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Ramasutra – El Pipo Del Taxi

Categories : Electronica, Music Reviews.

Rating: 4.5/5 Released: May 20, 2003 Reviewer: Jason Zalmanowitz

Intelligent Dance Music often refers to Trance or Techno that isn’t your normal, run of the mill, kind of stuff. Following in that tradition, Ramasutra’s “El Pipo Del Taxi” would fall under Intelligent Chillout. There is absolutely nothing normal about this EP.

Fusion III Distribution, Ramasutra(aka Ramachandra Borcar aka DJ Ram)’s distributors, boast that this Half Indian, Half Danish, All Awesome performer, “has toured the world with high profile DJ’s – such as The Chemical Brothers and Kruder and Dorfmeister. ” But what they fail to mention is that he is from Quebec, Canada. Now I know what you are thinking, because I thought it too, there is no way a Canadian to pull together such tight grooves. Truth is stranger then fiction.

After his 1999 release of “East Infection”, Ramasutra caught the ear of the music community at large. Multiple awards and nominations were bestowed upon DJ Ram – including a Juno nomination for ‘Best Alternative Album’ and a Felix award for ‘Best Electronic Album’. Both critics and fans were eager to hear what was to be produced next. Four years later, “El Pipo Del Taxi” soothes our ears.

“Kwaidan”, which loosely translates to “Ghost Story” in Japanese, provides an appropriate audible insinuation for the rest of this EP. Its somewhat haunting, pardon the pun, drums escort in the darker vibe felt at some point in each track that Ramachanda produces. Unlike regular Chillout – where most tracks often proclaim of love, good times, the weather, an attempt at philosophy, etc. – “El Pipo Del Taxi” plays to our darker side with tales of hard times (“The Losing Hand”), Mediterranean Nuevo-Dance (“Magma Mama” and “More Magma”), an attempted account at a horror scene that warns the fateful listener to “close [their] shutters”, “lock the gate”, and “ward off the evil eye” – as well as a whole other platitude of suggestions to defend against other mythical creatures (“Kwaidan”), and neither last nor least a skittish, somber, pulse pounding recollection of everyone’s favorite psychosomatic horror story (“The Curse of the Eye”).

The greatest allusion, lyrically, is Ramasutra’s apt melodic recollection of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Telltale Heart.” “The Curse of the Eye,” a tribal dance rhythm with hints of a synthesizer, opens with an excerpt from the third paragraph of “The Telltale Heart,” only omitting from the original what could be deemed lyrically unnecessary. But then again, some may argue that none of Poe’s words were unnecessary. “I undid the lantern cautiously — oh, so cautiously — I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. Now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the drums.” A thousand pardons, Mr. Poe, but that modified account embodies this song perfectly. And as if to tease those who know “The Telltale Heart”, Ramasutra inserts the murmur of a heart into the last thirty seconds of this ancestral electronic fusion.

Although this is just an EP, you needn’t worry as this half hour of power performs just as well as any full-length release. Ramachandra Borcar’s home style Quebecois brand of Intelligent Chillout makes for the perfect conversation piece, or better yet, a quick pick-me-up while alone in your room. The varying tempos and feels of each song will indubitably keep you interested to the point of longing for this EP to repeat. And lest we forget… His Eye would trouble me no more…