Review: Khruangbin’s A LA SALA
Khruangbin
A LA SALA
Dead Oceans
Soundscape masters Khruangbin have returned with their fifth album, A LA SALA: thirty-nine minutes worthy of a Tarantino film, or a moment of introspection.
The album fades into life with a slowly intensifying hum, like vintage electric tadpoles. The calming opening guitar strums of Fifteen Fifty-Three are quickly joined by the rhythm section plodding along to match, balancing out the ominous tape hiss. It sets the tone for a wide, spacious journey, like a road trip through the desert of their native Texas.
With its meditating chant about memory, May Ninth presents a feeling of melancholy atop an uplifting chord progression. The album’s fidelity makes the memory seem distant, one of many moods created from the pleasantly unpolished mix. A radical, eerie shift follows with Aba Jean’s bare, simple drums and low, twanging guitar—a song for the scene where the road trip turns sinister.
The muffled but danceable four-on-the-floor rhythm of Pon Pon takes the listener to the outside of a party, a perfect song to accompany a drunk D&M. Whispered vocals representing the secrets shared at such times echo through this and the following song, Todavia Vida, an anthem for a reflective late-night walk home.
In the range of vibes and emotions, a constant of this album is top-tier musicianship executed with cool modesty. Even the heavy riffage of Juegos y Nubes fails to break Khruangbin’s cool, which is accentuated with the track’s low-fi warmth. Mark Speer’s internationally-infused country picking keeps the tradition of Texas guitar slingers alive, with his melodicism on Three from Two being a standout moment. DJ Johnson proves he does not need a sampler to play the ‘Funky Drummer’, while bassist Laura Lee Ochoa’s almost dub-inspired syncopation shows an understanding of space on par with an astronaut.
A Love International just in its title sums up Khruangbin: musical influences from all over the world inspiring feelings of warmth and compassion. It shows how effectively the three-piece can convey emotion and meaning, often with very few words.
A LA SALA is the perfect album for people who listen to music with their imagination. Whether reminded of a desert road trip or a grindhouse film score, Khruangbin have untapped a multiverse of sonic worlds and gifted it to music fans far and wide.
AJ MAHAR