Start Listening To: Cousin Kula

Bristol’s psych-soul finest invites you to a family-feel feast on ‘Double Dinners’.

Performing Bristol’s grassroots venues since their early teens, Cousin Kula have had enough time to perfect their sound and get to the place of ultimate psych-soul warmth. Though, if you have as much drive and passion as those five friends, the exploration is never-ending, sometimes it’s comforting to be able to catch the fleeting feeling that’s at the core of any artistic endeavours. In Cousin Kula’s case, the essence of their sounds lays in that precious moment when tired and weary, you dissolve in the seat of an armchair, ready to either smooth into the sweet saxophone dreams or get sucked in the imaginative worlds capture in your favourite book or film.

Brought together by the mutual love for music, the band have continued to pursue it either during recording a special request live version of BADBANDNOTGOOD’s Signal From the Noise or a Boiler Room session. Still, this year, we got served their fanciest dish so far, a deliciously good debut album ‘Double Dinner’. Enjoy.

Can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?

Just 5 dudes from around the UK who ended up in Bristol playing music. The album we’ve just made has a mellow, floaty, psych-soul vibe, but there’s lots more flavours up our collective sleeve, past and future ;)

How did it all start?

Well music brought us all together for sure, meeting ‘on the scene’ in Bristol playing and going to gigs, and then we moved in together and jammed all day and night, after a few years of this a sound emerged that we liked, so we gave it all a name and on it goes...

If you were to describe your sound to someone who’d never heard you before, what would you say?

One of the hardest questions, currently psych-soul, but we explore all sorts, pop through to jazz. All that with a weird squeaky voice on top, have a listen you’ll like it ;)

How do you produce your music? 

At home, we’ve spent the last decade experimenting and finally decided to do it all ourselves. Doug (synth/sax) has become something of a production maestro, making his own microphones and recording equipment. We have complete control, it’s perfect.

How are you feeling about the release of your debut album Double Dinners? 

Good! It’s a melty, floaty, glide down the river on your boaty kind of journey, written, recorded, mixed and produced all by us, at home. We never intended on writing an album, it just sort of happened... an amalgamation of loads more free time, life sloooowing down, us moving out into the countryside and the realisation that we could just do it all ourselves. So we did.

We’re also excited about what we’ll write next, now life is somewhat back to normal again.

Where did you get the name for the album? 

Many many deliberations & eating dinner twice. (sometimes Will & Joe would come round to the Kula house having already had dinner, and we’d also cooked dinner…) we also wanted something that was ‘homely’ to suit the record, having written and recorded it all at home. It works best if you say it with a thick west-country accent.

What inspires your music?

Literally everything. We listen to all sorts of music from all over the world. Inspiration can strike at the weirdest moments, and sometimes you’re on a train and humming a melody trying to save it in the brain… We all have countless scrappy voicenotes of little melodies from moments like these haha.

Can you tell us something interesting about your band that has nothing to do with music?

Joe has a tattoo of a Bloody Mary with a face on his leg saying ‘here for a bloody good time’. 

What’s it like working with the label Rhythm Section?

We’ve always been really lucky with record labels who are super supportive of our creativity. Local Bristol label CHIVERIN put out our first 3 EPs and have stayed on as management while we’ve released this new album with Rhythm Section, which has been a real joy. They seem to genuinely care about us and the music and have been incredibly supportive and efficient, so we can just get on with creating and doing our thing! Not to mention label head Bradleys crazy connections and sorting us the F out and just being an all round legend! 

What advice would you give for anyone trying to achieve a similar sound to you? 

That’s a very tough question. I think a lot of the foundation of our music comes from and through our personal relationships with each other and the friendships we have built with each other over many many years. We’ve been playing together for so long now and our music has changed drastically over the years but our most recent ‘sound’ just came very naturally to us. I guess our advice would be to just keep playing together and find what comes naturally. And basically fuck off and find your own sound you doughebags.  

If your music were a film or TV show which would it be and why?

Any Wes Andserson film. It’s cute, emotional, dynamic and can have an air of tongue in cheek humour about it.  

Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s important to you?

Probably On and On by Syd Arthur. It was a source of inspiration for us when we first started Cousin Kula and continues to be an immense source of joy and nostalgia. 

What do you hate right now? 

Tories.

What do you love right now?

Pedals & noodle soup (together or separate).

Is there any new music from 2021 that you’re enjoying? 

New Vels Trio album is dope. We are also blessed to be friends with a lot of talented musicians in Bristol who have been releasing some really amazing stuff this year. Guys like Waldos Gift, Lawi Anywar ETC. I’m (Elliot) also releasing a solo album under the name ‘Tamasene’ which Will, Joe (Cousin Kula) & Lawi are playing on, so I’m stoked on that!

What comes next in the Cousin Kula story?

Write the next thang! There’s a follow up single due in early 2021, then after that we’re gunna stew, and see what comes out. Double Dinners was a reflection of the slower pace of life over the last two years, but now everything’s cranked up again. It'll be interesting to see what the Kula machine creates, we never really know! Something a bit more driven though perhaps...

Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?

Make Cousin Kula great again.