Khruangbin EP

Texas connection aside (Bridges is from Fort Worth, Khruangbin from Houston), Leon Bridges and Khruangbin make a natural pair: Bridges, the throwback soul man who brings R&B’s past into vivid focus, and Khruangbin, a one-band jukebox whose encyclopedic sense of groove has made them one of the more sneakily pleasurable artists of the 2010s. A companion to 2020 collaboration Texas Sun, Texas Moon is, first and foremost, a mood: dusky, mellow, warm, windows down. The artists can take on Philly soul with a psychedelic slant (“Doris”), mix disco with West African juju (“B-Side”), and play country cadences with ambient, indie-rock warmth (“Mariella”), all with an effortlessness that would make their melting pot state proud.

Khruangbin are no slouches when it comes to the remix. They’ve been reworked before, in 2016, with the highly collectible EP on Boogiefuturo. But this time, they’re taking it a step further with an album dedicated to the art. Entering the tight-knit world of a Khruangbin song can be a little daunting. They have created this entire universe in which the trio seem to function telepathically in the way the music is composed, arranged and played. To mess with their delicate eco-system can invoke feelings similar to that of an unwanted guest crashing a good-time party. “We write our music to be interpreted; this is another wonderful interpretation of the music,” reassure Khruangbin. “There is something very vulnerable about letting others work on your music. But through the correspondence with the different artists, we gained a bigger connection to the songs themselves.”

On paper, it’s an unlikely pairing: Leon Bridges, classic soul revivalist and late-’50s throwback, cutting a record with Khruangbin, forward-leaning, genre-allergic instrumental trio. But before they’d ever met—at the first in a slew of tour dates they’d play together in late 2018—Bridges had been writing to the sound of Khruangbin’s breakthrough LP Con Todo El Mundo. “I really love their kind of minimalist approach to instrumentation, just like the style of it,” Bridges tells Apple Music. “It’s very soulful.” The attraction was mutual. As the tour unfolded, Khruangbin approached Bridges with new music that seemed to call out for a vocal—a recording they’d given the working title “Awesome Guitar Loop.” “We sent it to him and then literally the next day he came back with words on it,” bassist Laura Lee says. “That was the beginning.”

Taking influence from 1960's Thai funk - their name literally translates to "Engine Fly" in Thai - Khruangbin’s debut album ‘The Universe Smiles Upon You’ is steeped in the bass heavy, psychedelic sound of their inspiration, Tarantino soundtracks and surf-rock cool. The Texan trio is formed of Laura Lee on bass, Mark Speer on guitar, and Donald “DJ” Johnson on drums.