VIA PRESS RELEASE | Detroit’s legendary Westbound Records continues its partnership with Org Music to restore, reissue, and celebrate the label’s most vital recordings. Following the widely praised reissue of Funkadelic’s 1970 self-titled debut, Org Music now announces Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow, arriving May 1 on LP, CD, cassette, and digital formats.
Released in July 1970 amid political unrest, cultural fragmentation, and creative upheaval in America, Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow did not attempt to comfort its listeners. It confronted them. If Funkadelic’s debut introduced a new hybrid of psychedelic rock, gospel, blues, and heavy funk, this second album intensified the vision, pushing further into distortion, repetition, and spiritual confrontation.
The record’s origin story has become part of rock mythology, reportedly recorded during a single marathon session on LSD. The result was one of the most saturated and uncompromising sonic statements of its era. The album marked the official introduction of keyboardist Bernie Worrell, whose elastic harmonies and tonal experimentation would become central to the expanding P-Funk universe. Upon release, the record reached No. 92 on Billboard’s Pop chart, signaling that even its most radical impulses were finding an audience. More than five decades later, it stands as one of the boldest entries in the Westbound catalog and a defining document of Black psychedelic expression.
Anchored by the corrosive groove of “I Wanna Know If It’s Good To You?,” the sprawling, hypnotic title track, Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow blurred the boundaries between funk, acid rock, and avant-garde abstraction. Its dense, over driven mix was both an aesthetic choice and a philosophical stance. The music feels less like a collection of songs and more like a transmission, demanding surrender and promising revelation. More than five decades later, it stands as one of the boldest entries in the Westbound catalog and a defining document of Black psychedelic expression.
As part of Org Music’s ongoing Westbound Records reissue series, this edition restores the album’s full sonic impact across multiple formats. Mastering engineer Dave Gardner and restoration specialist Catherine Vericolli returned to 54 Sound Studios in Ferndale, Michigan to archive and restore the original Westbound master tapes with assistance from in-house engineer Nick King.
All vinyl variants are fully analog, mastered direct from tape to lathe by Gardner and Vericolli at DSG Mastering and pressed at Furnace Record Pressing. Every vinyl edition is housed in a gatefold jacket. The deluxe 2xLP edition is cut at 45 RPM and presented in a Stoughton case-wrapped gatefold jacket on black vinyl, offering the most expansive and dynamic presentation of the album to date. A widely available Blue Mist vinyl edition will also be released, alongside additional exclusive color variants through select retail partners.
Org Music’s Westbound Records campaign has also featured celebrated reissues from the Ohio Players, Dennis Coffey, Denise LaSalle, Assemblage, The Counts, and Eramus Hall, reaffirming the label’s enduring influence across funk, soul, and psychedelic music history. With Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow, the series continues to spotlight recordings that reshaped the possibilities of American music. Org will be releasing Funkadelic’s 1971 album Maggot Brain later this year. More updates will be announced soon.
