- Many seekers of weird and wonderful music were at Woodland in the heady days of 2012 when a performance by dayglo electronic duo Prince Rama was bookended by then-emerging opening act Blank Realm and psychedelic dub travellers Sun Araw. By any standards, Prince Rama’s show was memorable: Figureheaded by sisters Nimai and Taraka Larson, they ably navigated through a twisting path of electro-squiggles, mantra-like vocals and even a touch of performance art as Taraka chanted “trust” while being physically carried by the audience. Like that tour’s accompanying album Trust Now, it showcased a group immersed in a fascinating collision of psychedelia, synth-pop and eerie, mutated new age sounds.

Fast-forwarding to 2016, the Brooklyn duo’s vision remains ambitious and eccentric. New album XTreme Now is accompanied by origin stories of near-death experience, conceptual art and the defiance of time itself. Despite this, the songs represent Prince Rama at their most concise and pop-focussed.

This is apparent as soon as opening track Bahia kicks off, with a call-and-response vocal hook, fizzy synths and punctuations of cowbell. Even with the danceable, melodic thread that runs through the whole album, XTreme Now remains a musically diverse record. Now Is The Time Of Emotion combines electro-punk, grimy electric guitar and lyrics that reduces the very human trait of emotion into marketing slogans and buzzwords. This subversion of motivation poster morality seeps into several songs, evidenced in titles such as Fake Til You Feel and Believe In Something Fun.

The haunting esoteric elements of Prince Rama haven’t completely disappeared on this album, though, with the vocals providing a siren-like and strangely distant foil to the squelchy beats and inviting pop choruses.

The combination is at its most effective in the New Order-flavoured Would You Die To Be Adored? (complete with Peter Hook-style bass line), the mid-tempo atmospherics of Your Life In The End and the bell-chiming bombast of Fantasy.

Ultimately, what makes XTreme Now most enjoyable is its near-constant lightness of touch, where the Larson sisters’ almost gnostic sense of wonder and exploration is tempered by the simple, feel-good power of catchy tunes.

- Matt Thrower.