DOC357LP-C6

05/04/24

Limited edition indies-only gold vinyl

Khruangbin’s fourth studio album, ‘A La Sala’ (‘To the Room’ in Spanish), is
an exercise in returning in order to go further, and doing so on your own
terms. It continues the mystery and sanctity that is the key to how bassist
Laura Lee Ochoa, drummer Donald ‘DJ’ Johnson Jr. and guitarist Mark
‘Marko’ Speer approach music. If 2020’s ‘Mordechai’, the last studio LP
Khruangbin made without collaborators, was a party record that enhanced
the band’s musical reputation far and wide, then ‘A La Sala’ is the measured
morning after. It’s a gorgeously airy record completed only in the company of
the group’s longtime engineer, Steve Christensen, with minimal overdubs.
It’s a window onto the bounties powering Khruangbin’s vision, a reimagining
and refuelling for the long haul ahead. ‘A La Sala’ scales Khruangbin down to
scale up, a creative strategy with the future in mind.

The trio’s collective musical DNA, the years spent constructing it in
Houston’s local-meets-global cultural stew, ensures the band continues to
sound like no one but itself. A cascade of crisp melodies emanates from
Marko’s reverb-heavy electric, dancing gently around Laura Lee’s minimalist
almost-dub bass triangles, while DJ’s drums serve as the tightened-up
pocket and unwavering dancefloor on which all this movement takes place.
Yet there’s a freshness to ‘A La Sala’’s instrumental interactivity, less
concerned with getting further out than going deeper in,a profound desire to
celebrate the world’s external wonders.

Where prior albums strived towards music’s polyglot edges, such inquiries
now sound like beloved intimacies. Here, Khruangbin’s sonic touch-points
whether spaghetti-western film scores (on ‘Fifteen Fifty-Three’), West African
discos(on ‘Pon Pón’), G-funkfantasias (‘Todavía Viva’), living room dancing
moments (the first single, ‘A Love International’), or even ambient found
sounds(on ‘Farolimde Felgueiras’ and throughout the album)-are ingrained
characteristics. This is who they are. Unique and huge (and growing),
ambitious and driven.

Khruangbin’s aspirations and commitment to playful creativity even extends
to ‘A La Sala’’s vinyl packages. Designed by the band using Marko’s
multitude of travelogue photos, the images are windows from the band’s
living room onto a set of daydreams, scenes of impossible skies, external
glances that illuminate what is going on inside. These too are all about
looking out and looking back, in order to better look ahead.

Tracklisting

Fifteen Fifty-Three
May Ninth
Ada Jean
Farolim de Felgueiras
Pon Pón
Todavía Viva
Juegos y Nubes
Hold Me Up (Thank You)
Caja de la Sala
Three From Two
A Love International
Les Petits Gris