Kula Shaker

Kula Shaker coalesced in early-1990s London when guitarist-singer Crispian Mills, bassist Alonza Bevan, and drummer Paul Winterhart—long-time collaborators from Richmond College days—pivoted from The Kays toward a deeper synthesis of late-’60s/early-’70s heavy rock and Indian classical music. With organist Jay Darlington joining, the quartet arrived just as Britpop peaked, but their vocabulary was wider: raga drones, tamboura and tabla threaded through guitar-forward arrangements, and lyrics that freely invoked Sanskrit mantras alongside classic rock dynamics. The breakout was immediate. K (1996) debuted at #1 in the UK, spawning “Tattva,” “Hey Dude,” “Govinda,” and a hit cover of “Hush,” while the band became a festival fixture and BRIT Award winner. Follow-up Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts (1999) expanded the palette with grander arrangements before internal and external pressures precipitated a hiatus.

Reforming in 2004, the band leaned into independence and craft. Strangefolk (2007) and Pilgrims Progress (2010) reframed their psych-rock DNA with warmer, folk-tinged textures and keyboard-rich atmospheres. A renewed surge arrived with K 2.0 (2016), which paired muscular riffs with devotional choruses, and the expansive double-set 1st Congregational Church of Eternal Love and Free Hugs (2022), a thematic odyssey through unity, faith, and human contradiction. In 2024 the classic chemistry reignited on Natural Magick, marking the recorded return of Jay Darlington and reaffirming the group’s core proposition: big, melodic songs that reconcile spiritual yearning with arena-scale psych-rock propulsion. Across decades—and despite controversies and fashion cycles—Kula Shaker has persisted by treating Eastern motifs not as ornament but as organizing principle, translating raga sensibilities into hook-driven British rock with uncommon fluency.