Polywood

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.”