Benediction Moon -st.,LP,1971,New Zealand
Ultra rare monster psycher from New Zealand sometimes in 1970s here. I'll quote Paul Major: "Proof that a hare-krishna LP could be groovy enough to transcend the syndrome and make love to a psych collector. Side A is 4 mesmerizing tracks with haunted femme vocals/ and heavenly Mellotron moves with deep feeling….side two chanty California delight vibration. Squaresville becomes roundsville". Few known copies among collectors, other copies residing with me, Paul and Jello Biafra who is a big fan (!)
From Subliminal Sounds review
Unknown very rare psych LP by a hippie colective,released in N.Zealand in 1971.Stoned,twisted ballads with Eastern touches on side 1 ,while side 2 is a "Hare Krishna" freaked out mandala!Reminds me a mixture of Ya Hova 13 ,The Unfolding and Magic Carpet.
Get it Here
11 comments:
Thank you very much!
New Zealand? Such a remote part of the world! Nice piece you posted!
Thanks for your work and your time!
Armute
I'm 99.9% certain that this is an album recorded and manufactured by ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. The first song on this LP, "Gopinatha," was included as an uncredited "bonus song" on a cassette version of the George Harrison-produced "Radha-Krishna Temple" LP (1969) which I got from them by mail-order in the early '90's. The main chanting voice on side 2 is certainly that of Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder and guru of ISKCON. The cover art is a painting that has appeared in their books, and the title "Benediction Moon" itself is a reference to their chanting movement. This is a straight-up Hare Krishna devotional LP, not even faintly "psychedelic," and was recorded by initiated disciples, not stoned hippies.
By the way, f***** awesome blog!
I have just been playing the original album,which i purchased in 1971 for next to nothing.
Intriqued to find out more,i googled it and discovered your blog
and also that it was made right here in New zealand!
I play it every few years,even hung out with the krsnas briefly around the time ac bhaktidevanta died (1977)and it split into various factions such as Haribol.
One of the Haribols was new zealand
guitarist Harvey Mann who played guitar in Space Farm.I released a live album of them playing in 1971 called Space Farm Live.
link seems to be dead - but the lp sounds amazing. re-up?
Wow! Amazing to see this up, and even more amazing to be seeing it make the psyche circuit.
Little secret; is it really that rare? My previous housemate and I were constant diggers, and in our household alone we had 5 copies of this record! It's not to say we picked up every copy we came across (how many instances of Mandingo can you own, and this certainly suffered the same impulsive devotion).
I can concur with the previous commenter regarding that it is a devotional krishna record, and not some far-out bunch of hippies ;)
The link appears to be dead. Is it possible to re-up??
this is great! definitely made by followers of ISKCON or a related Gaudiya Vaishnava Hindu group, if not officially made by ISKCON itself.
the link isn't working, but the album is also found here:
http://www.triskell-online.de/index.php?id=208
this album has some great tunes indeed, but if the Gopinatha track is actually from 1969, than the artist cannot be Agnideva, because he himself says in the book 'the yoga of kirtan' that he joined later than that. i did see the label of the golden avatar 7" which says that it's Agnideva, so there is something not right about this.
anyone have a working link for this download? been looking for Hansadutta Swami's LPs as well (The Vison, Nothing To Lose But All to Gain).
anyone have a woking link for this download? looking for the Hansadutta Swami LPs as well. thanks.
http://www.triskell-online.de/index.php?id=203
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