TATANKA

It’s impossible to write about a Kula Shaker album without first acknowledging that they are a band with a bit of a history. After having phenomenal success with their 1996 debut album, K, they followed it up a couple of years later with the absurdly-named Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts that was every bit as batshit as the title and months of recording on David Gilmour’s Thames houseboat would suggest. I should also confess that it’s one of my favourite records of all time, just so you get a gist where this review is coming from. Anyway, around the time Peasants appeared, and as the 20th century collectively shat itself over the threat of the millennium bug, some misjudged comments in the press led to the band imploding. Since then, the words ‘Kula Shaker’ have almost exclusively been used in the music press as the punchline to a joke. Fast forward around a decade and the band were back together, albeit without original member and hammond organ wizard Jay Darlington – who was busy tou