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

Rasa - "Setting the Scene" (1980)

On a visit in my early teens at Uppsala's classic second-hand store Prisfyndet (something like The Price Discovery) I had one of my many meetings with an album cover I thought was really interesting (=druggy and/or psychedelic). When I met such a cover and the price requested was right (low), I used to make a move. I always had the strong hope that the music would be as psychdelic as the cover. This was also the case the day I met Rasa's album Setting the Scene, the price requested was about one dollar. I had never seen an album with such a cover and was extremely curious about the music that was hidden inside. To connect the cover, which I assume represents a Hindu god, with the Hare Krishna movement, never crossed my mind. That the album was recorded at Korsnäs farm (Sweden) told me nothing either.

When I played the record later that day I heard music of a kind I hadn't heard before. It starts with a really nice groove where you hear wind instruments, odd drums, tinkling cymbals, etc. After a while the song starts in a language that's not Swedish nor English, problably it's Hindi (or Indish, as I thought as a teenager ). I was happy, surprised and also a bit disappointed. I had expected a rather psychedelic album with Western music (in retrospective maybe a somewhat strange expectation, given on the cover) but was instead given something completely different, something that was far away from the music on my other records in the collection.

Thanks to the Internet, I know now a little more about the album and artist Rasa. Behind this name is Harikesa Swami, also known as Visnupad. He was born as Robert Campagnola and was aguru in the Hare Krishna movement. He has participated in and produced 28 records, except as Rasa also as BLISS and Sri Hari.

On the record a lot of different instruments are used - saxophone, santoor, drums, congas, piano, bass, cymbals, organ, trumpet. Except Anders Eriksson (drums) all other musicians carry Indian/Hindi sounding names. If they are of Indian origin or if they are Swedes who have taken new names in the Hare Krishna movement, I do not know. The piano is given a pretty big space on the recording and some songs are quiet and calm while others are a bit more groovy. To define the music on the album is unusually difficult, it's like some sort of mix of Eastern and Western music, with an emphasis on the former. The arrangements are often quite grand with a relatively open soundscape.

The album is overall quite nice but after a while I get bored. Visnupad's singing sounds relatively similar from song to song and since I don't understand what he sings it becomes a bit boring. It's easy to lose concentration after a while, especially as the songs are relatively long and sounds quite similar. Nevertheless, I am happy and proud that this album is a part of my collection, and I think it's fun to have a record of Rasa and music on the Hare Krishna theme in my collection. The truth is that I liked the music and the cover enough to buy a whole bunch of other Rasa records (and yes, they were cheap), but more on that later.

It can be added that the Korsnäs farm is situated in Gröding, Botkyrka council (Sweden), and that the Hare Krishna movement have one of their temples there. It's the only Radha Krishna temple in Scandinavia.


Favourite song
The Son of Nanda


Tracklist
Side A
1. The Son of Nanda 7:11
2. Setting the Scene 13:38


Side B
1. The Master 6:14
2. Touchstone II 8:09
3. Shelter 7:17