Khruangbin

Crung-bin?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyWhFB9ijzA

hard left crypto-Brexiteer Jeremy Khruangbin

New EP with Leon Bridges is very nice. It's probably a really obvious thing to say that being a backing band suits them, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

Track from it came up on an apple music Playlist (Vol de Nuit) like 5 minutes after I read your post. Pretty nice.

Very nice vs pretty nice lol

The new EP is grebt (and uh surprisingly sexy? Lol.) Sometimes I forget they're a Houston band, my brain wants to place them somewhere in the deserts of the American SW, but it all makes sense when I hear these songs. I can't wait for warm weather so I can cruise around listening with my windows down as God intended

"texas sun" is great. it brought to mind a replacements song i couldn't place because i haven't listened in years. turns out it's reminding me of "sixteen blue."

gah new ep is a SNOOOOOOZE

isn't that kind of their thing?

Yeah I couldn't listen to their full albums (heck, usually was bored before each song ended) cause found it too boring in big dose without vocals so as Jeff said they really benefit from a singer's contributions

New album, ‘Morfechai’ on Friday. The 3 songs released to streaming so far all have vocals - apparently it’s the trio themselves singing. Sounding very promising.

Nice feature here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/arts/music/khruangbin-mordechai.html

*Mordechai

I wasn't particularly looking for more vocals with my Khruangbin, but these do sound good!

Hm, I hadn't heard any of the new songs, was waiting to hear the whole thing, but I'm really disappointed to hear they have so many vocals. Didn't really get into that Leon Bridges EP and that sounds like them leaning into a direction I really don't want to hear them go.

feel the opposite. was getting bored by just instrumentals, couldn't hold my attention for whole album of that.

Yeah I'm interested in hearing them with vox. Their music so far is pleasant but not that compelling for me.

Maybe I'm just bummed about how boring I thought the Leon Bridges thing was and I'm putting too much weight on that, hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised!

yeah, I really like this band and root for them but these vocals are not compelling and frankly the sheer fact of having vocals just changes the music, I think you have to write and arrange in fundamentally different ways, so it's like they lost what they had but didn't gain anything

Agree. I'm gonna give the record another chance but literally nothing grabbed my attention. It's all "pleasant". You can be chill n moody while still being engaging, but this isn't it.

it's all so soo *yawns*

the one track they've been playing on the radio has very similar vocals to the previous stuff i've heard, ie low in mix, not really full sentences. i guess the lp has them more to the fore?

with their instrumental work, khruangbin had achieved something distinct and special and genuinely dub-adjacent: the sense of a music that is chill and pleasant but also sustaining, undergirded somehow. and then the new one just feels like background snooze.

yes, they seemed to have lost something special that was hard to define

but more and more I'm just coming around to the thinking that 90% of good bands/artist are only going to make 2 or 3 really essential albums. Especially ones that operate in a pretty narrow musical space, which is fine. You either keep doing the same thing to lesser effect, or try to change and it loses what you had.

that's not even a criticism just a reality. Even with all time great bands, like the Ramones definitely have some cool stuff in their later catalog (I'm a big End of the Century guy) but at the same time if someone only engaged with the first three albums are they really missing out? I don't know

good post

I think of five great albums as the threshold for crazy accomplishment. Most bands that have done that had some hot streak where they drop two or three great records in a row in 18 months. Very few bands get to work that way anymore.

I find all the Krungbin records a snooze and all the concert videos I've watched amazing. Seeing how they make these zoned-out sunset dreamscapes with a power trio lineup is integral component to their effect. That said, the algorithms now feed me stuff like the KEXP performance of Yin Yin which is totally adjacent yet utterly awful. So comically awful I'm sure the recommendations will only get worse, because I had to watch the whole thing.

But this whole noovoux-exotica-crossover-jamz idea is so fraught to begin with! It can only lead to misfires. Khruangbin seem to be unusually graceful.

Like there's a great psych cumbia band, Frente Cumbiero, that did this record with Mad Professor that's got some of the best left-field dub I've encountered, but is marred by Brian-Wilson-level rapping. The first salvo of their Cumbia/Japanese trad crossover is a gem, but this idea could swerve into the ditch pretty quickly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy6No4Xuq_E

One thing that I do feel like is happening is that "psych" music is becoming something completely free-standing from it's rock roots, kinda like what happened to metal 20 years ago.

Shazamed these guys twice today, cheers

I've been coming back to this a fair amount, and it's better each time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4xKvHANqjk

I can't watch these videos because I become mesmerised by the way that Laura moves and I feel kind of dirty. Love that she plays a $150 SX Jazz Bass exclusively and sounds absolutely fucking fantastic. Many would kill for the thump she gets.

she is definitely mesmerizing and sexy but I also find something kind of transcendent about it that does not feel dirty to me. Had no idea about the bass - it not only sounds great but looks really nice. And she's a great bassist.

Excellent players - I'd like to see them live. This funky chunk of bright and breezy soul lifted me up this Summer :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo4KMGiy--Y

Nice track! also I forgot but I think Lee said she hasn't changed the strings on her bass since she bought it, like, ten years ago. An excellent counterargument to middle-aged gearheads like me.

I love these guys. They’re effortless in sounding cool.

That said , I feel they’ve trapped themselves into a very particular style and deviating too far from the formula makes them lose what makes them interesting in the first place. I don’t see much room too grow their signature sound. Maybe another album before most of their audience jumps ship.

This video facing down a gearhead is wry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr7ScpVj1QY

pray for me, somehow the eBay algorithm threw a seafoam green version of Laura's bass at me this morning, it was used and cheap so I weakened and bought it

Loving their Glastonbury set

Can’t wait to see them in a few weeks!!!

According to The Guardian's review they did a cover of "Rhythm is a Dancer" by Snap!:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/live/2022/jun/24/glastonbury-live-2022-friday?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-62b640118f0875bb61abb450#block-62b640118f0875bb61abb450

There's footage of this on Youtube, although not from Glastonbury:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa8ko1NHSJ4

A couple of things surprise me. Firstly they seem to play live 365 days of the year. Perhaps because they just have to carry two guitars, a drum kit, and several different wardrobes. Secondly they draw much bigger crowds than I expected. I'd never really thought of them as an actual mainstream band, more a kind of large cult.

The Snap cover was a medley also including 'Gypsy Woman' and Inner City's 'Big Fun'. They did a blast of 'Misirlou' and 'Apache' earlier in the set.

xpost they're headlining the 8K capacity shed in my small American town ... i was quite surprised.

Watching Khruangbin now. I only know them from their version of Christmastime Is Here, but they're pretty groovy aren't they

— Tracey Thorn (@tracey_thorn) June 26, 2022

they're on the new ron trent album

The prevailing theory on Youtube is that the band is actually controlled by the drummer, who telepathically uses the guitarist and bassist as meat puppets. Modern Drummer's interviewer didn't bring this up explicitly, although reading between the lines it's obvious that he has at least considered the left-hand path:
http://web.archive.org/web/20200725065553/https://www.moderndrummer.com/article/khruangbins-dj-johnson/

"In church it’s not about you; you disappear and let God play through you, become a vessel. I’m serving the music. Am I being consistent in my tempo? Am I where I need to be? Am I too loud? Am I not loud enough? I’m concentrating on all those things."

Elsewhere in the interview he admits to splitting his brain in two, and that "we’re basically just a group of listeners. We all listen to each other", but it's obvious that he's not talking about listening-listening. He's talking about something else.

In my brief single days a couple of years ago, when I was on Bumble, every second profile was a fan of this band. I presume they're somehow huge in the Tough Mudder scene - there's definitely something corporate guru about their music, vibe etc. Obviously I completely detest everything I've heard of them

jesus you're fucking tedious

I beg your pardon, who on earth are you

some sort of AI manifestation, an ILX regen, 'adam', created in the image of a music board where hating on bands isn't the vibe, maaan

enjoy your shitty jam band m8

my fairly recently launched search for the perfect 2br co-op in jackson heights is already feeling dead in the water--not because stuff is getting snapped up overnight anymore but because i'm afraid interest rates will be sky-high before sellers figure shit out and stop expecting people to offer 120% of asking off the rip.

― adam, Wednesday, 15 June 2022 22:49 (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

our hero adulting to the vibesy strains of khruangbin

I mean it's so cool to go find ppls posts from an unrelated thread and drag them into the present thread for the sake of weak zings.

You were a joke when you started posting and you're a joke now.

And i dngaf about this band at the end of the day.

oh heaven help me the milquetoasts of ILX are daggers drawn in the Senate

The fact that you think you're a senator around here speaks volumes.

I'm fuckin Caesar m8

hey lj remember when you used to burst into threads and completely derail them to encourage everyone to talk about you instead? Khruangbin are a pleasant band to listen & chill out to imo

i have a theory that kruangbin are as huge as they are (devervedly so imho—no lj) in part due to the youtube algorithm. one of those bands that would pop up in my youtube sidebar constantly years before i ever listened to them

My theory has to do with the increasing legalization of weed in the past few years...

I found them from the Tiny Desk Concerts - which I clicked on because YouTube wanted me to listen to Superorganism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K49QKVR0p0

If you type "*band drawn from Ilxor subconsious*" into Dall-e Mini you get Superorganism. They're a smudged, nightmarish evocation of Ilxor's subconscious. Hip, but too hip. Quirky, but too quirky. Young, but too young. They are the band that would appear if you gave an alien sculptor a description of Stereolab.

Khruangbin's Tiny Desk Concert has eleven million views, which is something. They sound like the kind of music the Youtube sidebar features - dusty 1970s psych-folk-rock crate finds. Watching the concert again again I'm nostalgia for the days of "the cat album", the "man running along a road" album, the "jazz pianist who started in his thirties" album, the "naked woman sitting on a big stuffed alpaca" album, Music for Nine Post Cards, "Plastic Love" etc.

I find it weird that this band would draw heat. They are cool and stylish and have a fun sound. They're nice to listen to and a bit limited in range. They don't seem extremely consequential to me, and they don't seem like they are treated as some kind of music-changing force by anyone.

It came out last Summer but loving Σtella's v Khruangbinesque album 'Up And Away' produced by Redinho.

Really enjoyed the album with Vieux Farka Toure, feel like these guys are at their best collaborating with others.