A LA SALA
The grace of Khruangbin’s dusty, evocative groove music is that it feels both totally effortless and impeccably put together. Arriving after the group spent a few years exploring collaboration (including 2022’s *Ali* with the Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré and the R&B-centric *Texas Sun* and *Texas Moon* EPs with singer Leon Bridges), *A La Sala* goes back to the bass/guitar/drum-and-occasional-distant-vocals setup they managed to get so much mileage out of in the first place. The collection conjures the psychedelia of spaghetti western soundtracks (“Ada Jean”), the pop of West African funk (“Pon Pón”), and the whispered intimacy of indie folk (“May Ninth“) in strokes so minimal it almost breezes by. Of course, breezing is what this band does by design, and in their range, they give you an album as varied as a mixtape and as gently communicative as a great lamp—you know, the kind of thing that can change the whole mood just by turning it on.
This domestic, stripped-down edition of Khruangbin has all the comforts of home, wherever in the world that may be.
The Houston trio are a formidable, fierce live force, but their latest takes a spacier, back-to-basics approach to their signature sound
A La Sala marks something of a return to the band’s foundational basic elements. For the first time on a Khruangbin album, there are no guests, and the material is reportedly drawn from earlier shelved ideas. However, there is little sense here of drying…
Listening to Khruangbin turns any grey day into a tropical haven, and A LA SALA is another stellar addition to their blissful repertoire.
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In Thai, a Khruangbin directly translates to ‘engine fly’, or what the English-speaking world might interpret as ‘aeroplane’. Stemming from the
The trio return to their relaxed, mid-tempo origins with 12 tracks spanning sunkissed bliss to humid funk and ballads
On 'A La Sala,' Khruangbin once again demonstrates their knack for vibe-setting but struggles to captivate.
A La Sala by Khruangbin album review by Sam Eeckhout for Northern Transmissions. The Texas trio's brand new LP is now out via Dead Oceans
This is a reviewer’s nightmare: it’s literally just Khruangbin doing what Khruangbin do. As ever, the Texan trio are rolling out laid-back psychedelic spaghetti western Tex-Mex country-soul-funk groove after laid-back psychedelic spaghetti western Tex-Mex country-soul-funk groove, all drenched in the usual hazy reverb that practically demand you start drawing for adjectives like “sun-bleached” and talk about big skies and desert landscapes. The instrumentation is, as ever, all super-trad too.