Internationally-influenced Houston power trio Khruangbin is back with news of the band’s first new studio album in four years, A La Sala. The band’s fourth album is out on April 5th on Dead Oceans in partnership with Night Time Stories Ltd., with the lead single “A Love International” available now.
Meaning “To the Room” in Spanish, A La Sala hears the threesome of guitarist Mark Speer, bassist Laura Lee, and drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson return to themselves. Since the release of 2020’s Mordechai, Khruangbin has collaborated on a second EP with Leon Bridges (Texas Moon) and Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré on a tribute to his late father Ali Farka Touré (Ali). Then last year, the band put out five live albums documenting Khruangbin’s onstage prowess, including more collaborations with contemporaries Toro y Moi, Men I Trust, and Nubya Garcia.
After all that, Khruangbin has returned “To the Room.” The group that built an international reputation for its intentionality and subtlety has dropped back into that space of intimacy, recording the album only with the band’s longtime engineer Steve Christensen. That intimacy is felt in the lead single, “A Love International”. The track bobs along on Lee’s near-dub basslines and is warmed by Speer’s sun-kissed guitar leads. Scott Dungate‘s music video provides an on-point visualization of sitting in an innertube and floating along the waves of some international sea.
Since Mordechai, the globe-trotting band has conquered the world with their universal language of mostly instrumental music. It was during these travels that Khruangbin stumbled upon many of the puzzle pieces that have come together to form the 12 tracks of A La Sala. Voice memos recorded at soundchecks, ideas scribbled down on long journeys, and other sparks of creativity were put together in the studio for the new album.
In a return to form from the band’s pre-Mordechai releases, Speer reaffirmed his commitment to the inclusion of textural environmental sounds. Layering tracks with the sounds of cicadas in an open field or shoes stepping on stones results in an album tangible to the senses beyond just hearing, a product you can see and feel.
Vinyl copies of A La Sala will arrive with seven different album covers. The jackets pair Speer’s collection of travel photos with artwork inspired by Belgian artist René Magritte which shows the band and a window—observer and observed—looking out from the living room onto “a set of daydreams, scenes of impossible skies, external glances illuminating what is going on inside.”
Check out the new Khruangbin single “A Love International” from the band’s upcoming album A La Sala, available here for pre-order in a variety of formats. See below for the tracklist and album artwork. Following appearances at Coachella, Bonnaroo, and Boston Calling, the band has a run of international dates set to kick off in Belgium in July. For tickets and a full list of tour dates head here.
Khruangbin – “A Love International” [Official Video]
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