Prince Rama Zetland

Zetland is the sophomore album from Prince Rama, picking up the psychedelic-folk thread from Threshold Dances yet going deeper into the labyrinth, confronting darker mirrors and weaving thrash music for minotaurs. Beneath sparkling synths, pounding tribal drums, group chants and anthemic melodies worthy of any cult sci-fi fantasy film, there seems to be an undercurrent of doom, sorcery and foreboding nihilistic terror-- marked by Taraka Larson’s haunting Kate Bush-esque vocals. Written and recorded largely on the moors of the northeast coast of England, the whole album seems to be casting a spell of some sort, a raw and unapologetic lo-fi sonic tapestry seamlessly weaving elements of esoteric occult themes and shockingly unpredictable and sophisticated songwriting drawn from channeling and automatic writing. The initial recording sessions taken from inside a British medieval theatre were mysteriously abandoned by their UK label at the time, and the band fought to salvage the original recordings to finish the album themselves in the basement of their Boston apartment. It was self-released in 2009, although the majority of the handmade copies were stolen in a tragic tour robbery, leaving Zetland to be one of the more obscure and enigmatically ill-fated releases. At times reminiscent of some of the more cosmic krautrock of Amon Duul II, Popol Vuh, or even Alice Coltrane, Zetland still remains one of those strange and highly mystifying albums that defies categorization and carves a unique sonic language years beyond its time.