Prince Rama Of Ayodhya / The Great Valley - Divine / Journey (Spooky Town Artifacts, 2009)

Prince Rama Of Ayodhya - Aeolian Divinex


What we got here is a brand new split 12" from Spooky Town featuring the sitting-right-under-my-nose-awesomeness of The Great Valley and fellow foreign sounding locals, Prince Rama Of Ayodhya. Boston's got a lot of freaky folky weirdness (thanks in great part to the Whitehaus) but these two bands seem like a great pairing for a split. Two sides of the same coin these guys.

I've heard Prince Rama on CD before and let me just tell you that vinyl is where it's at for this bunch. Their sound is a hundred bazillion times better when it's scraped through a needle instead of zapped through a laser. Their side showcases what they've become so fucking good at: tribal, spiritual, droning earthly sounds with lead singer Taraka belting out songs in her inimitably spectacular voice. They're able to combine traditional acoustic instruments with electronics in a way that sounds anything but straightforward and normal. They take New Age and Indian influences and make something wholly unique and enjoyable out of it. I keep thinking it sounds like music that I would never listen to, yet I always find myself throwing it on and loving the shit out of it.

Somehow The Great Valley managed to slip through my radar undetected. That is, until they put out this fantastic as fuck split with Prince Rama. The Valley consists of two dudes with crazy names, Big Dipper & Diamond Mouse, who make some freaked out old timey folk. They sound like if O'Death was trying less to be like artsy Man Men and instead went to live with their certifiable uncle out on the prairie spending their days drinking moonshine and howling with the coyotes. There's foot stompin beats and disharmonious melodies, laid back ukuleles and humming organs, singing saws and scratchy voices, all of the elements for the perfect record to impress your friends with at your next ho-down.

Divine / Journey is a sweet little piece of wax that will satisfy your cravings for worldly & old fashioned crazy shit. And it's cheap. Like, $8 cheap. Only 300 were made, each packaged in a recycled record jacket. Hand made ftw! Go on and grab a copy.

Show Worthy 4/6-4/12

I had an idea to do some sort of regular concert e-mail or post or something like that. Basically, anything to draw attention to shows that are worthy of your eyes and ears in the Boston area in addition to that concert listing column over on the right. So I'm going to attempt to do a weekly Sunday post where I'll highlight some shows coming up within the next week. This is not meant to be inclusive by any means. I'll probably stick to the experimental side of things, but there are always exceptions. Like Mates of State are playing this week. Everyone loves Mates Of State. If you don't, fuck you. You should.

I don't think I'll normally have this many shows listed but this week seems to be chock full of great shows that I can't go to. Especially Friday.



Mates of State at Mercury Lounge, NYC 5-21-08 via Bao Nguyen
Tuesday, April 7
Mates Of State, Black Kids at House Of Blues ($20, 8:00, all ages)
I'm trying not to endorse this show for two reasons. I'm not a fan of Black Kids, nor am I a fan of House Of Blues. But Mates Of State are so cute and awesome. They put on such a great live show that it's probably even worth it to spend $20 and see them in a club as big as HoB. If you haven't seen them yet, you should. Trust me.




Tuesday, April 7
Peace, Loving; Hunted Creatures; Nature; Ophibre at Church (free, 8:30, 21+)
This is gonna be my pick for the week. It's presented by The Whitehaus Family Record and it's frreeeee. You seriously can't pass this up. You know how awesome Ophibre is and he put out that split with Hunted Creatures not too long ago that was fantastic. You pretty much don't have a good reason to miss this show, unless you're going to see Mates Of State.




Wednesday, April 8
Prince Rama Of Ayodhya, Many Mansions, Jealousy, Concord Ballet Orchestra Players at O'Brien's ($7, 9:00, 21+)
Another Whitehaus related show. Both Prince Rama and Many Mansions put on wonderful live shows. I've heard great things about CBOP and have been meaning to see them for a while but just never got around to it. If I were you and free Wednesday night, I'd check this show out.



Parts & Labor at Middle East Upstairs 12-12-08
Friday, April 10
Parts & Labor at Oxfam Cafe (free?, 8:00, all ages?)
I will be at this show. I don't know who else is playing, if anyone. Both the band's and venue's Myspace only list P&L as playing. Even if they are the only band, it still makes it 100% amazing. Aaaaand it's probably free.



Eliza Blaze at Spring Iron Pour 2008 via Eliza Blaze
Friday, April 10
Spring Iron Pour with Justin Crosby, Fractillian, Peace & Quiet, The Silver City at MassArt Courtyard (free?, 7:00, all ages)
Dude. It's a bunch of great bands that play live while iron is being poured. And I'm pretty sure it's free. That's all you need to know.



The Books via interrobang
Friday, April 10
The Books at The Boston ICA ($25, 7:00 & 9:30, all ages)
You know The Books. You love The Books. Electro-acoustic field recording shit for $25 in a nice auditorium.



Brendan Murray at Hell Hoarse Kavekavity Sessions via ex-atari-kid
Sunday, April 12
Brendan Murray, Oneohtrix Point Never, DJ Howard Stelzer at Great Scott ($7, 9:00, 18+)
Intransitive Recordings is putting on another one of their (his) soon to be famous fucking amazing ass shows. Brendan Murray is releasing a new CD and Oneohtrix Point Never is the guy from Astronaut and Infinity Window. Howard Stelzer (the man behind Intransitive) will be DJing. According to some other sites, Red Horse and Eat Cloud are also supposed to be playing and DJ Won't should be spinning as well. If that's true, then this show is going to be fucking epic. But Great Scott's website doesn't mention them so neither will I. Either way, you should go.

Psychic Ills, Prince Rama Of Ayodhya, Lord Jeff, Truman Peyote, Manners at Pierre Menard Gallery

Prince Rama Of Ayodhya


Lord Jeff

Truman Peyote

Manners

More photos can be seen on my Flickr.

This was a great show. But I have a feeling everyone else enjoyed it a lot more than I did. First of all, I had an excruciating headache that no amount of Excedrin would eliminate. And then there was the whole lineup changing thing. You see, it's not very easy for me to get into Boston to see shows. I had to take Friday night off of work specifically to see this show at the Pierre Menard Gallery and I did it for Psychic Ills. Every other band playing the show is from Boston and I could see them pretty much whenever I felt like it. So the night was special because of Psychic Ills. They were "billed" (I use that term loosely) to go on second to last which was perfect because then I'd be able to catch the last train out of Boston at 12:10. But 3 things happened that made it impossible for me to watch the Psychic Ills' set. 1: Late start, by like 45 minutes. Whatever. That's better than Great Scott. 2: A last minute addition to the lineup (Manners). Usually I'm all for it but tonight I was in a bit of a rush so I didn't really appreciate it. And 3: Psychic Ills were the last band to play. With all those things combined, there was absolutely no way I could get out of there by 11:30 and still see any of the Psychic Ills set. But enough whining because this show was still pretty awesome.

When Manners went on at about 8:45, there was only a handful of people in the gallery. Kinda sad considering the show was publicized as starting at 8. But Manners did their thing which was nice & chill. Like solid indie folk with a stand up bass. I didn't think they had anything too special going for them but again, I wasn't too pleased that they were playing. I'm sure I really would have been into them if I saw them a different time.

Then Truman Peyote came on and all of a sudden the gallery was packed. Maybe 30-40 people had showed up and I didn't even notice. The lights went out, everyone stood up (stark contrast to the sit down affair for Manners) and got ready to party. Truman Peyote played some real crowd pleasers (even if the crowd didn't necessarily know who TP was) and some (probably) underage girls were getting their groove on in a (somewhat) annoying way. But I understand the desire to shake your thing when the Peyote is playing and Friday night was no different. With the small exception of semi-sloppy crossovers in between their songs, Truman Peyote delivered.

Lord Jeff was the biggest surprise of the night. A 3 piece with a lead singer that looks like Devendra Banhart and plays garage rock. Was not expecting a band like this to be playing with Psychic Ills and co. But the thing was, they were fucking awesome and didn't seem out of place at all. They borrowed quite heavily from '50s blues rock and, wait for it... doo-wop. I swear, one of the songs they played sounded like it could have been a cover of "Sixteen Candles." Speaking of covers, they played "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" and it rocked. They had tons of energy and Mr. Banhart could shred some nasty solos so needless to say, I was very pleased.

As sad as I was that Prince Rama Of Ayodhya went on next instead of the more coveted Psychic Ills, I can't say I was even a little disappointed. They handed out little noisy instruments to all the people standing in the front and the four of them started chanting, conjuring up a lovely dancer from the depths of the gallery's basement. Once she arrived, the band members stationed themselves at their proper places and went to town while the princess danced for us all. It was a wonderful way to start a show, especially for a band like Prince Rama, who's music is deserving of such a sight. After the first song, the dancer retreated to the basement and Prince Rama continued their exuberant and fun filled set with dual drum pummelers, plenty of exotic electronics, and more chanting. These guys are simply amazing live and if they ever come near you, it's certainly worth a trip to see them.

And here is where the Psychic Ills part of my review would be had I been able to stay long enough to see them. Still, 5 bucks for 4 fantastic bands? Can't really complain. Here's hoping the Pierre Menard Gallery decides to put on more shows like this.