Raja Ram (musician)

Raja Ram (actually Ronald Rothfield, * 1941 in Melbourne, Australia) was the founder of the progressive rock band Quintessence and is the operator of the English psytrance labels TIP Records. He gained wide recognition for his work in the GruppeM Shpongle and 1200 Micrograms. He plays, especially in the titles that can be assigned to the ambient, live and on records frequently flute.

Biography

Ronald Rothfield was born in 1941 in Melbourne. Already in the late 50s he went as a prototype of the later hippies on extensive world travel. He then returned to Australia and studied classical flute at the Melbourne Conservatory. In 1965 he went to New York because he was able to continue his studies in jazz section at the Cool School of the jazz pianist Lennie Tristano. He was particularly interested in improvisational performance techniques taught him by Tristano recordings of saxophonist Lester Young.

After completing his studies took him first to Paris, then to Ibiza and finally to Greece on an island. Due to the political situation in Greece, he returned to the island existence after two years back and moved to London.

In 1969, he founded the band Quintessence, which combined progressive rock with Indian influences. His international musicians he recruited via newspaper ads in Melody Maker. The band related Hindu priest Swami Ambikananda gave Rothfield in the founding year of the band the Hindu name " Raja Ram ", under which it occurs since then. From 1969 to 1972 Raja Ram took Quintessence on five LPs. The first successful band, however, was in 1971 reached the zenith of her work, degenerated to the mid-70s to insignificance and broke up around 1980 on.

Then the musicians withdrew temporarily from the music scene and was active in the commercial sector. Only in the late 80s, grew up in him again the interest in music, especially now in electronic music.

Founded for the Martin Glover ( ex- Killing Joke ) in London Dragonfly label produced Raja Ram, together with Graham Wood under the name " The Infinity Project". As one of the first musicians ever it took to Psytrance plates and was style icon for this specific, equally rapid, harmonious and hypnotic brand of techno.

Together with Graham Wood founded his own label in 1994 Raja Ram TIP Records, which became one of the most famous psytrance labels and now operates under the name " TIP World". Raja Ram has since then authored numerous publications. In 1996, in collaboration with Simon Posford ( Hallucinogen of as also a prominent psytrance musician ) under the project name " Mystery of the Yeti ," a self-titled album. Other albums of this project should follow under the project name " Shpongle ".

Although he was already well over 50 years old, Raja Ram debuted in 1998 as a psytrance DJ and has since released several albums with DJ mixes.

In 2002 he founded the project -based Ibiza 1200 Micrograms, which has also been presented on TIP World since several albums. He has produced numerous publications and other labels he worked on countless recordings of other artists as guest musician.

Discography (excerpt)

  • In Blissful Company ( Iceland Records 1969)
  • Quintessence ( Iceland Records 1970)
  • Dive Deep ( Iceland Records 1971)
  • Self (RCA 1972)
  • Indweller (RCA 1972)
  • Feeling Weird (TIP Records 1995)
  • Mystical Expirience ( Blue Room released 1995)
  • Mystery of the Yeti (TIP Records 1996)
  • Mystery of the Yeti, Pt. 2 (TIP World 1999)
  • Are You Shpongled? (Twisted Records TWSCD4 1998)
  • Tales of the Inexpressible (Twisted Records TWSCD13 2001)
  • Remixed (Twisted Records-TWSCD/LP23 2003)
  • Ineffable Mysteries From Shpongleland (Twisted Records TWSCD36 2009)
  • Shpongle Live in Concert DVD ( Twisted Records TWSDVD002 2009)
  • Spaceships of the Imagination (TIP World)
  • Raja Ram's Stash Bag (TIP World)
  • Raja Ram's Stash Bag Vol 2 (TIP World)
  • Raja Ram's Stash Bag Vol 3 (TIP World)
Ambient music Prototype (disambiguation) Hinduism Hallucinogen (musician) Liveset
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