Viva K 'Viva K' album

Viva K resulted from a winter-long marathon recording session at the Ranch, living off of wine funded with unemployment checks. As the band 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. Eli Janney of legendary alternative rock band Girls Against Boy's was enlisted to mix Viva K's album. 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.

The members of Viva K first met and began playing music together because of their common love of George Harrison and his use of Indian instrumentation and rhythm fused with Western pop music. Not long after the quartet's first social encounter, Evan wandered into a Hollywood pawnshop and purchased a used sitar rumored to have once belonged to the late Brian Jones. The four eventual members of Viva K soon discovered that each owned Indian instruments, and concluded that they were fated to play music together.

The band's music contains an anthemic, energetic message of light in an attempt to counterbalance the tense political state of the world. It is out of this philosophy that the band was formed. The name Viva K is a reference to Vivekananda, the first philosopher from India to bring Eastern thought to the West.

In late 2004, the band signed to New York City-based indie label Stinky Records (Gram Rabbit, Low Flying, Singapore Sling, Benzos). Viva K have performed showcases at the CMJ Music Festival and the South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, and recently played a successful month-long residency -- to packed houses -- at Los Angeles hipster club The Echo.

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Viva K - Viva K