Khruangbin - The Universe Smiles Upon You (2015)

‘The Universe Smiles Upon You’ was recorded at their spiritual home, a remote barn deep in the Texas countryside where their first rehearsals took place. The band listened to a lot of different types of music on the long drives out to the country but their favourites were 60s and 70s Thai cassettes gleaned from the cult Monrakplengthai blog and compilations of southeast Asian pop, rock and funk. This had a heavy impact on the direction of the band, the scales they used and the inflection of the melodies; which coupled with the spaciousness of the Texan countryside culminated in Khruangbin forming their exotic, individual sound. Although the band was conceived as an instrumental outfit, ‘The Universe Smiles Upon You’ features the first Khruangbin recordings with vocals. Tracks ‘People Everywhere (Still Alive)’, ‘Balls and Pins’ and recent single ‘White Gloves’ show a new dimension to the band. “We never really thought of ourselves as having a “singer” but we knew that we wanted a voice for Khruangbin. We decided to write about something close to us, tell a story as simply as possible, and sing it together.” The seeds of Khruangbin were sown when Mark and Laura were invited to tour with Ninja Tune's YPPAH supporting Bonobo across his 2010 American tour. The tour galvanised the two of them to start making music together more seriously, with DJ - he and Mark have played in the same gospel band for years - the natural choice for drums. Sharing their first recordings, Bonobo included Khruangbin's ‘A Calf Born In Winter’ on his 2013 Late Night Tales compilation. Subsequently signed to Late Night Tales offshoot Night Time Stories, ‘A Calf Born In Winter’ was released as a single in May 2014 and saw support from DJs Zane Lowe, Cerys Matthews, Tom Ravenscroft, Gideon Coe, Don Letts and magazines as musically diverse as i-D, The 405, Clash, Ransom Note, Test Pressing and For Folk’s Sake. Four track EP ‘The Infamous Bill’ followed in October, with covers EP ‘History Of Flight’ on Record Store Day 2015. “We feel like there is an ease that comes from being immersed in a space, away from the distractions of the city and everyday life. We make our music in a barn, in the Texas hill country, because it makes sense to us. Being there allows us to make music that comes naturally, and that’s what we wanted this album to be. We wanted to make a record that just let the music happen, and we hope that’s what you can hear.” Tracklist: 01. Mr White 02. Two Fish And An Elephant 03. Dern Kala 04. Little Joe & Mary 05. White Gloves 06. People Everywhere (Still Alive) 07. The Man Who Took My Sunglasses 08. August Twelve 09. Balls and Pins 10. Zionsville “A colourful fusion of groove-based crate-digging and blistering psych” Clash “Providing the soundtrack to your dreams” i-D “The kind of music that Tarantino builds whole movies around” Loud & Quiet “The perfect soundtrack to accompany sunsets" Indie Shuffle “We have a future classic on our hands” The Vinyl Factory “A testament to how fantastic instrumental music can be at conjuring the senses” Mahogany “If there’s ever been a time that I’ve wished a 3-minute song would last for 3 hours, this is it” Don’t Need No Melody “Full of soul and richness. On listening to this band you might feel as if you've discovered a gem” Echoes & Dust “Fuzzes, buzzes and floats like smoke. A seriously bad mother funkin’ groove” KCRW khruangbin.com khruangbin.bandcamp.com soundcloud.com/khruangbin twitter.com/khruangbin facebook.com/khruangbin