Previously performing as part of the outfit Prince Rama with her sister Nimai Larson and Michael Collins, Taraka Larson has released her debut single, the psychedelic rock and punk inspired “Psychocastle”. Following the split of the group back in 2019, Taraka has spent the time allowing herself to explore the genres of her teenage life, delving back into her past in order to move forward.

Where Prince Rama’s sound was one of off-kilter, 80’s infused dance pop, Taraka is a project fuelled by punk, rock and something alternative that sits adjacent to mainstream pop. “Psychocastle” gives us the first taste of this rebellious spirit, one that’s unafraid to let itself get slightly unhinged.

Rooted around a scuzzy refrain and Taraka’s jerky and spitting vocals, “Psychocastle” feels liberating in its unashamed and brazen ability to let loose. The slightly manic energy that the track possesses is infectious and is hopefully telling of what her debut album Welcome to Paradise Lost will hold.

Of the inspiration and meaning behind “Psychocastle”, Taraka said: “Ever try to escape your bedroom, but feel like you’re still asleep? Ever try to wake up, but find yourself back in the dream? Ever try to take off your mask, but another one pops up beneath it? Ever try to consult your inner self, but inside your skin is merely a rotting corpse? Ever feel like every path you take is just another mobius strip leading you back to where you first began? Congratulations, welcome to the Psychocastle.”

The video accompaniment directed by Matthew Hoffman was filmed in upstate New York and was shot on super 8 film giving it that delightfully grainy, jolting finish. We follow Taraka through an abandoned mental institution, reenacting a sort of unhinged imagining of the garden of Eden, with snakes, flower crowns, grapes and a filter bed frame. Strange? Yes. Delightful? Also yes.

This song aims to explore gender inequality, power play, as well as the Hollywood lore, the track does this through melody, almost somber lyrics in touch with an erotic official video.

Although it is advised not to watch this video at work if you wish to see “Daddy, I’m a sword swallower” (Prince Rama remix), it’s just below. You can get the debut album “Let Me Get What I Want” there (there is also a limited edition dark pink vinyl).

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Like many bands before them, James Franco and Tim O’Keefe met as students in art school. While in school, they collaborated on many projects including Franco’s 2011 “Endless Idaho” installation at the Gagosian Gallery in L.A. before forming Daddy in late 2011.

If you wish to follow this duo for more videos, or simply just to stay up to date with what they are doing, be sure to follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

[su_dropcap style=”simple”]E[/su_dropcap]verybody’s favourite Monster Energy superfans Prince Rama are unstoppable these days, and not just for all the stimulant drinks they’ve been guzzling. Their new album “Xtreme Now” is an explosive collection of high-speed hypertunes lifted from 2067, the year art and adrenaline will be as one. Here’s some footage of that, courtesy of the iconoclastic video for “Now Is The Of Emotion”.

“Now Is The Time of Emotion” is a wild, wild ride. If we had to extend the metaphor to feature a vehicle, we’d definitely choose mechanical horses that shoot lasers from their eyes. The song goes so fast it practically gallops. With its array of distortions, Devo-gone-robots vocals and ferocious electric guitars, it’s all muscle, fire, hooks and catchiness.

The video for the track was directed by the Larson sisters themselves. A resolute but superfun jab at the ridiculous exclusivity of the art world, it makes a case for the wisest thing one can do with art: desecrate it. An angry mob of people from Brooklyn turns a punitive expedition against iconic masterpieces into a rad party: children devour Picasso and Munch cakes, a shirtless hunk pisses paint on Duchamp’s pissoir and the David gets pied. I’m sorry, Michelangelo, you had it coming.

If Taraka and Nimai are reading this: please invite us next time you organize a gallery raid. We’ll bring some Magrittes.

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“Xtreme Now” is out NOW on Carpark Records. Go listen IMMEDIATELY! To start, here are two songs: “Bahia” and “Your Life In The End“.

[su_dropcap style=”simple”]R[/su_dropcap]emember Prince Rama‘s vision of a muscular energetic 2067 in which museums are sponsored by soft drinks, art merges with extreme sports and the stance on pop music is funky, alien and strangely retro? Well, here’s another song to visit the future with and explore further the death-defying dimension of their forthcoming album “Xtreme Now”: it’s “Your Life in the End”.

Anthemic, this is what the song is. With its melodies big as a cathedral and an improvised choir formed by members of the Baptist church down the street from the sisters’ house in Brooklyn, it feels like a hymn but it sounds like a euphoric dance hit from ’90s or futuristic guitarless stadium rock. It’s practically impossible to resist raising your arms in praise and chant along when the huge Coldplay-like chorus kicks in. Incredibly uplifiting.

“Xtreme Now” is out March 4th on Carpark Records. Keep the adrenaline flowing with the fantastic previous singles “Bahia“, the glittery super-catchy take on sinewy rock of “Now Is The Time of Emotion” and the cowboy country\synthpop crossover of “Slip Into Nevermore”.

The psych-dance duo, composed by sisters Taraka and Nimai Larson, a foot in Brooklyn’s music scene, the other in the hippest circuits of the American art world and a third transcendent one firmly rooted in Vaishnava metaphysics, was discovered in 2010 by Animal Collective‘s Avey Tare, who released their lavish “Now Age” deranged sci-fi neon fantasies on his imprint Paw Tracks. “Xtreme Now”, their forthcoming album, is going to be out on Carpark Records instead, March 4th, and you can listen to the first single, a shimmery edenic Italo Disco jam titled “Bahia”, below.

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Isn’t it something? With its funky energetic synths lifted straight from the kind of semi-forgotten dance songs that charted low in 1987, “Bahia” is an irresistible sugar rush from the future as it was imagined thirty years ago. This is what you would hear on the radio if Doc’s Delorean sprinted up all the way to 2067.

2067 is the year the whole “Xtreme Now” universe is set in. According to what the Larson sisters say, the album was written while they were living in a black metal utopian commune on the island of Vormsi, off the coast of Estonia. There, inside a Viking ruin, Taraka experienced an episode of time-schizophrenia, during which she existed in both the Middle Ages and the year 2067. In the future she saw, museums are sponsored by energy drinks and art merged with extreme sports. “Xtreme Now” is the score to that world, where creating and defying death are one thing. Weird back-story aside, the new songs, on which the girls worked with Alex Epton of XXXChange, are going to be powerful and absolutely catchy.