Sunday, January 26, 2014

ya ho wa 13 - penetration: an aquarian symphony

if yr looking for some far out, experimental psych rock, you need not search any further than YA HO WA 13 !!!!!!!!!  and their seminal mind melting lp PENETRATION: AN AQUARIAN SYMPHONY!!!!!!

for those not in the know, YA HO WA 13 was formed by FATHER YOD out of members of his socal hippie commune / spiritual collective THE SOURCE FAMILY in the early 70s.... while not expanding their minds through meditation and the herbal sacrament and running a successful vegetarian restaurant on sunset strip, FATHER YOD with his music cohorts set out to totally mutate and stretch out psychedelic rock n roll as we know it...... droned and spaced out, filled with chants and freak outs, all sorts of weird percussion and instrumentation, YA HO WA 13 totally blew up what it meant to ROCK N ROLL and pretty much put most of the rest of psych bands of the day into the tame category.......  they recorded all their albums in the garage next to their commune and self released them on their HIGHER KEY label, selling them only at shows and at the restaurant they ran....... making them collectors gold and fresh for rediscovery......

and thankfully labels like TEE PEE and DRAG CITY did rediscover YA HO WA 13 (and FATHER YOD AND THE SPIRIT OF 76 as well as the SOURCE FAMILY's other various one off side projects) and have been reissuing their albums........  apparently there are over 65 lps worth of material much of which has never seen the light of day, even on their own HIGHER KEY label........

i won't suggest you grab all these albums, but PENETRATION: AN AQUARIUM SYMPHONY is their best effort and widely acknowledged as one of the best PSYCH ROCK ALBUMS OF ALL TIME........ way ahead of it's years, and totally entrancing YOU JUST NEED TO HEAR THIS LP NOW.........    one listen might just warp you forever.......  (TEE PEE did reissue it, but it's out of print, though well worth searching for and easier to find than it used to be....)

and once yer hooked on YA HO WA 13, good luck crate digging for the rest of their albums......

GET READY TO HAVE YER EXPANDED AND LISTEN TO PENETRATION: AN AQUARIAN SYMPHONY BELOW -
   and click any of the links above for further reading on YA HO WA 13........




ps....click here to watch the killer documentary on THE SOURCE FAMILY released last year !!!!!  one of my fave RnR films of 2013 hands down.........  

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