Vula Viel is a jazz group from London, playing music based on the sound of the gyil, a wooden xylophone from West Africa, fused with elements of electronica and minimal music. The group was formed by Bex Burch, a musician from Yorkshire. Burch trained in percussion at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she was introduced to the minimalist music of Steve Reich, and then spent three years with the Dagaaba people of the Upper West Region of Ghana. There she learned music and xylophone making as the apprentice of a master xylophonist, before returning to the United Kingdom and forming Vula Viel. The name Vula Viel was given to Burch on the completion of her apprenticeship, and means "Good is Good" in the Dagaaba language, Dagaare.
In October 2015 the group released their first album, Good is Good, which received plaudits from The Guardian, the Financial Times, the London Evening Standard, Songlines, and Jazzwise. In November 2015 the band performed at the London Jazz Festival at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, leading The Guardian to describe them as "the unexpected stars of a glitzy show". In April 2016 Iggy Pop played the band's music on BBC Radio 6, describing it as "Beautiful... dance to it, make love to it, consume it, listen to it, stare at the clouds to it.... That music deserves good reactions!" Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.