For each track on Prince Rama’s latest record, Top Ten Hits of the End of the World, sisters Taraka and Nimai Larson pose as a different band. The result is a concept album, a kind of post-apocalyptic best-of compilation. As eschatological visions go, it’s heartening: instead of Viggo Mortenson wandering the gray wastes, the rapture has left us with 10 danceable gems from “bands” like Taohaus and Nu Fighters. The inspirational message extends to the songs, best summed up on the second track, by I.M.M.O.R.T.A.L.I.F.E.: “Those who live for love/ Will not lose/ They will live forever.”
When director Lily X. Wahrman approached the Larson sisters about making a film based on the album, she might have known what she was getting into. “What are all the things you’d love to have in your dream movie?” Wahrman reportedly asked. The Larsons’ reply, according to Taraka: “You really wanna know? Zombies, motorcycles, like, 12 Abercrombie models,” and, Nimai interjects, “A jacuzzi of blood, babies, a psychedelic gym and, like, glitter.”
Wahrman wasn’t fazed. Taraka describes the director’s reaction: “She’s just taking notes, like, ‘Uh-huh? Uh-huh?’”
The film, Never Forever, is the latest in a series of bizarre activities involving Prince Rama, a band intent on blurring the lines between music and performance art. The group has held exercise exorcisms and disco yoga classes. On its website you can find a link to a manifesto, “The Now Age,” which outlines its aesthetic philosophy. (Indicative chapter: “The Mirrorball as Panopticon.”) The overall effect of such broad activity might be overwhelming—or worse, off-putting and gimmicky—if it weren’t for the sincere faith Prince Rama puts in performance as an act of engagement.
“It’s important to make people feel welcome,” Nimai says. The band strives to make its shows as inclusive as possible. As Taraka explains, it’s “sort of like jamming. You can do a musical performance, or you can jam with someone. I’m more interested in jamming with the audience.”
Practically speaking, this can mean either incorporating visuals into the conventional concert setting, or breaking out of that convention entirely. The main thing is to mix it up. “The shows can’t be totally the same every time,” says Nimai. “There’s classic crowds and there’s fun crowds, and it’s important to be open to all of them.”
The group is especially aware of the risk of alienating its audience. “I know that vibe,” says Taraka, “of going to a museum and feeling like there’s some sort of joke going on and you’re not in on it.” Prince Rama’s way around this is to be as forthright as possible.
“I guess it’s the difference between performance art and experience art,” Taraka says. “There’s a certain vulnerability that comes along with the idea of experiential art: we’re also putting ourselves out on the line, we’re all taking a risk, giving a part of ourselves, losing a part of ourselves.”
It’s this openness that makes the band so disarming, despite its elaborate aesthetic. Prince Rama’s website is a neon blitz of competing visions—it’s not unlike the style of Athens’ Party Party Partners collective, with which the band has close ties. But what might come off as an attempt to occlude the band’s identity (making a record in which you pose as ten different bands, for example) is actually far more complex. Rather than presenting a fully formed identity of itself for its audience to passively accept, Prince Rama invites its audience to participate, to help create a new identity.
Never Forever premiered earlier this month, on Rockaway Beach in Queens, NY. The screening was held in a white geodesic dome that the Museum of Modern Art had set up to serve as a temporary exhibition space and community center, an odd if inspiring act of outreach in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
Groups of young folk approached at sunset, straggling up from the beach, knocking sand from their Vans. Inside the dome, hipsters and locals mixed. A DJ played. The Larson sisters passed around cake. The film rolled: a rock opera featuring songs from Top Ten Hits, that I.M.M.O.R.T.A.L.I.F.E. number among them. Somehow, the odd setting, not to mention the blood jacuzzi and glitter onscreen, combined to make the message that much more inspiring: “Those who see me shake/ I won’t break/ I will live forever.”
WHO: Prince Rama, The Dream Scene
WHERE: Farm 255
WHEN: Wednesday, June 19
HOW MUCH: FREE!
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