Cousin Kula thrive on existing out-with genre lines.
The Bristol group tap into the improvisatory spirit of jazz, while also leaning on psychedelia's transformative qualities.
Crafting music laden with colour and possibility, their album 'Double Dinners' was released digitally a few months back, a gripping, enthralling selection of pieces.
Each note from Cousin Kula seems to burst into life, with each passing song allowed to spread outwards, forming a path of its own.
A full vinyl pressing was pieced together by cult SE London label Rhythm Section, and it's flying off the shelves – grab one HERE.
To celebrate this remarkable project, Clash invited Cousin Kula to break down their influences.
Nick Hakim – 'I Don’t Know' [vocal harmonies]
The high vocal harmonies on this tune definitely inspired our approach to writing the harms on tunes like ‘BabyBack’, just so sexy!
Also the production is so good and all self-produced, so seeing other artists take the DIY approach and nail it defo encouraged us to do the same.
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BadBadNotGood ft Samuel Herring – 'Time Moves Slow' [drums]
Everyone loves this tune, right?
It’s just on the money, and the vocals from Sam Herring of Future Islands are so attentive and really grab you by the balls. Mainly though it is the drum sound that inspired us here, that kind of sound of the snare reverberating in a dark old church, we dig that!
We definitely wanted to create a ‘space’ for the music and in-turn the listener to sit in, and this record definitely has that.
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Mk.gee – 'You' [synths]
Wobbly, just the right amount of out-of-tune, dreamy synth tones – yeah, we’re into that too. Many of the melodies on our record comprise several layers of different warbling instruments; droopy guitar lines stacked onto soft mono synths, and our favourite: the mellotron flute.
On this Mk.gee tune, his indie sound flirts with dream pop, and is one of our faves from his work.
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Surprise Chef – 'All News Is Good News'
That sound of everything feeling recorded in the 70’s, a bit saturated and fuzzy in the right kind of way, charming. The sound of old ribbon mics and keyboards played through vintage guitar amps, and the sound of a band playing together!
We really wanted the record to sound like we’re in a space, just playing through the tunes, rather than recording all the parts separately, there’s a magic that happens when you record together in one room that can’t be replicated any other way.
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Unknown Mortal Orchestra – 'Hunnybee' [This one's for guitar pedals nerds]
I (Jordan-Lead guitar) didn’t think I needed any more fuzz pedals until I heard this tune. The guitar solo at the end is so tasty, that fuzz octave, phaser sound man, It’s killer. So I went shopping to find the pedal that could get me that tone, and we used it for the solo at the end of our tune ‘Now That You’re Gone’.
We have a bit of a filthy pedal habit in Kula, represented in the illustration by our pal Tomas Deason on the back of our vinyl sleeve – a bowl of noodles with steamy, hot delicious pedals floating in there.
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