Khruangbin
tl;dr
Khruangbin is a dope band known for blending various global music influences into a groovy, hypnotic, and psychedelic sound. Check out their albums The Universe Smiles Upon You (2015), Con Todo El Mundo (2018), Mordechai (2020), and A LA SALA (2024) and their 2 collaborations with Leon Bridges Texas Sun (2020) and Texas Moon (2022). Also, Felicia and I live with a full-sized celebrity cutout. Full write-up below.
If you've been over to me and Felicia's house at any time since March of last year, it would be really hard to not notice the 5'10" Leon Bridges cutout hanging out in our living room. Or dining room. Sometimes he's even chilling near the basement door waiting to unintentionally spook you as you walk by on your way to the kitchen at 2 in the morning to grab a frozen cookie dough ball. So why has Leon lived with us for almost a year and a half? Great question. Let me tell you a story...
Sometime in 2021, Dylan told me that Khruangbin is one of his favorite bands, so I decided to check them out. I'd seen the name before because in 2020 Leon Bridges had collaborated with them on the Texas Sun EP – a 20-minute release of soulful, relaxing, and chill summer vibes. Perfect for right now.
While I had enjoyed Texas Sun, I realized I never really understood Khruangbin's contribution. Were they a band? A guitar player? Just a single person producer like Tycho[1]? How was I even pronouncing the word in my head? Curious to learn more, I started by listening to their 2018 release Con Todo El Mundo a few times, but for some reason it just didn't connect with me. I'm not sure if it was the time of day, place, my headspace at the moment, or what, but it sounded very "meh" to me and didn't warrant repeating.
Anyway, fast forward to February 2022. Leon Bridges and Khruangbin had just released their follow up EP Texas Moon. One Saturday night Felicia and I were about to give it our first listen and I was introducing the record and providing some background context when she asked, "How do you say that word?" I think I was saying something like "crew-ang-bin". I shrugged and said we should find out by watching a live performance. Bands always announce themselves. A YouTube rabbit hole begins:
- We watched their Tiny Desk concert. WTFuck?! They don't mention their name at all. At the end they just awkwardly gesture their flat hands towards each other. Also, are they wearing wigs?
- Next up, a live performance on KEXP. Hmm. They have quite the quirky origin story. Burgers. MySpace. How'd this quiet Black dude get involved? Oh, Jesus. Of course.
- And then we experienced the following emotions:
All in we spent probably 3 hours on YouTube staying up too late watching, rewatching, and discovering this band and falling in love with them. And yeah, we also learned how to pronounce "KRUNG-bin"[3].
The next day I listened through their entire discography. The Universe Smiles Upon You (2015), Con Todo El Mundo (2018), and Mordechai (2020). Every song was a hit. These were instantly going into life's music rotation. Perhaps it was also the relaxed yet energized Sunday morning vibe that really helped the music connect with us[4]. They blend global musical influences into a sound that's dreamy, groovy, psychedelic, hypnotic, and extremely pleasant. And, on brand for me, I immediately bought every record on vinyl 😄.
That same year they announced a tour, I bought tickets, and the show was a banger. Khruangbin's concert set was way more energetic than we expected - probably a top 3 concert for us in the last few years. Later they released Ali with Vieux Farka Touré[5], and this year they dropped A LA SALA.
Khruangbin is now a favorite band 🙌.
Oh, I almost forgot: so how does a full-sized celebrity cutout of Leon Bridges that has lived in our home for over a year connect to this musical journey? Well, the reason I was "introducing" Texas Moon to Felicia on that pivotal night is because I was practicing what I thought might be a cool thing to do at an artist spotlight party we'd soon be hosting - A Night of Leon Bridges. And a few days later while inviting my coworkers, my friend Eva suggested I buy a celebrity cutout for the event. Something about "my friend lived with a full-sized John Cena for a few years and that was amazing and hilarious." Well, I can confirm. Leon finds himself in the background of dozens of family photos and videos and work Zoom calls. He really is part of our life now. It's amazing. It's hilarious. And our kids are growing up like it's a totally normal thing 😬.
So if you ever find yourself in Boston, Leon would love for you to stop by and say hi.
1. Who, by the way, is a 5-person band now.
2. These lyrics were originally a placeholder and reference some inside joke about their manager on tour.
3. Means "airplane" in Thai.
4. I've recently been talking to Kennedy about matching the tempo and feeling of music to the experience you're trying to create now or in the near future.
5. Named after and featuring song covers of Ali Vieux Touré.