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Thursday 9 May 2024

May Ninth

I posted this song back in February but it seemed so obvious to repost it today- today is 9th May and this is May Ninth from Khruangbin's latest album A La Sala. 

A very languid early summer groove, lighter than air vocals, the drums tap tapping away, the bass prodding gently while the guitar drops warm sunshine all over the song. 

The album came out a month ago. My pressing isn't brilliant, a little bit crackly and it doesn't seem loud enough to me but its an album that's growing each time I play it. The feel of the twelve songs is very much lounge, with a backdrop of psychedelia, some dub and the rhythms of early 70s soul and funk bands like The Meters, lush and widescreen. Many of the songs on A La Sala sound like they could play over the end credits of a film, as all the plotlines are resolved and everything's fixed. There are some found sounds in places, some ambient atmospherics and the album ends with a locked groove, a field recording circling endlessly. First song Fifteen Fifty Three opens with some crickets chirruping and the hum of the outside world, then the guitar and bass ease their way in and we're off into the Khruangbin world, eleven more tacks gliding by, no hurry or haste to get anywhere quickly and nothing outstaying its welcome either. 

This one, Pon Pon, is equal parts clipped, scratchy funk, whispered vocals and supper club. 

Pon Pon

A La Sala finishes with Les Petit Gris, a piano playing a couple of notes, lots of echo and a guitar line picking a way through the song, before it dissolves into the sound of cicadas. 


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