Track Listing
1. Hey Dude
2. Knight on the Town
3. Temple of Everlasting Light
4. Govinda
5. Smart Dogs
6. Magic Theatre
7. Into the Deep
8. Sleeping Jiva
9. Tattva
10. Grateful When You're Dead / Jerry Was There
11. 303
12. Start All Over
13. Hollow Man - (parts 1 & 2)
| Details | | Distributor: | Sony Music Distribution ( | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
Album Notes
Inital pressings of the U.S. release of K included a bonus CD single, TATTVA LUCKY 13 MIX.
Kula Shaker: Crispian Mills (vocals, electric & acoustic guitars, tamboura); Jay Darlington (piano, Mellotron, organ); Alonza Bevan (piano, bass, tabla, background vocals); Paul Winterhart (drums).
Additional personnel includes: The Kick Horns.
Producers include: John Leckie, Crispian Mills.
Engineers include: John Leckie.
Recorded between January and May 1996.
The Britpop quartet Kula Shaker appears to have raided the closets of its favorite bands in the making of its debut album. K contains a bluesy, retro ambience very much like The Stone Roses and Primal Scream. The full-throttled guitars sound like those of Oasis. And a hefty dose of Hindu mysticism runs rampant throughout--a la Cornershop.
But Kula Shaker manages to make something original of all those borrowed parts. Rising above its influences, Kula Shaker creates a niche of Britpop in which transcendence is the goal. Amidst the blues-drenched guitars and the Hindi chanting, the band is hard at work building something spiritual and sensual. Kula Shaker isn't afraid of a tamboura, using the exotic instrument on several tracks. Nor is it afraid to be linked with the Grateful Dead, eulogizing that band in the track "Grateful When You're Dead/Jerry Was There." But Kula Shaker is no freewheeling "jam" band; there's a precision to the musicianship on this record that cannot be ignored.
Editorial Reviews
Ranked #14 in NME's 1996 critic's poll.
NME
4 Stars - Excellent - ...they can go from delicacy to harder bluesy riffs and mix harmonies with funky rhythmic undertows to produce a gloriously full sound. They have discipline, a surefooted sense of pop melody, and they do it all with a sense of positivity...
Q (10/01/1996)
9 (out of 10) - ...K is enormous; generating mighty, vertical grooves of pan-dimensional power pop which will surely have The Stone Roses gnawing at their innards....it's The Verve gone ethno-berserk, as huge as the horizon itself....astonishingly confident, musicianly gifted, gloriously hedonistic...
NME (09/14/1996)
...Kula Shaker don't merely take you back 20 years on this confident debut, they rejuvenate that period by mixing sitar and Sanskrit chants with wa-wa guitar Hammond organ. The blissed-out effect is somewhere between post-India George Harrison and early Stone Roses. - Rating: B+
Entertainment Weekly (10/25/1996)
5 (out of 5) - ...Tight song structures embrace Kula Shaker's freakform excursions, and though they're into jam, they use butter, as well, which means that self-indulgence is kept to a minimum...
Alternative Press (01/01/1997)
...Kula Shaker don't merely take you back 20 years on this confident debut, they rejuvenate that period by mixing sitar and Sanskrit chants with wa-wa guitar Hammond organ. The blissed-out effect is somewhere between post-India George Harrison and early Stone Roses. - Rating: B+
Entertainment Weekly (10/25/1996)
4 Stars - Excellent - ...they can go from delicacy to harder bluesy riffs and mix harmonies with funky rhythmic undertows to produce a gloriously full sound. They have discipline, a surefooted sense of pop melody, and they do it all with a sense of positivity...
Q (10/01/1996)
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