KhKruangbin – The Universe Smiles Upon You II (2-LP Vinyl)
Product Details
Houston's Khruangbin built their entire sonic identity on that original barn session, weaving together Thai funk, dub, and global psychedelia into something that quietly rewired how a generation of listeners thought about instrumental music. A decade later, the trio returns not to revisit nostalgia but to test whether that same cold, unguarded environment still holds the same creative electricity. Consider this a document of a band trusting their own origin story.
If you could go back in time ten years, what would you want to tell yourself? This was a question Khruangbin posed to themselves when approaching the ten-year anniversary of their debut album, the once cult classic, now genre-defining work The Universe Smiles Upon You.
“If we could go back and tell ourselves how much was going to happen to us after that record, what would we want to celebrate?” asked Laura Lee, bassist, vocalist, and founding member of the band. Instead, they thought: “Let’s do it again.”
The Universe Smiles Upon You ii was recorded on January 4-6, 2025, in the same family barn of guitarist Mark Speer, across the same dates where TUSUY was first conceived ten years earlier. Though the conditions were the same–dirt floor, brutally cold, minimal sound isolation, all takes live–the songs aren’t. They’re re-approached, some changed more than others, harnessing the lightning-in-a-bottle energy of TUSUY while discovering what would be unique this time around, in this stage of the band’s life.
The result moves like ripples on the water across ten hypnotizing tracks, the barn creating a sense of spaciousness, serenity and creative freedom, nearby wildlife (listen out for the birds on “August Twelve ii”), rattles and creaks of the barn and all. It’s a tapestry of small movements in nuanced arrangements, slowly revealing the new life, stories and character of someone you’ve met again for the first time in ten years.
Tracklist
Side A
Side B
Side C
Side D
UPC: 656605168319
Label: Dead Oceans
Release Date: 12.5.25
Format: LP Vinyl