Masha Qrella - "I Want You To Know"
A cut-up acoustic guitar strums a rhythm so disconcerting that you will be shocked (to death) when you discover that it’s in 4/4 time. Though the music has been electronically manipulated, it loses none of its natural warmth - it still sounds like fingers on strings, socks on pedals, vibrating vocal chords, and depressed ivory. And even though Qrella sings tentative afterthoughts, sings like she’s surprised by the clipped rhythm, she never seems shaken, she always seems confident and knowing (like your mom).
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A few important facts about Father Yod and The Yahowa 13:
1. Father Yod was the head of a cult.
2. The cult spawned a variety of bands, mostly fronted by Yod himself.
3. Yahowa 13 was one of these bands. (Though this song does not feature the Father, rather the precocious Aquarian Brothers (Sunflower, Djin, Rhythm and Octavious)).
4. On the back cover of Savage Sons of Yahowa (the album from which this song is taken) Father Yod appears to be sitting naked atop an upside down pyramid banging out bolts of lightning with a hammer.
5. Yod died hand gliding in Hawaii. About this incident, his friend Sky Sunlight Saxon (of The Seeds) said, “I feel that he took a kite that wasn’t quite, you know, right for his body. He was a big man. He needed a kite much heavier than that, but we probably didn’t have one.”
6. Though the entire record is over-saturated with flange, the impassioned, yearning, voices-breaking chorus of “Making A Dollar” more than makes up for that shortcoming.
7. If you are so inclined, the entire Father Yod discography is available in the thirteen cd box set simply entitled God and Hair, The Yahowa Collection. It is not recommended.