Kula Shaker

Kula Shaker distinguished themselves among the acts surfacing during the Brit-pop years by fusing the dense, guitar-driven textures of late-1960s psychedelia with Indian spiritual themes and a surging alternative-rock drive. Powered by the single “Tattva,” their 1996 debut album K ascended straight to the summit of the British album chart. The follow-up Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts also reached the U.K. Top Ten in 1999, yet the group soon disbanded. After reconvening in 2006, they reappeared on the charts with Strangefolk in 2007 and Pilgrims Progress in 2010, releases that merged the bold stance of their initial recordings with growing compositional and thematic depth. Marking twenty years since their formation, the 2016 album K 2.0 entered the Top 40 of the U.K. Albums chart. An expansive double album, First Congregational Church of Eternal Love and Free Hugs, surfaced in June 2022, while Natural Magick arrived in 2024 and restored the original lineup for the first time since Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts.

Crispian Mills fronted the quartet, which began in 1993 as a psychedelic outfit called the Kays. Alongside Mills stood his school-era companion Alonza Bevan; the pair had already performed together in Objects of Desire and operated a psychedelic club inside an ice rink. After that earlier band dissolved, Mills traveled to India on a spiritual quest. On his return he assembled the Kays with Bevan on bass, Paul Winter-Hart on drums, and Saul Dimont on vocals. Within twelve months Dimont departed, and organist Jay Darlington, veteran of several mod-revival groups, took his place. Two years of live work and two EPs issued on Gut Reaction Records yielded little progress. In spring 1995 Mills experienced a sudden realization that the group should adopt the name Kula Shaker, drawn from a ninth-century emperor, and steer toward explicitly spiritual material. Three months of performances under the new identity quickly secured a Columbia contract, the label hoping to replicate Oasis’s multi-platinum crossover success.

The band’s first single, “Grateful When You’re Dead,” appeared in spring 1996 with modest results, yet the follow-up “Tattva” broke through. The track climbed to number four, its chorus taken from an ancient Sanskrit source and its organ-and-guitar motif distilling the group’s sonic identity. That momentum carried into the September 1996 release of K, which debuted at number one and became the fastest-selling British debut album since Oasis’s Definitely Maybe. Positive reviews mounted and word-of-mouth spread to America, where “Tattva” reached the Top Ten on the modern-rock chart by year’s end.

Their second album, Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts, emerged in 1999 and layered contemporary progressive-rock energy onto the band’s established blend of 1960s mysticism and Beatles-inflected psychedelia. Although it also entered the Top Ten, Kula Shaker split later that year. Mills pursued unreleased solo projects before forming the Jeevas with former Straw members Andy Nixon and Dan McKinna; the trio issued two albums and toured extensively. Bevan joined Johnny Marr & the Healers, Darlington became a member of Oasis, and Winter-Hart played with Thirteen:13 as well as Aqualung and other ensembles.

A 2004 charity album Mills produced for a California school prompted an informal reunion—minus Darlington—which yielded one track. Official reformation followed in 2006 with keyboardist Harry Broadbent joining the fold. After touring, the group delivered Strangefolk in 2007. Recording for a fourth album began in 2008, yet label complications postponed Pilgrims Progress until 2010. The following year a multi-disc CD/DVD edition titled K-15 celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of the debut. K 2.0, their fifth studio set, appeared in 2016 and again charted inside the U.K. Top 40. The ambitious double album First Congregational Church of Eternal Love and Free Hugs arrived in June 2022. With Darlington’s return on Natural Magick in 2024, the original lineup reconvened for the first time since 1999.