YOGA

Yoga biography
Yoga were the blackened kosmische musik studio project of musicians Vatten Häst and Eld Anka, the latter better known as Sam Mehran. Despite their otherworldly sonic signature, the duo were actually U.S.-based, operating out of Los Angeles, California. Häst and Mehran sought to bridge the lo-fi and gritty world of underground "bedroom" black metal with Berlin School influences from Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. Mehran, who collaborated with "hypnogogic pop" icons James Ferraro and Ariel Pink, played no small part crafting an appropriately soporific and hallucinatory quality to Yoga's muddy production, like a garbled interstellar transmission picked up from light-years away. Yoga's unique sound has been described as a cross between Goblin, Xasthur and early Coil, and further references to Zoviet France, Black Vomit, Murmuüre and the Skaters are also appropriate.

Yoga made their debut in early 2008 with a limited edition self-released cassette, Skinwalker, the material of which reappeared a few months later on a similarly-limited CD split with like-minded group Ghäst, distributed by Choking Hazard Records. Portland label Holy Mountain briefly hosted the project, releasing Yoga's sophomore LP Megafauna in 2009 and reissuing Skinwalker on vinyl in 2012.

The duo's last known activity was the 2013 digital single The Blood of the Green Lion, a dark ambient soundtrack to a Greek film of the same name. With Sam Mehran's suicide in 2018, Yoga's current status is unknown.


- Gordy, December 2023