Killer Kaya explores two competing sensations on “Dune Buggy.”
“It was inspired by the feeling of being surrounded by oversized, endless desert landscapes and the strange sense of loneliness that comes with those surroundings,” says frontman Apoorva Chiplunkar. “We wanted to capture the contrast between feeling isolated and feeling connected to something much bigger.”
The first of four upcoming singles from the Austin psych/rock outfit, the track finds Killer Kaya venturing ever further into the international sounds that have increasingly shaped a 12-year evolution that began in Santa Barbara, Calif. And the net they cast was already wide to begin with, pulling in elements of prog, Latin jazz, dub and Tropicália alongside the work of late-’60s/early-’70s touchstones like Jefferson Airplane, Shocking Blue and Curved Air.
At the center of it all is Chiplunkar, a classically trained vocalist whose dramatic, operatic delivery gives Killer Kaya an identity that’s difficult to mistake for anyone else. Vintage Indian psychedelia has also become an important part of the group’s vocabulary, helping distinguish Chiplunkar and Co. within Austin’s famously crowded psychedelic ecosystem.
We’re proud to premiere Killer Kaya’s “Dune Buggy.”
—Hobart Rowland
