yaymukund at 9:02 AM on March 2, 2016

If the whole "Estonian black metal commune" things sounds suspiciously like a reference to Ben Russell's 2013 film A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness, that's because it is. Russell was Taraka Larson's film professor and he shipped the sisters out to participate in the project. The Larsons talk about the experience in some detail in an interview in The Observer. As so often with Prince Rama, the myths just seem to build themselves.
posted by Sonny Jim at 5:47 AM on March 7, 2016