Artist: Yatha Sidhra
Album: A Meditation Mass
Year: 1974
Line-up: Rolf Fichter – Moog
synthesizer, Indian flute, vibes, electric piano, electric guitar,
vocals
Klaus Fichter – drums, percussion
Matthias Nicolai – electric
12-string guitar, bass
Peter Elbracht - flute
Label: Brain
Yatha Sidhra is a
short lived German group of the 1970's. Later music historians
labeled the band as a part of Krautrock genre which is a generic name
used to describe experimental music groups which were active in West
Germany in the late 1960's and throughout 1970's. If you are
unfamiliar with the Krautrock scenes, I suggest you check out the BBC
documentary The Rebirth of Germany, to which you can find a link at
the end of this post. Yatha Sidhra, founded by the Fichter brothers
who were trying to form their ideal band for a while, finally hit the
right note in 1973 when their band Brontosaurus changed its name to
Yatha Sidhra thus also marking a change in their musical identity.
Year later the album A Meditation Mass was released and it remains
the only official release of the band.
In the previous
post, my colleague wrote about the east meets the west musical fusion
projects where a western artist teams up with an eastern artist
trying to fuse the music of their culture creating a new and rich
sounding musical world. The phenomenon was born in the 1960's when
especially Indian master musicians such as Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar
Khan launched their international careers in Europe and USA. The
coming of eastern music to the West also inspired a lot of western
groups to draw inspiration to their own music from the eastern
musical traditions.
As you might
already have guessed from the band and album name, Yatha Sidhra and A
Meditation Mass are heavily influenced by the eastern cultural
elements. Drawing from the ethnic and meditative influences A
Meditation Mass is a long piece divided into four parts with two
musical themes with two variations from each one. The albums can be
seen as a concept album inspired by Buddhist philosophy even tough
the album is almost entirely instrumental.
The aim of the
brothers was to create an exotic and dreamy musical landscape built
around electric guitars and bass emulating a drone provided in the
Hindustani classical music by the tambura to accomapany the melody.
Meanwhile the Moog synthesizer and the flute (which is credited as
the Indian flute which could be the bansuri) create the melodic
centre of the music. Through out the album percussion instruments
appear to play hypnotic tribal rhythms. The music shifts from ethnic
spacey ambient to psychedelic rock and to swinging and more upbeat
jazz-rock. Due to the Buddhist philosophy, the piece is made cyclic
as the album ends the way it started.
A Meditation Mass
is a true hidden gem of the 70's krautrock scene. It is a beautiful,
atmospheric, psychedelic and meditative (as the title suggests)
musical journey, which will take you the exciting crossroads of the
East and the West. Listened comfortably in arm chair or a sofa,
served with a cup of tea for example, A Meditation Mass can be truly
an escapist aural pleasure – especially this time of the year.
The BBC Documentary
”Rebirth of Germany” on Krautrock:
Part 1 of A
Meditation Mass:
Written by
Παναγιωτης
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