YATHA SIDHRA

I'll keep my review on the shorter side, since it has been pretty much excellently described by the other reviewers. I somehow missed this during it's original release, even though I was heavily into TD, AD, Can, etc. I guess it was a little more obscure and news did not reach me in Southern California. Like most any release, hearing it for the first time depending on timing and discovering this in the early 90's, I was very open and searching and longing for that early/mid 70's Krautrock vibe.

Consequently, I loved it and still do, it is an excellent release with dreamy, spacey Krautrock elements, it fits well into the Mythos 1st & Dreamlab, and ADII -Wolf City vibe. Yeah the songs are long - that is what I like, even to this day, it allows the song to fully develop and take on a life of its own, so someone who likes shorts songs or needs a fresh change every 3-1/2 minutes will not fully appreciate the it's beauty!

For me, it is one of my Top-10 Krautrock releases...!

While Krautrock of the early 70s took on many forms with some bands being heavy hitting rockers and some more on the jazz- fusion side of things, almost all these bands shared one tangible attribute and that would be dreamy psychedelia-drenched motifs that would meander nonchalantly for lengthy periods of time. While an attribute shared by the entire subgenre, a few bands took it to extremes and the German band YATHA SIDHRA was one of these bands that took this type of meditative music to new relaxing heights. This band was formed in Freiburg in 1973 by brothers Rolf and Klaus Fichter under the name Brontosaurus but they soon found that a giant dinosaur didn't quite convey the message they were hoping for so they followed the trend of of the Indo-raga world and changed their named to the more Hindu sounding YATHA SIDHRA.

While the band's existence was fairly brief and they only managed to create this one cult classic titled A MEDITATION MASS, a true treasure trove in the world of experimental, progressive and über-kosmische music that for all intents and purposes creates a single connected album long track despite being technically separated into four suites. This is mesmerizing music if there ever was some. The kind of music you envision playing in your head at a mirage near a desert oasis where the spiritual world and the physical are somehow connected for a brief moment. This spacey forty minute journey begins with some stellar progressive electronic which displays the Moog synthesizer as the main atmospheric generator of the album. After a while the music cedes into a smooth form of rock with a strong presence of the Indian flute, vibraphones, an electric piano and sparse vocals.

The rock aspects are all but absent on "Part 1" but become more prominent on "Part 2" which allows the drums and bass to shine for a brief moment on an otherwise ethereal and mellow album that is a mind-altering mystical experience with a pulsating reverie of 60's acid culture that sounds more sophisticated with the menagerie of ethnic influences and breaking free from the cliches. The album shines even more in the excellent production that found Achim Reichel at the helm to polish the project off which appeared on the famous Brain label that hosted many of the great Krautrock bands such as NEU!, Guru Guru, Cluster as well as others. Continue to "Part III" and the music engages in free-form jazzy rock with a wailing guitar, a syncopated beat that rock out over otherwise trance inducing rhythms that all climax to the expected Kraut approved freakouts. "Part IV" simply continues the ambience space rock.

This mostly instrumental album is supposedly a concept album but no intellectual capital need be expended to enjoy this one. When all is said and done, this is a Moog driven journey into the sonicsphere which takes the listener on the ultimate space rock trip. A musical trek into a free flowing ecstasy that slowly oscillates between pastoral folk, space rock and the occasional foray into jazzier passages. All and all, A MEDITATION MASS is the perfect album for its namesake. It's neither too complex for its own good nor too simplistic to be of much value. It is perfectly balanced as it takes soothing melodies and teases them out into infinity which just happens to be cut off by the limitations of the original recording technology of the day.

If you seek mesmerizing, dreamy and hypnotic space music accented by rock, ethnic folk and jazz then YATHA SIDHRA sired the perfect sonic trip into the inner worlds of your meditation. What sets A MEDITATION MASS apart from other trippers such as Amon Düül II or Ash Ra Tempel is that this is less "freaky" and more grounded. It resonates as being more spirit and less chemical inspiration yet as detached from reality as the best that Krautrock had to offer. Perhaps the closest musical relative i've found of the era is not from Germany at all but from Japan. The Tokyo based Far Out would also release one meditative classic "日本人 (Nihonjin)" only a year prior and shares the same overall characteristics. While YATHA SIDHRA would only release this one underground classic, the Fichter brothers would continue their world of psychedelic with their progressive electronic followup artistry in Dreamworld which would release two more albums in the 80s.

On paper it looks a bit goofy: both the mystical name of the group and the title of their first and only LP. Add some lavish Tibetan mandala artwork and the result is a pastel-colored memory of hippie-dippy consciousness, inspired (of course) by all things Eastern, and no doubt by some of the milder drugs available at the time.

But the flashback it presents is so vivid that even someone like me, otherwise immune to the smell of incense, can easily respond to the album's dreamy psychedelic aura. And the music itself is simply, almost unbelievably beautiful. This isn't the aimless tripping of many a counterculture jam, but an organic flowering of Higher Purpose, and you see already how it affects my prose.

Despite all the Indian flutes and bongos the album is more German than you might imagine. There's a subtle structure to the whole opus, divided into four discrete sections but flowing together into one unbroken 40-minute hymn, building slowly but with disarming intensity before resolving itself in a final reprise of the wistful opening melody.

Most of it is arranged around a fragile, melancholy little theme: imagine a pastoral variation of PINK FLOYD's "Careful With That Axe, Eugene", embellished with ghostly devotional vocals and some lovely flute arabesques. But I had to laugh out loud when the lava lamp mantra framing the album turned into the jazzy lounge vibe of Parts II and III, the latter adding electric guitar and approaching the blues-rock territory of early JETHRO TULL, but on an interstellar trajectory.

Better informed listeners can fill you in on the back-story: how a conventional hard-rocking band named Brontosaurus caught the attention of producer Achim Reichel with an atypically blissful concert encore, and was encouraged to adopt a pseudonym before recording the new music. The album was a stand-alone project never meant to be repeated, but don't completely dismiss it as a minor Krautrock novelty. Beyond the obvious time capsule appeal of its Aquarian Age idealism is an only slightly dog-eared musical road map for a journey still worth taking.

An enjoyable all-instrumental freakout, often drifting towards New Age spaces but just as regularly breaking out in sudden flirtations with jazz fusion. Rolf Fichter seems to be the musical prime mover here given the range of instruments used, but Klaus Fichter also deserves props for some mesmerising drum work at points. The album is interesting as a Krautrock counterpoint to the New Age-leaning album-length works coming out of Virgin Records at the time (like Mike Oldfield's early albums and Clearlight's debut). That said, I can't say it really enraptures me to the extent that it does many others. Krautrock fans will probably want to give this one a try at some point but I think there's plenty of more central works to explore before you get to this one.

Yatha Sidhra is a kraut band around the Fichter brothers who had been playing under a different name (Brontosaurus) for some years but changed name to something more appropriate when their style changed to a mellowed out sort of pastoral kraut.

The album is split into 4 parts of which the dreamy pastoral psych of part 1 is certainly the most excellent, ethnic percussion, flutes, moog and hazy vocals form a perfect meditative mood. Part 2 introduces a change of pace with a uplifting jazzy swing. Part 3 is a rocking jam, similar to Gila at first and then switching to Guru Guru when they build up the speed and rockabilly levels. Part 4 returns to the pastoral setting of the opening piece.

'A Meditation Mass' is a harmonious and peaceful album that stands a bit apart from the usually noisy and abrasive kraut sound. Even the rocking bits remain very civilized and thoughtful. Not a full-blown 4 stars for me as I remain slightly underwhelmed at the end. This should have a certain appeal to fans of Popol Vuh, pastoral symphonic prog as well as Gila or ART.

Yatha Sidhra is a hippy kind of band from Germany. A Medidation Mass (1974) is their only album.

The trio plays a weird mix of improvised music but with folk feeling. But as usual, it comes from Germany, so everybody tag it as Krautrock... pfff...

The album is quite boring and depressing. To help this the album is made of 4 tracks only, two of them over 12 minutes long. A small torture if you will.

Original cover was at least interesting with the kind of cut outs, the name is cutted and you can see the colorful painting through the letter.

Just one thing, don't believe the hype that this album have round here.

So being the huge fan of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy I am, I wanted to review something special for my 42nd review, an album which I really enjoyed and wanted to write about. While looking through my collection, my eye caught on this one's artwork (which it always does) and then my ear told me it wanted to listen. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the album has, before my rating and review, a 4.2 average rating. Coincidence? I think not. On to the review, then!

Ever since I first heard the track available here on PA, I knew this was an album I wanted to check out. The track is very laid back, meditative (imagine that!) and with a very prominent Eastern/ethnic influence going on. That's a good description of the majority of the album, really. The only part to deviate from this formula TOO much is Part 3, where we're treated with a uptempo, guitar oriented sound for a while (only around for the middle part of the song, after which the group calms things back down). It doesn't break the spell of the album, though - by the time you get to Part 3, you're most likely going to be calmed down considerably and going with the flow of the music, so the album will just carry you along with its higher energy and momentum. Part 4 brings it all back to a calmer place again to round things out, ending the album as it began, with that dreamy sound.

This album is a very good example of the calmer side of Krautrock - along with Popol Vuh, I'd say it's one of my favorite examples thus far of the "quieter" side of things. If you enjoy meditative, hypnotic, pastoral music, then you will very likely enjoy this album quite a lot. Very highly recommended, and I think it's deserving of a masterpiece status (well, it may only be 4.75 stars, but I'm rounding up). Five stars!

A True Meditation

Yatha Sidhra's sole album was entitled perfectly as 'A Meditation Mass' because that's what this album offers: a fascinating meditation suite full-filled with psych and indo encounters which is splitted in four parts which all flow flawlessly one to the other.

The first part of the suite is undoubtedly the best part of the album or at least the one that makes the title of the album highly suitable, with a psych-driven wah-wah guitar playing all through the tune and a gentle but effective percussive feedback. Yatha Sidhra adds to that tranquil and psych base an indian mediative feel with the flute which is purely mesmerizing plus some ocassional moog and electric keyboards which are reminiscent of Rick Wright's playing on A Saucerful of Secrets, which fits the music perfectly.

The second part features Yatha Sidhra moving to a cooled down jazzy style with the electric keyboards being the responsible of that. Mind you that the gentle and mediative mood is still present and works flawlessly with the jazz incorporation.

The third part shows Yatha Sidhra playing in the vein of Ash Ra Tempel's debut with the presence of a guitar solo, yet it's never way too heavy or loud so as to not break the mediative feel throughout.

The fourth and last part of the Meditation Mass suite is a reprise of the first part with the echoey wah-wah guitar and indian-esque flute.

Obviously not the usual prog suspect but it's undeniably a brilliant chilling indian-esque album with sufficient variation so as to not make it a dull mediative experience, and because of that it deserves no less than 4 stars. Anyone keen on indian inspired mediative music with some nice psych and jazzy twists, I highly recommend you this.

Another one-album wonder from the Brain label circa early seventies Germany, YATHA SIDHRA came and went in the blink of an eye, in the process leaving behind a curious addition to the Krautrock genre. A unique brew of Psychedelia, folk, ethnic influences, jazz and western rock, 1971's A MEDITATION MASS is almost just that: a long, trippy, flute-led instrumental journey that slowly winds it's way through four, sonically comatose, interlocking pieces. It wanders freely from drowsily-toned psych-folk to carefully-constructed ethno-jams to brisk, jazzy, inventive workouts and back again to loose cosmic grooves. It's almost like some strange, magical journey through a wonderful and ancient musical forest, an orgianically-grown piece of music that resonates with sounds and textures from the past and the present with it's crisp flutes, soft congo drums and sitar-esque acoustic guitars giving off a distinctly old world vibe. It is also, however, very much a product of it's time. Each piece is untitled; they are all just parts of one whole. Part one lasts an epic 19- minutes plus yet somehow never really drags, the shimmering guitars acting as the soft golden thread off of which all else hangs, whether it be a shrill burst of flute or a smattering of Eastern percussion. It has the feel of a stoned campfire jam. Those with an interest of all things cosmic, Eastern-tinged psych and with a little patience will be rewarded as repeated listenings slowly reveal unexplored melodic avenues that further showcase the albums dreamlike qualities. It's a slow, carefully-constructed and rather hypnotic experience, though a soft and warm one as well.

Basically, A MEDITATION MASS omits an incredibly relaxed vibe and is something that someone can put on and literally mediate to if they wanted. Nowadays it's obviously seen as a product of the late-sixties counterculture movement's interest in all things cultural; an album made by four Germans but one that sounds distinctly non-Western with the more modern influences tucked deeply away inside the layers of proto-world music and psychedelic folk. You definitely wouldn't think it was German, but Krautrock it is, exemplifying wonderfully the diversity of the genre. In fact placing this music in any one period or region is almost impossible. It has hints of Japanese, Indian and Chinese influences amongst many others, but they are all wrapped in a loose brew of acoustic jazz-folk that in itself is a myriad of differing influences. In other words, it's a beautiful patchwork quilt of musical times, textures and cultures that utterly ignored the commercial values of the time, even more so than the underground psychedelic German rock acts of the time such as AMON DUUL II, EMBRYO and AGITATION FREE who all endured longer and more successful careers by fusing bluesy rock with ethnic flourishes in a more level way that accentuated the rockier, heavier and darker elements of the Western music but also paradoxically rendered the music less mysterious in tone and flavour as its basic sound could be traced back to the rock 'n' roll of the fifties, whereas Yatha Sidhra's roots lie in something much more venerable.

Yatha Sidhra can also maybe be seen as early forerunners in the development of 'World Music'. But this particular line-up would never record a studio album again so ultimately their influence was rather limited. They did at least contribute something original, diverse and wholly different that stood up to be a singular affirmation of the more positive, forward- thinking ideals of the era in which it was concocted. Those wanting something faster or something meatier will bore easy; the clue to it all is in the title. This is rock in the loosest sense of the word with wooden beats and stoned hippie rhythms taking the place of drums and melody. This reviewer thinks A MEDITATION MASS is a hidden psychedelic gem, a wonderful piece of astral-ethno-folk-rock quite unlike anyone else recorded since by western artists. So sit, relax, medidate? you cosmic kids will find much to enjoy. STEFAN TURNER, LONDON, 2009

I didn't heard this one back when it was released and discovered it recently in the nice SVP/Brain digipack re-release with a beautiful cover (that apparently is worth some bucks with the first edition cut outs) and a good booklet. The only YATHA SIDHRA record was recorded in 1976 and produced by German Rock old- timer Achim Reichel. So much for the good news, the record is deceiving. The main problem is the lack of direction. The record presents one long track "mass of meditation parts 1-4" mixing ethnic rhythms, some repetitive bass lines, Rhodes and synth washes, heavily treated rock guitar, atmospheric flute and (approximate) jazzy drumming. The elements which may look interesting on paper doesn't sound so on the record. 40 minutes of pointless wandering through atmospheric soundscapes that lack any inner tension. Compared to bands like Popol Vuh, Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Temple, presenting both great meditative and tense passages YATHA SIDHRA's record lacks both. Apparently their candlelight concerts have been great, but on the record the music just doesn't take off!