LateNightTales

Back in 2013, the hugely popular DJ, Bonobo, included a song from a then unknown Houston psych-funk group on his LateNightTales collection. That song was Khruangbin’s ‘A Calf Born in Winter’, a wonderfully smooth, Thai funk-inspired groove that began Khruangbin’s elevation into superstars. Seven years on, and here they are doing their own LateNightTales collection, a format that suits them down to the ground.

Khruangbin’s distinguishing factor has always been their ability to distil global sounds into a cohesive whole. Their previous album, Mordechai, featured West African guitar licks, Spanish vocals and Indian chanting, and yet sounded distinctly Khruangbin. The album before that had Thai funk, Caribbean grooves, and Middle Eastern riffs, and still was instantly recognisable. On LateNightTales, they unpack this treasure trove of sounds. The tracklisting shifts from Asian pop to Nigerian reggae, from Japanese mellow grooves to Latin flavas. Highlights include the Pakistani icon Nazia Hassan’s ‘Khushi’, a gloriously emotive pop song, and their own reverb-drenched cover of Kool & the Gang’s ‘Summer Madness’. A homage to their hometown comes in the form of the low-key dub of fellow Houston band Brilliantes Del Vuelo, ensuring that among all the globetrotting, they still remember where they came from.