Album "A La Sala"

Khruangbin: World music in the summer twilight

The soundtrack to ultimate relaxation: Khruangbin are coming to Austria for the first time this summer with their fourth album "A La Sala".

(Bild: David Black, Dead Oceans, Krone KREATIV)

With primarily instrumental sounds between dub, funk, trip-hop and psychedelic escalation, the US trio Khruangbin has been thrilling the masses for some time now. With their fourth album "A La Sala", the band is coming to Austria for the first time this summer - and is guaranteed to provide the coziest twilight pint of the season.

In a thoroughly declined and explained world, it is difficult to get involved with things that are outside the realm of ordinary knowledge. Algorithms, habits, radio stations and common playlists deal with templates and pigeonholing that ultimately rely on common pillars. Of course, music likes to break out of these fixed patterns, but when it does, it rarely manages to stand out from an elitist and hidden underground. One of these rare exceptions goes by the melodious name of Khruangbin, hails from Houston, Texas and has been on the road as a three-piece for almost 15 years. With ever-increasing success, immense talent and probably also the necessary luck for the right timing, which is absolutely essential when conquering the market with unfamiliar sounds.

From the barn to the arena
Guitarist Mark Speer and drummer Donald "DJ" Johnson met exactly 20 years ago in a gospel band for the local Methodist church, three years later Laura Lee Ochoa came on board, whom Speer met through their shared love of Afghan music and Arabic architecture. Ochoa, who was gently familiar with guitar and piano, learned to play bass with Speer, practiced intensively for six months and was integrated into the band with this instrument. As early as 2010, they toured - still without Johnson - as the support act for Bonobo and sparked the spirit for a new project along the way. The mixture of heavy bass and psychedelic guitar sounds was soon mixed with Johnson's simple drum breakbeats, while they worked meticulously on their first songs in a barn in a small Texas town with a population of 300, free from all templates.

Ochoa came up with the unusual band name because she had just learned the Thai language and Khruangbin ("airplane") was her favorite word. It was only years later that Mark Speer would admit in an interview that a simpler term would probably have been chosen if the widespread success of the project had been even remotely foreseen. With the release of their debut album "The Universe Smiles Upon You" in 2015, the trio was quickly named "Band Of The Week" by the renowned Guardian and gigs supporting the likes of Father John Misty, Massive Attack and the Glastonbury Festival followed hot on their heels. In the band's early days, the sound was still heavily inspired by 60s Thai sounds and developed into a colorful mixture of different styles on the following albums "Con Todo El Mundo" (2018) and "Mordechai" (2020), which moved from instrumental to vocal for the first time.

Indeed,world music
In the sun-drenched sound corset, the term "world music" is far more than a rough concept for primary categorization. East Asian surf rock, Persian funk, Jamaican dub, psychedelic rock references, Tash Sultana memorial sea sounds and a hefty portion of hearty soul find their way into the wildly mixed but always catchy and comprehensible sound world of the Americans. In addition to their eclectic sound, Speer and Ochoa also surprise with their eccentric stage demeanor. In order to avoid any kind of personality cult, the two front musicians like to wear black wigs, while drummer Johnson cleverly hides behind his kit anyway. With Khruangbin, the music is always in the foreground and is not distracted by external effects. This is perhaps also one reason why the vocal part on the new album "A La Sala" has been turned down again.

The fourth album once again trumps with picturesque soundscapes that, despite all the joy of experimentation, never elude audible comprehensibility. As with "Con Todo El Mundo", Laura Lee Ochoa's new album title is also a reference to family. "A La Sala" was her exclamation as a child when she wanted her relatives to gather in the living room. The individual songs are also linked to this playful approach to warm nostalgia. For the first time, Khruangbin completely dispenses with guests - probably also due to her great success and growing self-confidence - and creates an acoustic that only moves in nuanced psychedelia, but otherwise prefers to center on the informality of a self-experienced highway road movie. From the opener "Fifteen Fifty-Three" to the closer "Les Petits Gris", the album is enveloped by the evening chirping of crickets in a natural garden and offers a rich palette of wellness for the ears in between.

Soul therapy in singing bowl garb
Between the West African disco and playful ambient cascades, a voice only rarely takes center stage, which is incredibly good for the vibe of the record. While "Mordechai" was also Khruangbin's most successful album to date, "A La Sala" sees the band, which has grown in terms of musical skills and budget, return to the trippy, chilled sound of its popular predecessors. Between all the dreamy, fabulous songs, however, "A La Sala" lacks a certain stringency on the whole. A musical model that, in addition to the gently rippling theatricality, also has something compelling and demanding to offer in order to at least briefly break through the perceived tranquillity of an elegiac tea party. Khruangbin deliver soul therapy poured into music in the guise of singing bowls, but know how to do so with an enviable level of relaxation. And quite honestly: there is already enough noise in this world.

Live in Vienna
On July 17, Khruangbin will be performing "A La Sala" and the best hits of recent years for the first time in Austria - in Vienna's Metastadt. Tickets are still available at www.oeticket.com for the open-air event, where Parcels and Lukas Oscar will also ensure a relaxed summer evening.