Rasa and the Family Krishna - "Alive!" (1980)

Today's album shares its name with KISS' first live album, but the similarities end there. In fact, I don't even know if Rasa's LP is a live album. According to Wikipedia it is, but I hear no live sound, and nothing on the album cover gives any clue. All songs fade out as on studio albums, no audience is heard and the sound is just like on every other album by Rasa. I believe Rasa's records, all recorded in the Hare Krishna movement's studio at Korsnäs farm in Sweden (the only Radha Krishna temple in Scandinavia), were recorded live in the studio. So in that sense I guess you can call it a live album. My guess is that the word Alive! here, is meant in a more spiritual way.

Anyway, this is a record with religious and look-deep-inside music, and it grooves really nicely. Rasa was a band where all members were Hare Krishna followers. Robert Campagnola, who then called himself Harikesa Swami and / or Visnupada, had built the studio. He also wrote the songs, produced and sang. Had all religious music sounded like this, the world would have been more fun and the church a groovy place. We have gospel in Christianity, but it has not spread to all churches yet. Usually we have to settle for a quiet hymn.

Rasa's music is really enjoyable. Generally, the songs' structure is the singer singing a shorter or longer part, then a chorus echoes him. Add to that a bunch of instruments, many probably of Indian origin plus drums, bass, piano, electric organ and saxophone, and a nice groove. It gets pretty repetitive, and the songs are relatively long, so the parts that are sung need to be interesting, otherwise a song becomes a bit boring. The A-side is good throughout, where I've always had Maha-Mantra I as a favorite. It's less groovy, but has nice melancholic parts, where humanity's deep longing for union with something greater emerges, which causes my heart to open up.

Side B is a bit more boring, the songs are less interesting so it gets too repetitive. But the patient one gets rewarded in the last four minutes of the album, when the song Namaste Narasimhaya suddenly changes atmosphere and delivers a really soft ending of the record. I have found all Rasa albums in the collection for $1-2 each, but only the covers are worth the money. They sing in Hindi (?), so I don't understand a word of the lyrics, instead it is groove that seduces me. But I haven't become a Hare Krishna follower.


Tracklist

Side A
1. The Call To Govinda 8:04
2. The Offering 7:10
3. Maha-Mantra I 8:47

Side B
1. Maha-Mantra II 8:45
2. Namaste Narasimhaya 12:34