Prince Rama - Trust Now

‘Trust Now’ is the fifth album from Brooklyn-based psychedelic experimentalists Prince Rama. Released on Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks label, it sees the group reduced to the core duo of sisters Taranka and Nimai Larson as third member Michael Collins takes a break. Prince Rama may be a member down but ‘Trust Now’ carries on regardless, as bewitching and beguiling as the rest of their work.

This is certainly not an album full of pop hits, make no mistake; this oblique, rather strange music makes for a difficult listen, but stick with it and the rewards are plentiful. There are very few reference points here and the music is often very dense, based around abstract soundscapes and repetitive drones. The album is also very long; the six tracks here come in at over half an hour. These elongated pieces of music do, however, provide plenty of scope for experimentalism and dynamism, and this is where Prince Rama excels.

The twin voices of the Larson sisters dominate and their hypnotic chanting vocals are truly entrancing. ‘Summer Of Love’ is built around a dreamy submerged melody and sees their feverish falsettos floating off into the ether. The lyrics throughout, for the most part, are indiscernible but this never seems to matter as Prince Rama are not really concerned with conventional song structures and techniques, but underneath the deep, dense noise are some glorious melodies though that slowly unfurl after each listen.

There are times when the sheer strangeness of the music can be rather off-putting, for example, the first two minutes of ‘Trust’ feature nothing but a droning ringing siren noise and the track drops and builds relentlessly creating a rather woozy and disorienting effect. Despite the complete lack of anything approaching a tune, at some points of the album it is never anything less than compelling.

Like all the best music, ‘Trust Now’ invites the listener to immerse themselves into another world, and the bizarre, outré landscape that Prince Rama creates may be daunting and foreboding, but it is ultimately fascinating.