Khruangbin is on his way to becoming the author of a state anthem. Just like Ray Charles’ “Georgia On My Mind,” Texas Sun seems destined to live on in the collective memory of all Texans and become an emblem.
Khruangbin is what Texas and the United States sound like today. A journey through the perpetual plains, a stroll through the ever-warming sunset of a colorful region of the world in perpetual search of itself. This Houston band is the new American rock, a light amidst the commercial vulgarity of the charts and a beacon of authenticity. It’s funk, dub, soul, psychedelia, and far beyond what the most conventional and vulgar United States entails. However, the musical roots of this Houston trio are rooted far, far away, in Thai and Iranian music.
With them, we inaugurate the Texas Sound section, in which we invite you to discover the bands and musicians who define the Texas sound. But who are these three boys from South Houston? We’ll tell you all about it on our YouTube channel, don’t miss it!
Once upon a time in Houston, Texas
Khruangbin are cool because, as they themselves say, they’ve done everything you shouldn’t do to succeed. They’re so dedicated to going against the grain that their mantra is a famous Miles Davis quote they repeat in every interview they can: When others play fast, you play slow; when others play slow, play fast.
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Their beginnings couldn’t be more Texan or more Houston. John Speer, bassist, and DJ Johnson met in 2004 while collaborating with Saint John’s Church in downtown Houston, a key spot in the city’s music scene, where Beyoncé also began her career. It’s considered the mecca of jazz and gospel in South Texas. Speer is obsessed with world music, and this led him to bond with DJ. They began to move around the scene until a Latin whirlwind named Laura appeared in their lives.
Laura Lee Ochoa and John connected immediately. They were eager for different rhythms that had nothing to do with what they heard on radio. Their adventurous spirit led them to plan a trip to South America. Then, an unexpected event or a blessing, depending on how you look at it, arose. They had bought the tickets, but the visa didn’t arrive, and the airline offered them a ticket change to Thailand.
The Thai Treasure
Who knows what they would have sounded like if they had gone to the Southern Cone! The truth is that in Thailand, they discovered Thai funk and what they called Noodle House Music. They came back with a bunch of compilation cassettes of the best Thai music from the 70s and late 80s. They were blown away by the sounds they found, and upon their return, they locked themselves away to listen to them and compare them to the Iranian pop that they were so addicted to.
The seed was already germinating. Shortly after, they attended a casting call while they began to shape their signature sound in a barn. The audition in question was to be part of Yppah, who was preparing to support the great Bonobo during a 2010 American tour. After the tour, they seriously considered dedicating themselves to music. And at that moment, they were more Khruangbin than ever. John remembered his friend DJ, and the three of them moved into a barn in a charming little town of barely 300 inhabitants called Burton. There, they experimented with the sounds of the South, as well as those they found on their cassettes from the far reaches of Asia and practically everywhere else, because they are universal, a pulse that flows freely without borders.
The Beginnings of Khruangbin
In that barn, psychedelia, Iranian pop, funk and rock from the Thai scene, Californian surf, and the airs of the South made love. Khruangbin was a lot of things that made sense under the direction of local producer Steve Christensen.
Shortly after, it was time for the first concert. Unlike many bands, the Houston trio had everything clear except their name. And then Laura came along with the perfect solution. She was so into Thai culture that she was studying Thai and fell in love with the word airplane, Khruangbin, impossible to pronounce for any Westerner but fitting with the aesthetic, musical, and philosophical path they were about to embark on. It worked.
Their early career, during the early 2010s, was the most exciting and daring, and established them in the Texas underground. In 2013, they released a mind-blowing hit, as Eastern as it was universal, and it made it clear that we were facing something totally different. Calf Born in Winter is really cool; that downtempo has a special tenderness and invites you to dream of a light that never goes out.
Takeoff
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The song anticipated an EP like History or Flight, which in turn anticipated a debut album that was a cruise through 1960s Thai music, a cultural treasure housed in wonderful genres like luk thung, which had synthesized the decade as efficiently as it was fascinating. Heads turned to Houston and Thailand, and suddenly the three barn dwellers were strolling the stages of SXSW and starting to open for such cool acts as FatherJohn Misty, Tycho, Chicano Batman, and Massive Attack. And all of this with barely an EP released.
America was no longer America on that EP; it was a conglomeration of journeys, colliding worlds, broken borders, and exploration that suited any artist and any moment. And those broken borders swept Bandcamp and SoundCloud, those places common to all first-time bands where the connection was cemented with a community of loyal fans that exploded in numbers with their next album, the one that changed absolutely everything.
A Love Letter
Con todo el mundo is a musical love letter, a caress to the soul and part of an intimate but recurring conversation Laura had with her grandfather, Joseph Guillermo Ochoa, who would ask her, “How do you love me?” He would ask it so many times until he heard the only answer he would accept: “Con todo el mundo.” The tenderness of the anecdote makes the album’s intention clear. A downtempo instrumental out of time, timeless, syrupy yet powerful enough to not be too cheesy. A marvel to listen to at any time. An album that took them to another level, breaking into two of the YouTube totem poles for any emerging band. The Tiny Desk and their live performance on KEXP garnered more than 50 million views, less than half the viewers of their Pitchfork special. 2018 was literally their year.
However, success felt light on them. They didn’t stop wearing the same wigs they started with to avoid being recognized when they got off stage, nor did they stop buying their props at secondhand stores in Houston’s Latin neighborhood. They remained themselves. Laura is the one who is clear about it. At her concerts, she transforms into Leezy, the alter-ego of a colorful, brave, inspired Latina. A protective facade for the Laura she keeps for her private life. Laura is the creative director of Khruangbin, who, with her knowledge of art and architecture, sets up those doors that remind us of the Doors at their concerts, who nods to Frida and Latin culture, and who devises Prince-inspired choreography and Elton John-inspired outfits—more than 600 during each tour.
With everyone, it wasn’t just a coded message of love, but a dramatic leap forward in their sound. Beyond Thailand, they found inspiration in psychedelia to embrace genres under its elegant umbrella, from flamenco to Iranian pop and Middle Eastern sounds that transformed the songs, but not the essence of the group, which became more global and sophisticated. It was the prelude to what was to come in 2019: the birth of the new Texas anthem.
A timeless anthem with a Texas flavor
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It’s hard to explain what makes this song so special without hearing it. Perhaps it’s its stylistic palette, featuring three different guitar styles: Spanish, country, pedal steel, and psychedelic. Or the nostalgia it exudes, or the light that comes from those endless plains where time stops without waiting for anyone, where everything flows without looking back. Perhaps it’s Leon Bridges’s very personal voice. The truth is, this Texas anthem is an anthem to the lack of borders, to the most personal freedom, and to a universal feeling of peace.
The anthem was born from a joint tour between the two and ended up being shaped in the famous barn. Leon was eager to record with the band. He casually went to their studio to discover several songs that inspired him in Texas, New Orleans, and the places that meant so much to him. He imposed his stamp on these magnetic melodies, mastered the lyrics, and crafted some of the most special songs ever composed in Texas this century.
But the anthem was born in an unexpected way, like all good things that happen in life, like all things that happen in Khruangbin’s career. During the breaks from recording the EP, Leon sang and strummed his guitar with a pure Texas vibe, and then the sound engineer saw it clearly; he knew what he had in front of him. Later, they added elements of Tejano, Mexican, and other cultures that are part of Texas. And along with this anthem, C-Side, Conversion, and Medianoche paraded. This EP broke new ground and remains as unique as it is inimitable… for now. Its influence is yet to come. And it will come.
They would record with Leon again a couple of years later. In Texas Moon, they would replicate, and for some, perfect, the model. What’s certain is that in Texas Moon, the magic didn’t run dry; it flowed through Texas Moon, B-Side, and my favorite, Chocolate Hills.
Beyond Texas and Thailand
The new Texas sound was definitely cemented in this mellow and powerful psychedelic soul. Meanwhile, the Texas trio continued releasing great albums far removed from Leon but always close to him. And these albums haven’t gone unnoticed, by any means. After Con todo el mundo and Texas Sun, both the public and critics internationally welcomed this timeless gem with unanimous applause. It features songs like Pelota, which fascinates me, and Time (You and I). Mordechai is a luxury and the starting point for a stellar Khruangbin with no creative limits.
Interestingly, their next album was created in the most creative year of their life, 2019, and released in 2022. In it, they explore the folk blues of Mali with Vieux Farka Toure. A fascinating musical journey through the work of their father, the legendary Ali Farka Toure. A tribute to a unique and unrepeatable scene and an impressive pairing of Texan and African music. The result is a masterpiece with one hit song in particular that I absolutely love, Savanne.
And then comes their latest album, A la sala. In it, you’ll find guilty pleasures like Pon pón, my favorite song. A downtempo brashness and a very Khruangbin flow, then travel from Texas to Asia and Africa, shamelessly losing themselves in Thailand, and then returning to say “Take One, Take Two” in a whispery Spanish that screams without hesitation, “The world is one and belongs to everyone.” I enjoyed this amazing album at ACL last year, in 2024, at dusk. This concludes a unique discography that takes you around the world.
What does Texas sound like? It sounds like the world, Asia, Africa, Mexico, the universal and the personal. What does Texas sound like? The timeless, psychedelic downtempo of Khruangbin, creators of the Lone Star State’s anthem. And this has been their story.
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