Kula Shaker

KULA SHAKER’S NEW ALBUM IS CALLED…. '1st Congregational Church Of Eternal Love (and free hugs)’
Kula Shaker have returned in force to deliver their most inspired album in years. 1st Congregational Church Of Eternal Love (and free hugs) is a conceptual, double-album, energised and purposeful in a way in which few bands can currently compete. It spills over with enthusiasm across 15 blazing songs of cross-genre sonics and a renewed super confidence in its willingness to address global themes: Love vs Fear, Freedom vs Autocracy, Colonials vs Indians, Empire vs The Rebellion.
In 2016 Kula Shaker’s previous album, ‘K.2.O’, marked the 20th anniversary of their Brit-winning, two million-selling debut ‘K’. While band leader Crispian Mills continued to develop a career as a film-director and screenwriter, it was the 2020 lockdown that catalysed the reunion with bassist and co-writer Alonza Bevan, drummer Paul Winterhart and keyboard-player Henry Broadbent. “Obviously, it was a weird time for everyone, but it brought us together” says Crispian “I think the whole experience reinforced our love of music and our beliefs in why we started started playing as a band in the first place… it was a kind of reawakening." With limited opportunity to be together in the same room, demos and rewrites happened online before full recording commenced in Alonza’s studio in Belgium. The gestation of songs was gradual — with many initially written on ukulele as Crispian was teaching his kids, but soon both the kids and the songs graduated to guitars. “Without a shadow of doubt, watching my kids play noisy rock and roll brought me back to life, and I fell in love with guitar playing all over again.
” The concept of the new album is framed within the semi-imaginary setting of a quaint, English village called Little Sodbury. Beginning with the introductory ‘Dearly Beloved’, the album is partially narrated by the character of the local vicar, Rev John Smallwood, who struggles to conduct the evening service while epic thunderstorms rage overhead and mobile phones ping in the pews “You could say 1st Congregational church of Eternal Love is the band’s altar-ego” puns Crispian, displaying in his inherent theatrical skills. “We liked the mental imagery of the small church with a rickety, leaky roof and a great storm raging in heaven, with the locals all huddled together, telling stories and singing songs to make it through the dark night.” The theatricality of this Kula Shaker universe takes a visual form in the album’s eye-popping artwork, wrapped in a fresco of images depicting mankind’s struggle with the Beast, populated by heroes and villains, angels and Ganesha’s, clowns, warriors, knights and even The Marx Brothers! It’s as if Hieronymus Bosch had dropped mushrooms during a week of watching the History Channel, whilst reading the Mahabharata.
The album’s influences are numerous and varied, “The Pretty Things 1968 concept album ‘S.F Sorrow’ has always been a favourite of ours, and you could say this album has a similar musical feel, not so much of reoccurring characters but of consistent themes. The idea of a war in Heaven being waged here on Earth, between angels and demons, is the essence of the plot of both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which are the great epics of ancient India. It’s about Love vs Fear: the great spiritual battle that has been going on since the beginning of time…
” Following an absurdly wonderful introduction by the Rev John Smallwood of the 1st Congregational Church of Eternal Love (and free hugs) in Little Sodbury, the album blasts off with the joyful protest-spirit of ‘Whatever It Is (I’m Against It’), a 3- minute classic Kula Shaker rock-out that could have been a lost treasure from ‘K’. Hometown finds “fings ain't what they used to be” as fiery guitars shake the congregation in their pews. Farewell Beautiful Dreamer (Cherry Plumb Tree), with it’s gloriously operatic chorus, part-lullaby, part wake-up call, filled with imagery from the American origin myth, arrives like a tripped-out nursery rhyme. Where Have All the Brave Knights Gone? is wrapped in golden harmonies and Nashville keys, as it wonders what happened to valour. ‘After The Fall - Pt 2 & 3’ builds to the album’s climax, in the form of a vast Morriconesque surf-soundtrack melange: “This is a climactic finale” says Mills “where the battle is fought and won” resolving the story and weaving a lot of the album’s lyrical elements together. Finally, Bumblebee takes us back to the tiny English church Little Sodbury: the storm has blown over, the roof is intact, the sun is out, and everyone goes down the pub for a sing-song.
” It is a thing of great joy to hear Kula Shaker sounding so free and playful.. From their roots in the early 90’s psychedelic movement, evolving from a fascination for a saintly 9th century Indian King (and poet) who’s royal name they adapted; the balloon-in-a-gale flight to stardom with singles ‘Tattva’, ‘Hey Dude’ ‘Govinda’ and ‘Hush’ ascending to the top of many global charts, launching the rocket of their first stella selling album ‘K’. This was followed by the under-rated second album ‘Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts’ before they split in 1999. Kula Shaker’s first reunion came in 2007, coming after Alonza Bevan’s musical stint with Johnny Marr, and Crispian’s side project The Jeevas, resulting in a 3rd album ‘Strangefolk’ confirming Crispian as a master communicator, with ‘Out On The Highway’ and ‘Die For Love’ being lost Grammy-contenders. Then came 2010’s beautifully folky ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ which revealed the band’s gift for beguiling acoustic songs, featuring gems like ‘Ophelia’ and ‘Peter Pan R.I.P’, before their grand re-surfacing for ‘K 2.0’s triumphant East-meetsWest celebration.
In the revelatory grooves and stained-glass witticisms of what is by far their strongest album since ‘K’, ‘1st Congregation Church Of Eternal Love (and free hugs)’ there is a feeling of renewed purpose and the sense of a very bright future ahead for Kula Shaker. Here is one of Britain’s great bands on fighting form, ready to raise heaven & hell on the live circuit.
“One of my favourite rock & roll quotes is from Eric Burdon of The Animals,” says Crispian “He said ‘You don’t play rock and roll — you preach it.’ You have to play this sort of music as if your very life depended on it, otherwise go home.” JUNE 2022