Nation.Cymru staff
Three decades after their debut album went straight to number one, the Britpop trailblazers have returned with a massive tour, including a show in Wales.
30 years since the album K went straight to Number One, Kula Shaker have returned to the record that launched them with K-Reinkarnate: a complete new performance of the seminal album, recorded live and entirely in analogue by the original line-up.
Set for release on February 5, 2027 via Strange F.O.L.K. Records, they’re shared a reworked of classic track Govinda and announced a headline tour of the UK and Europe for February and March 2027.
K-Reinkarnate was cut live to two-inch tape at Middle Farm Studios and mixed by Peter Miles and Ash Howes, the production team behind 2025’s Wormslayer – Kula Shaker’s highest-charting album since the mid-2000s.
Speaking about the newly recorded version of ‘Govinda’, their landmark 1996 single sung entirely in Sanskrit and rooted in kirtan – a yoga tradition of devotional singing and chanting, frontman Crispian Mills said:
“Govinda has been with us since day one. It was the first song we ever played, (blagging our way onto the Krishna stage at Glastonbury 1993), and in many ways it’s the song that came to define us.
“Without doubt, it gave us our own unique identity and sound during the Britpop bunfight, with all the bands vying for attention, and in hindsight, it was way ahead of its time, with kirtan. Of course, George Harrison was the first to popularise it with ‘My Sweet Lord,’ and we were very much into all that. But after we became friends with Himangsu Goswami (who also performed on ‘K’) and his family from East London – kirtan singers for fourteen generations in Bangladesh – we gained a much deeper understanding and appreciation.
“Remember, back in 1996 kirtan was mostly consigned to temples and ashrams, it wasn’t the huge spiritual wellness phenomenon it is now. So we were quite an unusual band, for the time, jamming and singing kirtan in our ‘Banana Splits’ band house. It was a real scene.”
The band say K-Reinkarnate is neither a replica nor a conventional anniversary reissue. Instead, Crispian, Alonza Bevan, Paul Winter-Hart and Jay Darlington approached K as a living body of work: performing the album in sequence and capturing how its songs have evolved across three decades of playing them live.
The idea had not always appealed to the band. While others had encouraged them to re-record the Columbia Records catalogue so that Strange F.O.L.K. could own new masters, attempting to recreate a moment that belonged to 1996 felt inauthentic. Their work with producer Peter Miles at the all-analogue Middle Farm Studios during the making of Wormslayer offered a different possibility: not to reproduce the past, but to summon its spirit in a new performance.
“That’s the whole meaning of the world ‘reincarnate’ — it’s not about replicating K but summoning its spirit by playing it live and giving it ‘new flesh’,” said Mills. “Exploring how it still lives and breathes in the present, and how all those songs have evolved naturally over thirty years of live shows.”
The sessions also reopened the band’s archives. ‘Shower Your Love’, ‘Hush’, and ‘Drop in the Sea’ were all recorded during the original K sessions but did not appear on the finished album; for K-Reinkarnate, they have been restored to the running order and newly sequenced alongside the original songs.
Most remarkable is “She’s So Free,” an unfinished recording recovered from a two-inch master tape. Consisting of piano, acoustic guitar and lead vocal, the track had been misplaced in 1996 as the band moved between studios and was subsequently forgotten. Excavated, Kula Shaker completed it with new instrumentation and vocals in 2026, creating a recording on which the band’s present incarnation plays alongside its earlier 1996 self.
“What you hear now is the band of 2026 playing along with its previous incarnation, thirty years before. it was a wonderfully weird experience,” added the frontman.
Originally released in 1996, K brought British psychedelia, Indian musical influences and Sanskrit mantra into the mainstream. Driven by hit singles including “Tattva,” “Hey Dude,” and “Govinda,” it went straight to Number One in the UK and established Kula Shaker as one of the era’s most distinctive bands.
“K was the soundtrack to our youth; a magical time when anything is possible. We hope you enjoy the reincarnation, and hope it helps you stay young at heart.”
Kula Shaker begin their UK and European headline tour in Luxembourg on 26th February 2027. The tour will culminate at London’s Troxy on Saturday 20th March 2027. They play Cardiff University Great Hall on Thursday, March 18.
U.K. AND E.U. TOUR DATES
Fri 26 Feb Den Atelir Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Sat 27 Feb Stollwerck Cologne, Germany
Sun 28 Feb OM Liege, Belgium
Tue 2 Mar Paradiso Amsterdam, Netherlands
Wed 3 Mar Grenswerk Venlo, Netherlands
Thu 4 Mar Batschkapp Frankfurt, Germany
Sat 6 Mar Plan B Malmo, Sweden
Sun 7 Mar Vulkan Arena Oslo@, Norway
Tue 9 Mar Metropol Berlin, Germany
Thu 11 Mar O2 Institute Birmingham, UK
Fri 12 Mar Albert Hall Manchester, UK
Sat 13 Mar Dome Brighton, UK
Tue 16 Mar SWG 3 Glasgow, UK
Wed 17 Mar O2 City Hall Newcastle, UK
Thu 18 Mar Great Hall Cardiff, UK
Sat 20 Mar Troxy London, UK
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