K by Kula Shaker

K, the debut album from Kula Shaker, landed on Columbia on 16 September 1996 and went straight to the top of the UK chart, the quickest-selling British debut since Elastica's the previous year, with 105,768 copies gone in its first week. Frontman Crispian Mills co-produced it with John Leckie, and together they made a Britpop-era record that looks east: the band's love of sitar, tamboura and tabla shoulders up against fat, grinding rock guitars, and "Tattva" is sung partly in Sanskrit.

There's a loose, jammy Grateful Dead streak running underneath too, and a mysticism the band wore without a trace of irony, which left some critics cold. Even the name nods to Kulasekhara, a 9th-century Indian king. Stick around after "Hollow Man" and a hidden track plays a recording of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, talking about his own guru.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.