Khruangbin is an American musical trio from Houston, Texas, with Laura Lee on bass, Mark Speer on guitar, and Donald Ray "DJ" Johnson Jr. on drums. The band is known for blending global music influences, such as classic soul, dub and psychedelia. Their debut studio album, The Universe Smiles Upon You, draws from the history of Thaimusic in the 1960s, while their second album, Con Todo El Mundo, has influences from Spain and the Middle East. Speer, Lee, and DJ also host "AirKhruang" radio shows on NTS Radio and Facebook Live.
Background
Speer and Johnson met in 2004 while playing in Rudy Rasmus' St. John's Methodist Church gospel band in Houston, Texas. The church employed Speer as the guitarist and Johnson as the organist. “When we first started the band, we wanted to have a formula,” he says. “It’s like, ‘This is what we do, and we’re not gonna try and go outside the box too much. We’re gonna explore the box we’re in. I’ve always been a big fan of that. I used to be in bands where was like, ‘Man, we’ve gotta think outside the box!’ And all I’m thinking is: ‘You guys don’t even know.’ Music should never be just for the sake of being experimental. Before you even start, you have to know what you’re experimenting with first.” Speer said. In 2007, Speer met Lee through friends, where they initially connected over a shared love of Afghan music and Middle Eastern architecture. In 2009, Lee started to learn the bass with guidance from Speer. After playing for six months, she auditioned and got the gig to be the bassist for Yppah on his upcoming tour. Speer already had the gig as guitarist for Yppah and had encouraged Lee to audition. In 2010, both Lee and Speer went on tour with Yppah who opened for Bonobo. The tour motivated the two of them to make music together more seriously, leading them to form Khruangbin. Speer and Lee went to a barn where they developed the bass-heavy, psychedelic sound that became the basis of the band's aesthetic. Upon their return, they asked Johnson to join the band as drummer, to play simple break-beats under the guitar and bass. The barn, located in the 300-person town of Burton, Texas, would become the site of all future Khruangbin recording sessions. The band has a longterm working relationship with Houston-based engineer Steve Christensen. When asked to play their first gig, Lee, who was learning to speak Thai at the time, decided they should use her favorite Thai word "khruangbin", which means "flying engine", literally, or "aeroplane," as their name. Speer said that, had they had the foresight to predict the band's success, they might not have chosen a name that was so difficult to pronounce. The band's name symbolizes the international set of influences that shaped the band's formation. A notable part of the band's visual style is the black wigs that Lee and Speer wear on stage, and during promotional interviews and photoshoots. Originally this was to help them move from the stage to the merchandise stand without being recognised during early tours.
Career
After touring with Bonobo, the artist featured Khruangbin's song, 'Calf Born in Winter,' on his 2014 compilation. The song became one of the most popular tracks on the record, helping create an initial audience for the band's first EP, History of Flight, and debut record, The Universe Smiles Upon You, in 2015. Shortly thereafter, Khruangbin were named The Guardians "New Band of the Week," opening for acts like Father John Misty, Tycho, Chicano Batman, and Massive Attack. They also joined the festival circuit, playing a string of festivals like Glastonbury, Bonnaroo, ACL, Outside Lands, Desert Daze, and South by Southwest. In January 2018, Khruangbin released their second album, Con Todo El Mundo. The title of the album came from Laura Lee's Mexican-American grandfather, who would often ask, "How do you love me?" and would only accept one response, "Con todo el mundo," or in English, "with all the world." The band has been quoted as saying the title of the record is also a reference to the diverse range of musical influences that inspired it, primarily from the Middle East. Shortly before the release of Con Todo El Mundo, the band also covered Ma Beham Nemiresim by Googoosh, a popular Iranian songstress, for the Artists Rise Against Islamophobia compilation, and created a Tehran-specific playlist on Spotify, in addition to many other city-specific playlists, as part of their AirKhruang DJ series. In 2018, Khruangbin recorded live for Spotify an arrangement of the Indian song Khuda Bhi Aasman Se, played by Mohammed Rafi in the movie Dharti, a Bollywood movie classic. They also opened for Leon Bridges on his recent 2018 tour, as well as Trey Anastasio's Ghosts of the Forest tour in 2019.
Style
Khruangbin's musical genre is a hotly debated topic amongst critics. Mostly instrumental, the band's sound has been described as soul, surf, psychedelic, and funk, with one website even describing them as "electronic". The most commonly used term to describe Khruangbin's music is Thai funk, though the band members themselves challenge the convention of genres, publicly refusing to be pigeonholed into one particular label. As music journalist Rob Shepherd noted for PostGenre, "The , which translates to “flying engine” or airplane in Thai, is perfect for their music as it often crosses borders and cultures."
