In England, Kula Shaker Tops Rather Shaky Scene

Last year, the international success of Oasis provided the biggest boost the British music scene had enjoyed for many a long year. At last, someone had proven that a U.K. band could become a transatlantic success. What’s more, there seemed to be no end of talent waiting to follow the group’s lead.

In some ways that remains the case, and certainly there are some British acts America may well be hearing a lot of next year. But a word of advice: Don’t let the most-hyped contenders distract you from digging deeper into the U.K. class of ‘96--although for many observers the year has been disappointing after the euphoria of ’95.

Oasis’ success carried with it the message that to be shamelessly ‘60s-fixated is not only acceptable but could be a commercial advantage. After all, why risk the shock of the new when people are eager to buy the comfort of the familiar?

This may be the reason why the two biggest breakthrough acts in British indie-pop this year have been Ocean Colour Scene and Kula Shaker, both of which positively flaunt their retro influences and have--perhaps not coincidentally--earned the public endorsement of Oasis’ Noel Gallagher.

After opening for Oasis, Ocean Colour Scene hit the summit of the U.K. chart in April with “Moseley Shoals,” its title linking the band’s home in the Moseley district of Birmingham to the celebrated ‘60s U.S. soul studio Muscle Shoals. The album contains solid, workmanlike but unimaginative R&B-influenced; rock that could have been made 30 years ago. They’d probably take that as a compliment.

However, even OCS appears radical and rooted in gritty reality when compared to the band that’s just leaped to No. 1 over here.

Kula Shaker (which plays on Nov. 22 at the Whisky) has been described by Gallagher as “the best band in Britain,” and certainly he and Shaker frontman Crispian Mills both give the impression of being intimately familiar with the Beatles’ repertoire. However, Gallagher has always cited John Lennon as his favorite of the Fab Four. Somehow it didn’t come as a great surprise when, in a recent interview with a London newspaper, Mills declared, “I admit that I am a big George Harrison fan, because he came out of the Beatles, who were demigods, with something positive and spiritual, Saint George.”

Kula Shaker’s lyrics carry copious references to Eastern mysticism, while its music makes extensive use of sitars and kindred ‘60s psychedelic sounds. They exude the kind of dreamy, dazed optimism that is perhaps easier to attain when you come from the kind of highly privileged background that spawned Mills--he is the son of actress Hayley Mills.

The slimness of 1996’s output has led many in the British media to conclude that Brit-pop is dead. The mourning may have been prompted by what turned out to be a false alarm--the apparent break-up of Oasis during the band’s recent U.S. tour. But the silence emanating from many of those bands who provoked international interest last year has undoubtedly strengthened the sense of disillusionment.

Though Oasis has apparently resolved its internal differences, they have also let it be known that they’ll be releasing no new material until the new year. We’ll also have to wait until 1997 for new albums from Blur, Pulp, Radiohead, Supergrass and Elastica.

Of the newcomers, one band that might succeed is Skunk Anansie, a London quartet that has managed the fairly difficult task of appealing to both the metal and alternative audiences in Britain. It combines crisp, cutting metallic riffing with furious polemics delivered with visceral conviction by singer Skin, and so should have every chance of appealing to the U.S. audience that raised Rage Against the Machine to stardom.

Some of the other guitar bands that made their British breakthrough in the wake of Oasis--and shared with them all-male lineups and a predilection for sturdy, ‘60s-style, three-minute pop-rock--have been busy abroad. The Bluetones and Cast you may already know about, and if you want more in a similar vein then look out for Ash, 60FT. Dolls and Oasis’ U.K. labelmates Heavy Stereo.

It has largely been left to the more imaginative dance acts to bring something seductively sinister and strange to the higher reaches of the British singles chart this year. The Prodigy has overcome a traditional difficulty facing dance-oriented bands seeking to make the crossover into the live arena, largely due to the visual charisma of dancer and occasional rapper Keith Flint. His pierced, green-hair-topped face became familiar to the British public when the single “Firestarter” became a British No. 1 in March.

Underworld, meanwhile, scored a richly deserved success when its single “Born Slippy” became a hit on the strength of its inclusion in the soundtrack for the film “Trainspotting.”

That aside, the most remarkable development in British alternative rock this year has come in the form of an unexpectedly colorful contribution from a place that had previously given the world little beyond Tom Jones, Dave Edmunds and Bonnie Tyler: Wales.

Welsh rock had already been considerably boosted in the early ‘90s with the emergence of Manic Street Preachers.

While their lyrical vision has remained passionate and polemical, the band’s music has mellowed over the years, and interest in their work has been heightened by the loss of their guitarist and lyricist Richey Edwards, who has never been seen since he checked out of a London hotel in February 1995.

The remaining trio returned to action in April with a single, “A Design for Life.” Their star had risen steadily in the years before Richey’s disappearance, and it was no great surprise when the single and the subsequent album, “Everything Must Go,” became major hits.

Since then, their compatriots Super Furry Animals have delved into a darker area of psychedelia than some of their English contemporaries with the album “Fuzzy Logic,” and their choice of transport--an army-surplus tank--has understandably helped draw attention, particularly when they’ve used it as a base from which to pump out dance music at this year’s British festivals.

Meanwhile, Catatonia has given us an album of highly infectious, Blondie-esque power-pop in the excellent “Way Beyond Blue,” its highlights including the current single “You’ve Got a Lot to Answer For,” almost certainly the finest pop song ever written about waiting for the result of a pregnancy test.

Despite all of the above, it has to be conceded that this has been a comparatively quiet year for British pop. In early 1997, however, most of our big guns should come blazing back. Let’s trust that Super Furry Animals won’t take that suggestion too literally.