#140 - Lykanthea A.K.A. Lakshmi Ramgopal

Lakshmi Ramgopal is a musician and dancer who performs under the name Lykanthea. Her electro-mythic debut EP, Migration, received much-deserved praise from such outlets as The Chicago Tribune, Noisey, and Public Radio International’s The World (and listeners will recognize its track “Hand and Eye” as The Witch Wave theme song). She’s collaborated with Savage Sister on their sundrowned EP, and she’s been creating and performing music via sound installations and performances for spaces such as The Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and Chicago’s Lincoln Park Conservatory. Her new project, Some Viscera, marks a shift in instrumentation, drawing more heavily on her training in South Indian classical (or Carnatic) music, as well as organic sounds from analog instruments, bird song, and lullabies. It touches on atavistic questions of motherhood and personal legacy. When performed live it is an evening-length work of sound and movement that explores childhood, nostalgia, and kinship in the Indian-American diaspora in the wake of India’s independence, while questioning the boundaries of classical forms. Embracing the warmth of the sruti box, unprocessed vocals, and strings, Ramgopal’s ensemble draws on a wide range of influences to create a work that is as expansive as it is intimate. Some Viscera premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago on September 26-27, 2024, and the music of Some Viscera is now available in a standalone album.

In addition to that, performing both solo and with her ensemble, Lakshmi has done site-specific, immersive shows in spaces like Chicago’s Edgar Miller’s Glasner Studio and Garfield Park Conservatory, and in the middle of a freshwater stream. In 2018 she showed A Half-Light Chorus, which a sound installation commissioned by Experimental Sound Studio, and In 2020 she and visual artist Nancy Davidson showed a site-specific sculpture and sound installation, at Krannert Art Museum. The museum acquired it in 2023.

Lakshmi received her PhD in Classics from the University of Chicago, and she is currently Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University, with a focus on the Roman Empire.

On this episode, Lakshmi discusses her sonic shift from electronic to analog, music as ancestral offering, and the reincarnating power of love.

Pam also talks about the secret magic of lullabies, and responds to a listener’s comment about reconciling witchcraft with one’s religious upbringing.

Songs featured in the episode are all from Lykanthea’s new album, Some Viscera:

“Bird Song”

“Garuda”

“The Nightingale”

“Cremation”

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