Khruangbin comes back home
HOUSTON’S KHRUANGBIN RETURNS AFTER GLOBAL SUCCESS. |
Khruangbin’s surreal year began on a boat with a bunch of jam bands and began to wrap up a few weeks ago in the desert with the legendary Wu-Tang Clan.
“It’s been surreal, dude,” says Mark Speer, the group’s guitarist. “Very surreal. I mean, we’re this band with a weird name, playing mainly instrumental music with a weird stage presence. I never anticipated any of this stuff could happen. I’m thankful. Blessed. But I’m confused as to why?”
On paper, the success of Khruangbin — whose name is a riff on the Thai word for airplane — doesn’t compute. As Speer states, the Houston trio plays mostly instrumental music — a moody and sometimes ethereal sound that envelopes a listener willing to actually listen. Speer and bassist Laura Lee often take the stage in black wigs with austere bangs; sort of a Prince Valiant with a mullet look. Behind the drum kit is Donald “DJ” Johnson, a hip-hop producer who sets the tone for their subtly unfolding sound by creating a relaxed pocket for the songs.
The band last year released “Con Todo el Mundo,” its second album, and this year, the record took hold. Sold-out dates in the States and as far away as Australia followed. Khruangbin became the center of a peculiar musical Venn diagram, drawing fans of various permutations of rock ’n’ roll, international styles and hip-hop. And they were taken under the wing of perma-jam band Phish, which brought an entirely new crowd to the shows.
Khruangbin has one show left this year — a large-scale homecoming in Houston on Saturday — before it returns to complete its third album, which could position the band for an even bigger 2020.
Because its members never saw this degree of success coming, they appear content to not meddle with their approach.
“I wonder what it is about this group that people are connecting to?” Speer says. “Should I continue to try to figure it out? Or just keep doing whatever the hell I want to do?”
“I think we just want to make ourselves happy,” Lee says. “If it makes other people happy, that’s the main thing.”
Tighten up
Sitting in the Treehouse studio of Grammy-winning engineer and producer Steve Christensen, the members of Khruangbin are almost unrecognizable. Well, not Johnson. His mood and manner are like his drumming: laid-back and unflappable. But I’m struck by how much larger Speer looks without an oversize black wig and how much smaller Lee appears without the same imposing hairpiece.
The band’s stage presence was designed to provide an interesting visual counterpart to a sound that doesn’t grab listeners by the lapel for a good shake. Instead,