Suoni Per Il Popolo: Prince Rama + Leopard et Moi @ Casa del Popolo

With the Suoni Festival done and the Jazz Festival taking its place, there won’t be as much concert-going in the Plateau in the coming days. Prince Rama and Leopard et Moi braved the stage of a small but patient crowd the night of June 23rd. They waited and waited for the hordes to come through the door of the small second stage at Casa del Popolo, but it didn’t happen. So, after about an hour and a half delay, Leopard et Moi finally started their set.

Hello high energy! Leopard et Moi, an assembly of a huge amount of percussion instruments and noisy electronic beat makers, put forth their enveloping melange of art/punk/noise/prog beats to the appreciative few. Their psychedelic vocal stylings complemented both the more rhythmic and ethereal hypnagogic pop that Leopard et Moi master. I had never heard of them, but if you’re interested in some quite interesting local talent, I would recommend checking out their tracks. They’ve got three releases, the most recent being one from May of this year, "L’Amour de la Nature."

After about a half an hour set, Prince Rama took the stage. They were the band that I was looking most forward to seeing this Suoni, even above Omar Souleyman. If you have not heard of them already, I would recommend 2010’s Shadow Temple for starters. This group was raised on a Hare Krishna commune and escaped to the embracing arms of art school in Boston where they nursed their psychic selves and jammed on psychedelic themes. Their music is infused with heavy ritualistic percussion and Sanskrit chants, and transports you into a trippy headspace. Having had their music hypnotizing me via my headphones every morning for the past few months, I thought this show would be out of this world, literally. But everyone knows that feeling you get when you’ve anticipated something much too much and the actual performance is just not up to the stuff of imagination. That was the feeling I had watching Prince Rama. Still, though, I would recommend Prince Rama recordings any day. They’ve been enlisted by Animal Collective to play the All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival in the UK, so they’ll be big any day now.

-Danielle J hosts Runny Noise on Thursday from 10pm-12am