PREMIERE | Bottled Up, "Pripiyalab"
Still life in suspended animation with Bottled Up’s Nikhil Rao; photographed by Richard Francisco Howard.
Our reality more often than not is like living in a fishbowl or someone else's snow globe. We apply analogies, metaphors, constructs and the unfortunate truths of surveillance where our existence is something of a contrived Truman Show set up, simulation or sorry spectacle ripped from the pages of a Guy Debord fever dream. Although much of this unease arises within from the hollowing pangs of paranoia to the anxiety that is onset from the perpetual social media doom scroll rife with toxic polemics and targeted ads abated by web cookies of astonishingly creepy accuracy — we collectively desire a better way. A better world. A better social harmony in real life (outside of the authoritarian auspices of the IRL worlds within worlds within worlds). A better outlook. A better assembly of philosophical perspectives of which to subscribe. To be better. To feel better. To be able to better self-actualize. To better create the arts that we would like to surround ourselves with.
In the spirit of personal, cultural and creative transcendence is the debut of the wildly imaginative new single from Bottled Up titled “Pripiyalab”. Following up last year’s album Grand Bizarre for Misra Records, D.C. by way of Oakland bandleader Nikhil Rao (also of beloved cult pop provocateurs Ecstatic International) continues to explode the systems of genre constraints to create something that pierces through the yellowed pages of history books written by the pantheon of the world’s so-called winners. Rao & company rage against the neatly designed guardrail conceits of the things previously known as genres for something new, fresh, reinvigorated like an awe inspiring aesthetic that has never arrived before. Bottled Up tirelessly works to collapse the demarcation spaces that separates east and west tropes to invoke an aesthetic that sounds and feels like nothing else that has arrived prior nor after. The movement is a doctrine toward discovering something that is outside the tired pedantic of absolutism and the corresponding legions of overzealous followers, beating the dead horses of dead ideas proselytized by backwards dead cis white men (whose commodified concepts have long outlived their relevance and use).
“Pripiyalab” bubbles and shines like a cluster of sprouting sounds springing to life from the overactive imagination streams of consciousness. Bottled Up allows the spirit to take flight like an uncaged sparrow setting forth for new heights, or the illustrious daydreams that enlighten the unconsciousness of a youth that has fallen asleep during a solemn sermon of hellfire and brimstone during mass. The beauty of “Pripiyalab” is the unabashed pursuit for higher living, gazing past the overbearing testaments ordained by archaic orders of repressive hegemony that imagines visions more substantial and serving for humanity at large. Nikhil’s awe of the artists and architects of the artifices commissioned by the religious figures of the past serves as the inspiration for the track, edifying them as the patron saints and deities whose relevance bears greater influence and meaning than the arbitrary draconian systems that employed their efforts and talents. “Pripiyalab” is a statement that elevates and praises the spirit and society of the self above all the arcane and obsolete constructs of governance and beatitudes of belief. Bottled Up raises a toast for humankind, a hymn of perseverance that transcends the trappings of the past and present for a world and reality that is better than anything that has ever been previously.
Nikhil Rao provided the following insights on the new track:
I wrote “Pripiyalab” when I was on vacation in Italy this past Summer. I was experimenting with warping Japanese Shamisen samples into pulsing grooves and strange chord progressions, trying to capture my feelings of dissociation in what was supposed to be a beautiful vacation.
Between visiting the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and hiking the trails of Cinque Terre realized quickly that I was not enjoying myself. From huge engraved churches to hidden cathedrals, I felt assaulted by the imagery of wrinkled old white men propped up as angels and deities. The real gods in my mind were the artists who carved and painted these beautiful works of art, creating masterpieces under commission from the church as teenagers. It was a revelation to realize that this social stratum in the arts has survived centuries, hiding in plain sight all around us.
“Pripiyalab” is sort of a prayer, a mantra to myself that I can stand tall above this history with grace and confidence.
The name doesn’t have to do with Pripyat the city, but actually Pripyat the album by Pan Records artist Marina Herlop. I’ve been reworking my whole songwriting process the past year, as I’ve been enjoying a lot of the esoteric electronic and left-field pop artists of Pan Records.
There’s a lot of adventurous cultural fusion happening with a lot of their artists and it’s inspired me to delve deeper into combining the sampling of world music instruments with krautrock & western pop music in my own ways. It feels more personal and intimate, maybe for spiritual reasons or my Indian heritage. Either way I’m excited to push these techniques as far as they can go!
The song was recorded locally at Tonal Park and Ivakota Recording Studios by Don Godwin (Too Free, Clear Channel), Ben Green and myself in Washington, DC. Produced by longtime DC collaborators D Saperstein and Owen Wuerker (Flasher, Tunnel).
Bottled Up’s “Pripiyalab” is available now, everywhere.