The thing with trance states and the idea of transcending is that is puts you in two places at once.
That aspect of it is really fascinating to me too. That aspect is there, not even in exercise and music but I feel that in concerts and stuff too. When you’re listening to music that puts you in a trance, it’s very much putting you in two places at once. That’s another reason why I’m very interested in music and it’s relation to utopia because when you’re in two places at once, you’re not really in either one of them. So it’s about achieving that utopian state of no place, you’re not really in any place at all.
So do you think you’ll be able to recreate that experience with a half hour support slot?
Yeah, that’s the challenge, isn’t it? I feel like sometimes it definitely is and sometimes it’s harder than others. That’s the beauty of utopia too, it is like contained infinity. It’s all about having this structure, this sort of frame for the eternal experience. I feel like if you’re trying to have some mystical experience and it’s not contained, it’s really hard to direct it. So looking at 30 minute sets, it’s like 30 minutes, that’s the frame, the structure, this is the stage, this is the room, the architecture for this to happen and then to try to transform that place into no place and that 30 minutes into no time. When you’re feeling it, you don’t think about any of those things and I guess that’s kind of the goal; to get to that spot where you’re not even thinking about that, it just kind of happens.
Playing with Animal Collective, when the room is filling up and the room itself is way bigger than usual, that must add an extra layer of difficulty to things?
Yeah, it’s going to be a totally different challenge. We’re not really used to playing shows that big so we’ll see how it goes. The couple of shows we have played, like festivals or things, that are pretty big, this weird thing kind of happens where it’s like there are so many people that its almost like you’re not playing to anyone at all. I’ve always felt the most comfortable at those shows because I’m not aware of individuals watching so it’s like I could be playing in my bedroom. There are so many people that I’m not even aware of any people, it’s weird.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USyomDhtlog?rel=0]
You’ve supported other people who trade on that kind of trance experience, like Omar Souleyman or Gang Gang Dance, have you learned anything from playing with them?
Yeah, for sure. They just work the crowd and emit so much. I think with Omar Souleyman and Gang Gang Dance, they both have these front people who aren’t necessarily doing that much. Omar is up there and he’s not playing any instrument and it’s all about one guy in the background playing a keyboard, he’s doing everything. With Gang Gang Dance, Lizzy is up there but there’s a crew of eight dudes behind her just shredding it. She’s just there like a complete open channel, just emitting positive energy and channeling love. The same with Omar, that’s all he’s doing, he’s just a pure voice, he’s a pure mouthpiece for whatever to come through him. I think having those people up there who are just mouthpieces is so powerful and it’s so essential for having this kind of experience because this is all they’re concentrated on and it becomes really powerful in that way. You feel it. You watch Gang Gang Dance and all you’re looking at is Lizzy because she’s feeling it so much, emitting so much and it’s the same with Omar Souleyman, you can’t take your eyes off him.
That kind of transcendence can be good but it’s also problematic, if it goes too far towards acceptance or passivity in the face of negativity. It’s escapist.
Transcendent is a tricky word and it’s funny because it is a word that was brought up to me growing up and like that the ultimate goal for this life is to transcend it. I’m never really known whether that means to fully accept this life because it seems like with that word, your goal is to get out of here, it’s almost like escapist. That’s why recently I’ve gravitated toward utopia because that’s more along the lines of finding that transcendence but rooted here. Realising that that feeling of transcendence is within you and can be tapped into and you don’t have to leave your body to leave your body. You don’t have to die to leave your body or something like that. That is totally accepting being apart from it, in a really natural way. It’s such a loose word and everyone has their own definitions of it. It’s tricky when talking about this stuff to pick through my words and have a language for it because it really tried to defy being defined and to defy language.
Is that why you incorporate other languages and non-languages into Prince Rama songs?
Yeah, a lot of our songs don’t even have English words, they’re not really in any language. I’m really interested in glossolalia and the idea of opening yourself to channeling whatever sounds, whether that’s meaningless or meaningful, and what are those words anyway too? Talking about Omar Souleyman and Gang Gang Dance, I know that Lizzy is using real words all the time and you feel that emotion and with Omar I know he is singing real words but I have no idea what he’s saying so he might as well be saying abstract things to me because I don’t speak Arabic, and so it fulfills the same sort of emotion because there’s some sort of connection that is there beyond a lingual comprehension.
It’s a really primal thing, though people have often called it primitive, which is an even more troublesome word than transcendent.
Primitive is one of those bullshit words, I can’t stand that. I think there’s definitely places for it but that word just gets thrown around and it’s kind of amazing to me. It’s 2012 and there’s so much critical theory and racial theory and stuff out there and it’s like what? We’re still using the word primitive to describe people?! Whenever there’s something that people perceive as a tribal element they’re like ‘primitive, electronic’ and I’m like what are you talking about?! Are these people primitive that we’re referencing? I don’t get it.
E.H. Gombrich has tried to reclaim the word primitive in some ways by suggesting it is the impulse to abstract, a reaction against idealized perfection and a really positive, open step for art in general. Picasso was one of his examples, where he could paint like Raphael if he wanted, he could represent reality perfectly, but chose to distort and reinterpret what he was seeing and expressing. Obviously not everyone understands it that way but it’s an interesting way of looking at it.
Having that knowledge and doing really accurate representations and still choosing to go that way, that’s not primitive to me, that’s pretty advanced. This could be argued but my personal feeling is that people use that word, like with Picasso or some museums – and I’ve heard it thrown at Gang Gang Dance before – when you’re tapping into something that seems to be referencing more indigenous cultures that people have ingrained in their head as being more primitive peoples because they were pre-civilization or something. That argument to me is so weak because it’s also saying these people didn’t know fully what they were doing when they were abstracting these things and making these chants without words. Why presume that’s not a very advanced state of doing things? Just because we have taken these things and turned them on their head and tried to force all this meaning into it, does that make it more advanced? Maybe to some people, but I don’t agree with that.
Prince Rama support Animal Collective at Vicar Street next Tuesday, the 6th of November. Details and tickets available here: http://bit.ly/UdduCz
