Khruangbin – Con Todo El Mundo
By George Moraitis
| Label: | Dead Oceans – DOC153LP |
|---|---|
| Format: | Vinyl, LP, Album |
| Country: | US |
| Released: | 26 Jan 2018 |
| Genre: | Funk / Soul, Folk, World, Country |
| Style: | Funk, Psychedelic |
From time to time I find that instrumental music communicates more than lyrics could ever express. The emotion unleashed by a whimsical riff of a Stratocaster guitar, the flick of an organ key, the delicate pluck of a violin string or the propulsive funky rhythm of a bass guitar can sometimes be limited by the addition of words. The freedom our mind experiences when reacting to music can be ‘conditioned’, or ‘framed’ by a lyric that gives you a meaning or context to follow. Sometimes it’s simply better to interpret music uninhibited by constraints.
I thought about this recently when I played the album ‘Con Todo El Mundo’ by the band Khruangbin, one of my absolutely favourite instrumental bands. Made up of Laura Lee (bass), Mark Speer (guitar) and Donald ‘DJ’ Johnson (drums), this Texas-based trio got its start playing 60’s & 70’s Thai funk, gospel, R&B, psychedelic rock and dub music. Somewhere along the journey, Laura’s soulfully funky bass lines, Mark’s liquid guitar story-telling and DJ’s crisp drumming style gave Khruangbin’s songs a unique identity and this fantastic band became a genuine ‘vibemaster’.
Some instrumental bands bamboozle you with virtuoso performances or extreme sounds, almost like they are compensating for the lack of a vocal. They try to grab your attention by being different. Not this band. Khruangbin’s strength is that their music breathes and creates an atmosphere or ‘vibe’ that triggers memories and feels oddly familiar yet fresh and interesting. This album oozes a 1970’s Iranian funk and soul inspired beauty. Khruangbin (which means ‘airplane’ in Thai) are masters of endless grooves, hypnotic soundscapes, psychedelic vibes that transcend cultures, genres and periods. Their music instantly makes you forget about what’s bothering you and transports you to a happy place. You get absolutely lost in the band’s fertile psychedelic world. Throw in a few retro surf riffs and whispered vocal lines and you’ve got an aesthetic that feels at home at any beach or desert in the world.
‘Cómo Me Quieres’ is a tribute to Laura’s grandfather. When she was a little girl, he would ask her, “How much do you love me? or “Cómo me quieres?” The only answer he would accept was ‘Con todo el mundo’ (With all the world). To me, this song captures the nostalgia of missing someone deeply.
‘Lady And Man’ was written on a remote Texas farm where the band records when watching the movie Clueless on an old VHS tape. One day, while listening to the argument between Dionne and Murray, Speer started playing a little call-and-response guitar over it. The band messing around with it, then added a few melodic tones from an argument in Romancing the Stone and the song became an ode to bickering couples. ‘Maria También’ was inspired by the band’s interest in Middle Eastern music, particularly from pre-Revolution Iran.
Laura’s grandpa used to say hello to everyone he met and call them ‘neighbour’. He used to pay attention and always made time for conversations with people. When Laura first moved to London from Texas, she’d walk to work and say hello to the people she passed. But London wasn’t the kind of place you’d often get a hello back. So she started making up conversations in her head as if the person had responded. One day, she turned one of these one-sided conversations into a melody, then added in lyrics from a letter she wrote to her grandpa after he passed. The resulting song ‘Cómo Te Quiero’ is the band’s version of a gospel song.
According to the band, Mark sometimes disappears for days and nobody ever knows where he is. It usually means he’s gotten really obsessed with something and can’t focus on anything else, like organising his songs by city of origin, or finding the essential funk records from China. On ‘Shades Of Man’, you’re hearing a product of a ‘Mark disappearance’, which was the time he got obsessed with re-creating an Electone organ in Ableton. He spent a week programming it himself, trying to get it exactly right. At the end of the track is an interlude between two Iranian women figuring out how to say ‘Khruangbin’.
As far as the lyrics go, the song ‘Evan Finds The Third Room’ is basically one big pile of inside jokes. Musically, this track is inspired by Mark’s obsession with the late 70’s proto-zouk coming out of the French Antilles. Mark wrote ‘A Hymn’ while playing guitar at St. John’s Church in Houston. It’s where he and DJ first met 13 years ago, playing together in the church band every Sunday. Part of their gig was to play music while the pastor blessed the morning service, so they’d usually create a slow meditative vibe while the candles were being lit. This song is an ode to that time, with a guitar melody on top inspired by two of Mark’s favourite guitarists, Julian Bream and Prince Rogers Nelson, and based the progressions on Baroque composers like Bach and Handel.
Laura’s really good at following rules and Mark’s really good at breaking them. It’s what’s at the heart of their musical progression together: she brings order and structure to his playing and he encourages freedom and experimentation in hers. This is what the song ‘Rules’ is about.
“While at the farm, Laura Lee was practicing playing without the rules and wrote this tough-as-nails, doesn’t-give-a-s*** bass line. Mark played some scales and phrasing on top, inspired by Kourosh Yaghmaei, the incredible Persian guitar wizard, and we laid some badass Ennio Morricone-inspired vocals on top. Et voila.”
‘Friday Morning’ is about risk-taking in relationships, that feeling of vulnerability when you choose to jump in head-first and trust another person. Towards the end of the song, you can hear the faint traces of Laura reading aloud from old love letters, which she had to take about three shots of tequila to get through.
This is a real ‘feel good’ album and frankly, just great music created by three very diverse creative souls. Some purely instrumental music can be played in the background. This is not one of them! Even if you’re cooking or talking to people, Khruangbin’s music has a way of tapping you on the shoulder, pulling at your attention. Sprinkled with snippets of spoken word, faint vocal melodies, and ranging and impeccably performed guitar solos, this record feels like art with no ethnic identity or time stamp and elicits an eclectic enjoyment of melody, rhythm and ‘cool vibe’.
Track listing
Como Me Quieres
Lady And Man
Maria También
August 10
Como Te Quiero
Shades Of Man
Evan Finds The Third Room
A Hymn
Rules
Friday Morning