Khruangbin (pronounced KRUNG-BIN) in Thai means airplane. It’s also the name of the mostly instrumental trio that has been making major waves ever since releasing its 2015 debut, “The Universe Smiles Upon You.”
Made up of bassist Laura Lee, drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson and guitarist Mark Speer, the threesome’s ethereal sound has wide-reaching influences ranging from Thai rock/funk, storied jazz-soul composer Roy Ayers and French crooner Serge Gainsbourg to Iranian pop star Googoosh and legendary reggae/jazz guitarist Ernest Ranglin.
The vibes Khruangbin achieves are a surreal mish-mash of airy surf rock and dreamy dub with a dash of noir-like nuance thrown in for good measure. And while the band’s recent efforts like its breakthrough album, 2020’s “Mordechai,” and the 2022 follow-up, “Ali,” found the band incorporating more sonic effects on the former and collaborating with Vieux Farka Touré (son of renowned Malian multi-instrumentalist Ali Farka Touré) on the latter, Khruangbin’s latest effort, last year’s “A La Sala,” finds the trio going back to basics. It was a welcome pivot for Speer.
“My favorite part of recording “A La Sala” was scaling it back to the simplicity of how we did our first two records,” Speer said. “Personally, I was starting to use lots more electronic doo-dads on the guitar to make it sound different and change things up as we go. On this one, I don’t think I changed the settings on the pedals and the amp for the entire recording. I just changed what was on the guitar. Maybe move the pick-up to this one or changed the tone knob and that was kind of it. I didn’t do a whole lot of electronic gadgetry. It’s all music. And being able to work with my best friends on this thing, that was a really fun part of it. It was kind of digging into the vaults.”
Recorded over three weeks in 2023 at Terminal C in Houston, Texas, these dozen songs on “A La Sala” are a delightful collection of fun-size soundscapes. Highlights range from the Afro-pop dance shuffle “Pon Pón,” accented by Lee’s whispered Spanish count-off and the chugging psychedelic funk of “Hold Me Up (Thank You),” punctuated by Congolese-flavored guitar lines and “May Ninth,” a floating slice of surreal pop gently pushed along by Lee’s airy vocals. Elsewhere, “Ada Jean” uses sinewy guitar riffs and a sensuous bass line to convey a vibe that sounds like Portishead scoring a Jamaican murder mystery.
The musical mix can all be traced back to a smorgasbord of ideas Speer said he and his bandmates are constantly accumulating while keeping that original Khruangbin sound going.
“You get into the sterile environment of a studio and it’s kind of like, ‘Write something good,'” he recalled. “You’re on the spot if you’re in a recording session to make something creative. So, me and the rest of my band members tend to have a little grab bag of bibs and bobs that we’ve recorded when we’re inspired. It could be sitting on the couch playing guitar or whistling something as you’re walking through a city or whatever. Maybe it’s something we did at a soundcheck, and we made sure to record it on one of our phones so you can revisit it later.”
He added, “We had a lot of little things that had inspired us and bits of music we were going to start putting together. And a lot of that stuff didn’t even make it on this record. It’s something we continue doing and it’s something I always try to continue doing.”
That same approach applies to when Khruangbin hits the stage. Despite not even being in their second decade of playing together, the threesome has done 18 tours and shared bills with everyone from Trey Anastasio and Leon Bridges to Big Daddy Kane and Father John Misty. In addition, they’ve played myriad festivals including Coachella, South By Southwest and Bonnaroo. Suffice it to say, Khruangbin will seek to create a dynamic show that connects with audiences each night on the current tour. The group will be at the Hayden Homes Amphitheater on May 28.
“We’ve been playing this new record in its entirety the first half of the show,” Speer said. “What I really like about that is how we’ve been playing it every night. We play it in order as what the record is. Through playing it, the songs tell you what they want. How we played the record the first night (of the current tour) versus the first time we played it, which was way back in Australia — it’s different and changes. It’s an organic beast that continues to change because we’re not playing to a click track. There are no specific cues aside from the music that happens. Little mistakes will be made, and it might be something that’s really cool that we’ll want to do again. Songs start to change ever so slightly. Dynamics start to change, time shifts, and it just really makes the music speak.”
Speer’s own musical journey found him starting out as a bass player in the ’90s trying to break into the Houston gospel/R&B/hip-hop scene before switching to guitar as a means of staying employed (“I was trying to pay rent and there were a whole bunch of bass players who were way better than me, so I decided to play this other thing so I could get work.”) And while his early guitar influences included classical guitarists Julian Bream and Heitor Villa-Lobos, it was Ranglin who sent him down the World Music rabbit hole that would play a large part in shaping Khruangbin’s future sound.
“Through him and his amazing guitar work with loads of different artists, I was immersed in the world of Jamaican music and subsequently the music of the rest of the Caribbean,” Speer said. “Through him I discovered Lee Perry, Tubby, Monty Alexander, Sugar Minott, King Sporty and many more. He was my gateway.”
That musical inquisitiveness and open-minded outlook continue to shape and evolve Khruangbin’s surreal sound. It’s a point of pride for Speer, Lee and Johnson — both in the studio and on stage.
“When you go see some classical performances they’re interpreting the written music,” Speer explained. “The written music doesn’t change, just the performer. That’s kind of what we’re trying to do night after night — let the music be hopefully new every night. It is the same songs. We’re just trying to play them in a different way, not necessarily like jamming, but changing how we say these things. We still try to build the show to an ecstatic release, much like a DJ would slowly creep the tempos up through the night and by the end, you’re covered in sweat and it’s all out there on the dancefloor.”
This article appears in Source Weekly May 15, 2025.
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