In Grammy spotlight, Khruangbin wants to ‘let the music speak for itself’

AP Entertainment Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — If you think your Spotify playlist is getting a little too long, consider the one shared by the members of Khruangbin. It’s got 51 hours of songs.

“I’m trying to listen to as many different things as possible before they all start to sound kind of the same,” says Mark Speer, the trio’s guitarist and musical explorer, capturing interesting sounds from Thailand to the Middle East.

“We lose Mark sometimes for a small period of time because he’s on an anthropological dig,” says bassist Laura Lee. Drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson finishes her thought: “For the quintessential Chinese funk.”

The mainly instrumental Khruangbin’s sonic explorations have paid off of late, with a warmly received 2024 album, “A La Sala,” that reached the top 40 of the Billboard 200 and a Grammy Award nomination for best new artist. Not that any of that is going to their heads.

“I think we’re just going to keep leaning in what we do and keep trying to be more the silhouette version of ourselves as much as we can and let the music speak for itself, because that’s who we are. We don’t like the spotlight in that way,” says Lee.

The Texas trio makes music that’s hard to describe, a mix of soul, surf rock, psychedelic and funk that creates a melodic, Afro-pop-inspired, reverb-heavy sound with nods to other cultures. The band’s name is appropriately travel-related — Khruangbin is the Thai word for airplane.

“Mark’s storytelling feels like words, even though there are no words. And my storytelling feels like math even though there are no numbers necessarily. And D.J. is the translator between my language and Mark somehow,” says Lee.

They are highly collaborative, working in the studio and performing live with Leon Bridges on two EPs, Paul McCartney, Vieux Farka Touré, Wu-Tang Clan, Childish Gambino, Toro Y Moi, Men I Trust and more.

For “A La Sala,” Khruangbin focused on the trio, realizing that they didn’t need anyone else in the studio. They say that was empowering.

“I think because we had just been through a process of collaborating quite a lot, it felt important for us to just huddle, just the three of us,” says Lee. “When it’s just the three of us, it’s like a deep breath and a collective sigh.”

Most of their music is instrumental, but vocals — either ghostly or a full-on lyric song — have been employed, like on “May Ninth” from the new album, with the lyrics “Memory burned and gone/A multicolored gray.”

“The music comes first,” says Johnson. “And when we finish putting everything together, if we feel that it needs one more thing, something missing, or we just want a vocal texture, then usually we go down the path of adding that.”

The trio, especially early on, faced pressure from record executives who liked the instrumentals but wished there was a vocal on top.

“I think it’s just human nature. I don’t think it comes from like any sort of bad place,” says Lee. “But people just want to sing on top of it. And people are used to hearing a vocal. They’re like, ‘This sounds so good. Let’s add a vocal.’”

“A La Sala” is the trio’s fourth studio album, with Pitchfork saying “each member of the trio has several opportunities to shine while making each track sound individual, and it all comes together cohesively.” The Guardian said Khruangbin make “their intricate music sound so gentle that it lulls the listener into a newly imaginative state.”

Although they formed in 2010, the Grammy administrators chose Khruangbin as a best new artist nominee alongside Benson Boone, Sabrina Carpenter, Doechii, RAYE, Chappell Roan, Shaboozey and Teddy Swims. The rules of the category have changed over time and now offers inclusion for any act that has “attained a breakthrough or prominence.”

The members of the band see their albums like snapshots in time. If their third, “Mordechai,” was the sound of energy and movement as the band toured relentlessly, then “A La Sala” is more sedate, born from the pandemic and with a title that means ”To the Room.”

It’s a more chilled-out sound, even cozy. One song, “Three from Two” even celebrates the home birth of Lee’s first child. “We needed some quiet, and it felt nice to put out something quiet in a world that’s not so quiet anymore,” she says.

The band has heard their music playing at the oddest places, like “Texas Sun” becoming a popular tune played on TikTok by people making out in Australia or “Two Fish and an Elephant” heard at yoga studios.

“I hope that our music is malleable enough to communicate to later generations in whatever way it works,” says Speer. “That’s how language happens. That’s how music happens, that’s how cultures happen. So, I’m super into it.”

They don’t know what direction their next album will take, but they have lots of ideas, like maybe the quintessential Chinese funk.

“We have a ever expanding folder full of stuff that may or may not ever see the light of day,” says Speer. “When it’s time, it’s time. And if it’s not time for it, it’s not time for it. Don’t dig in your heels — move on to the next thing.”

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The 67th Grammy Awards will be held Feb. 2, 2025, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. The show will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+. For more coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards.