Khruangbin – A LA SALA (2024) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Khruangbin – A LA SALA (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 39:36 minutes | 431 MB | Genre: Indie Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Dead Oceans

Khruangbin’s fourth studio album, A La Sala (“To the Room” in Spanish), is an exercise in returning in order to go further, and doing so on your own terms. It continues the mystery and sanctity that is the key to how bassist Laura Lee Ochoa, drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson, Jr. and guitarist Mark “Marko” Speer approach music. If 2020’s Mordechai, the last studio LP Khruangbin made without collaborators, was a party record that enhanced the band’s musical reputation far and wide, then A La Sala is the measured morning after. It’s a gorgeously airy record completed only in the company of the group’s longtime engineer Steve Christensen, with minimal overdubs. It’s a window onto the bounties powering Khruangbin’s vision, a reimagining and refueling for the long haul ahead. A La Sala scales Khruangbin down to scale up, a creative strategy with the future in mind.

Khruangbin’s A LA SALA is billed as a return to basics. Made with minimal overdubs and in only the company of the band’s longtime engineer Steve Christensen, the mostly-instrumental trio’s fourth record is a quieter, more introspective affair. The measured first track “Fifteen Fifty-Three,” which starts with crickets and ends with birds chirping, sets the tone for an album where several tunes include ambient or found sounds.

In the sweet and gentle flow of “May Ninth,” bassist Laura Lee Ochoa quietly sings, “Oh what a dream to me/ Memory burned and gone/ A multicolored grey/ Waiting for May to come/ Happy for the rain.” Her whispers can be heard in several tracks including “Pon Pón,” a classic example of the instinctual way that the trio mind meld into a groove—here spiced with a dash of West African bounce.

Khruangbin have routinely sought out vocal collaborators (like fellow Texan Leon Bridges) but have now mastered the art of adding ghostly, often near wordless background vocals. Lee purrs in the sinuous “Todaviá Viva,” a funk jam paced by drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson’s rim shots and high hat. “Hold Me Up (Thank You)” is firmly in the pocket from the opening notes, with Speer darting in and a more assertive Lee singing simple lyrics that conclude with, “Thank your father, thank your mother/Hold me up.”

With his instantly recognizable guitar tone always submerged in reverb, Mark Speer continues to refine his playing, trending more towards the jazz improvisations while also being able to savor shorter, less challenging moments like in “Caja de la Sala.” He stretches a solo into a song in the dance track “A Love International.” A LA SALA (a phrase Lee used as a child to summon her family into the same place) closes on the slow, reflective “Les Petits Gris,” set to a repeated keyboard phrase before it dissolves into the sound of crickets in full thrall. Khruangbin continue to find new ways to make instrumental-centered music consequential. – Robert Baird

Tracklist:
1-1. Khruangbin – Fifteen Fifty-Three (04:07)
1-2. Khruangbin – May Ninth (03:12)
1-3. Khruangbin – Ada Jean (03:19)
1-4. Khruangbin – Farolim de Felgueiras (02:00)
1-5. Khruangbin – Pon Pón (02:58)
1-6. Khruangbin – Todavía Viva (04:23)
1-7. Khruangbin – Juegos y Nubes (02:04)
1-8. Khruangbin – Hold Me Up (Thank You) (03:49)
1-9. Khruangbin – Caja de la Sala (01:49)
1-10. Khruangbin – Three From Two (03:34)
1-11. Khruangbin – A Love International (04:15)
1-12. Khruangbin – Les Petits Gris (04:01)

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