Self-titled release, mixed by Eli Janney (Secret Machines, Jet, Girls Against Boys), is now available at Amoeba, Virgin, Tower, Itunes, Amazon, Insound, Best Buy
".a fantastical, bohemian outfit of digital dreams. Siouxsie-type vocals captivate and ooze over swirly, echoed guitars reminiscent of when U2 were cool, while the drums dance and the synthesizers bleep and blip in a catchy new-wave pulse, leaving the bands secret weapon, the sitar, to flavor each song with a bit of Middle Eastern flair. Viva Ks enchanting and addicting vibe is the most legal, mind-expanding drug youll ever experience." Kat Jetson LA Weekly
Silent Uproar
Silver Lake, California's Viva K's eponymously titled debut record is a swirl of punkish American rock and mysterious Eastern influences, complete with sitar and tabla. These influences, along with singer Ween Callas' vocals, instantly conjure memories of Siouxie and the Banshees, especially when she punctuates vocal lines with small bursts of falsetto. But with Siouxie, the supposed Eastern influence was pure gimmick attained mostly by expert application of eye make up.
With Viva K it's real. All four members have a love of Indian music, and it shows. They've been able to synthesize Eastern and Western sounds seamlessly into an organic whole. Even the band's name is derived from Indian Swami Vivekananda, one of the first Indian philosophers to bring Eastern thought to the West. The story goes that the band members met in a club on the first anniversary of George Harrison's death and discovered their mutual admiration for the dead Beatle and they all shared his love of Indian music.
Viva K's debut opens with gritty rock guitar, while Ween Callas' vocals are crunched down with a vocal effect like a bullhorn as she warbles in near desperation before the guitar nearly disappears in the mix and sitar riffs bubble up from below in a dance/trance.
And so it goes for 45 minutes. Is it a punk record? A dance record? Traditional Indian record? Well that depends on where you dropped the needle on any given song.
It's hard to imagine any sub-genre of adventurous music listeners who wouldn't like this: Goth chicks? Check. Rockers? Check. Trance-dance types? Check.
Rock and sitars could have easily been a transparent gimmick in someone else's hands. But Eastern music is no passing fancy to the members of Viva K. They've taken rock guitar, dance beats, tabla, and sitar and made a clear, albeit shifting musical vision by a band you probably should be hearing from soon. (Van Wickel)
"Bristling guitars, electro-trash beats and vocals reminiscent of PJ Harvey and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs , this LA quartet are busting loose. "
-Filter Magazine.
Los Angeles based Viva K's eponymously titled, full-length debut re-invigorates alternative rock conventions with proudly international stylistic influences, marrying punky firepower with exotic instrumentation and songwriting. Viva K's debut album resulted from a winter-long marathon recording session at "the Ranch" -- the band's old Craftsman house, tucked away in the secluded hills of Silverlake, in East Los Angeles -- living off of wine funded with unemployment checks. As they recorded all of their jams, material started piling up. Studio wiz Skoda began mixing and editing their prolific output and the result was an album's worth of songs that combined the drone element of raga with the simple aggressiveness of punk. Boasting an impressive array of recording, mixing and producing credits (Jet, Secret Machines, Ryan Adams, Jesse Malin, Enon, among others), Eli further sharpened Viva K's album with a rousing, energetic, punk-tinged sensibility, reminiscent of his work with Girls Against Boys. The final results are twelve songs that urge the listener to live consciously in the present ("No Better Time", "Just One More"), remind us we're constantly creating our own reality ("Porch Raga", "Light Light Light") and extol the virtues of positive thought ("Love Everybody", "We Are Safe") while maintaining an anti-war, anti-mind control stance ("Does it Matter", "Who You Are").
