Khruangbin call from Boise, Idaho. It\u2019s a state known for its beautiful, vertigo-inducing mountains, a neverending landscape, and of course its agriculture \u2013 it\u2019s the number one producer of potatoes in the United States.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fitting that this evening they will play a sold-out show at the city\u2019s Botanical Gardens. Most touring bands are used to playing grubby-cum-charming purpose-built venues and live on the diet of hummus, carrot sticks and other miscellaneous crudite; not so glamorous. It\u2019s important to earn these stripes \u2013 Khruangbin still play venues like this \u2013 but gracious to be afforded a welcome break from them too.<\/p>\n
After all, they\u2019ve just returned to the USA from Europe where they played and litany of sold-out headline shows and standout festival performances at the likes of Spain\u2019s riotous Primavera Sound, Glastonbury\u2019s rural farmland and as headliners at Cross The Tracks, held in Brixton, London\u2019s populous, multi-ethnic epicentre.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe festivals were highlights of the tour, everywhere had a different vibe and [Cross The Tracks] was way bigger than I thought it was going to be!\u201d says lead singer and bassist Laura Lee, in-keeping with her air of humility. \u201cTouring will always be hard in some sense, but if you\u2019ve paid your dues it does get nicer,\u201d adding once more: \u201c[Boise] is gorgeous.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the past few years, Khruangbin have gained legions of fans around the world. Having released their debut album The Universe Smiles Upon You in 2015, it was the second album, Con Todo El Mundo (2018), released on the hugely successful independent label Dead Oceans, that truly caught the attention of music fans worldwide. Their next releases, Morchechai (2020), and most recently two collaborative EPs, Texas Sun and Texas Moon, with neo-soul artist Leon Bridges (an ode to the artists\u2019 home state), charted in the top 50 both the UK and US. It marked a culmination of supernatural talent and ten-plus years of hard graft.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not so often that artists like Khruangbin, reach these commercial inclines. Often described as \u2018world music\u2019 (more on that controversial term later), they genre-blend generously merging influences from Thailand (in their earlier music), Korea and the 1960s and \u201970s psychedelic funk of the States, the latter being evident in their breakout track \u2018Everyone Finds the Third Room\u2019. Part of their success may be down to the fact that they\u2019re not intimidating; the reputation of musicians and fans with such far-reaching knowledge of subversive genres is that they\u2019re High Fidelity-style know-it-alls who like testing your knowledge and disposing of folks who can\u2019t reach the mark. But Khruangbin\u2019s mentality feels more \u2018come one, come all\u2019; they\u2019re not just musicians, but willing, welcoming and persuasive educators. It\u2019s a mindset that runs through the fabric of the band, which is what makes them so convincing.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach one of us has knowledge of specific genres of music,\u201d says guitarist Mark Speer, the band\u2019s crate-digging obscurity specialist. \u201cThen there is a Venn diagram where all of these things come together.\u201d This is the key to Khruangbin \u2013 their differences in taste, personality and even opinion enhance the variety in their music. It feels like a no-judgement zone; it\u2019s apt that before they were a band they were friends, laying a foundation to comfortably explore with one another.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not anything that\u2019s forced, it\u2019s by design,\u201d says drummer Donald \u2018DJ\u2019 Johnson. Naturally then, this unforcedness emanates to audiences \u2013 and that is intentional. \u201cWe use the difference in us as a band to bring together differences in our audience,\u201d says Johnson, noting that their audience intersects in multiple diversity lines from age, sex, race and culture.<\/p>\n
All this leads us to how Ali, Khruangbin\u2019s new collaborative album with Vieux Farka Tour\u00e9, came to be. The son of the revered Malian musician Ali Farka Tour\u00e9, who passed away in 2006, Vieux was looking for the perfect collaborators to continue spreading his father\u2019s work.<\/p>\n
At the peak of his influence, Ali was dubbed the African John Lee Hooker, integrating African American Mississippi blues with the language and style of Malian music to create what came to be known as desert blues. Now, Vieux is a musician in his own right, but for years he was reluctant to become one, wary of the weight of expectation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to follow in the footsteps of someone who has been to the top of the mountain,\u201d he told Songlines earlier this year. Developing the confidence and forging his own identity produced fruitful results which earned him his own sobriquet: The Hendrix of the Sahara. The pipeline from John Lee Hooker\u2019s blues to Jimi Hendrix\u2019s rock and roll is apparent, but the distinction between the two artists resulted in Vieux being respected in his own right, and sealing the approval from the public he so craved.<\/p>\n
Vieux\u2019s vision of Malian music was always steeped in sky blue thinking with a view to globalise it. He chose to use the Western artists as a vehicle to spread the music of his people. He performed with Alicia Keys and Shakira at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa (though socio-political allegiances like these have a short shelf life), and has since worked with the likes of Dave Matthews and John Schofield.<\/p>\n
Now 40, he\u2019s in the mood for retrospective thinking, and he\u2019s not the only one who has been. In the past decade, the appetite for African music has grown exponentially in the west. Of course, legacy African artists like South Africa\u2019s Miriam Makeba and Nigeria\u2019s Fela Kuti, and Ali himself, have reached a certain level of notoriety and recognisability outside Africa (the former partly due to her marriage to the African American civil rights activist and leader of the Black Panther Party Stokely Carmichael), but better accessibility \u2013 mediated via online exposure, regular collaboration and constant work \u2013 has accelerated this recognition in the past couple of decades. Think Damon Albarn\u2019s Africa Express, the unlikely surge of the music of William Onyeabor in 2014, Tinariwen, and labels like Awesome Tapes from Africa.<\/p>\n
Jumping on this wave, around 2019, Vieux sought to reinvigorate his father\u2019s legacy. The record would always be a two-artist collaboration album, but with who? Off the back of Con Todo El Mundo, Khruangbin had begun playing to larger and larger audiences and had caught the eye of Vieux\u2019s manager. On top of their success, crucially, they are a young band, with a viable currency that appeals to a younger audience, unlike the more established artists he\u2019d worked with before. After seeing them live and being impressed by their musicianship, he was sold. \u201cI was impressed by their London show and their ability as musicians. I knew we\u2019d make a special record together that honoured my father.\u201d<\/p>\n
Khruangbin agreed: there was a sense of importance in doing the record, and fitted with the ethos of the band, it felt like them. It\u2019s not that there wasn\u2019t slight trepidation; in fact, ironically there was a sense of imposter syndrome most often felt by those like Vieux who don\u2019t \u2018fit\u2019 into the image of the western world, was teeming within them. \u201cHe works a lot faster than we do\u201d says DJ, \u201cand we\u2019d wonder \u2018Did that sound ok? We only did two takes!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
At times he\u2019d hand the baton over to them and say, \u201cYou know what to do\u201d, and they\u2019d covertly look at each other with question-mark eyes. Vieux\u2019s take on recording is endearing, showing the trust he had in the band as artists even when they may not have felt it internally. \u201cWe would play around a little bit with it, then push record and voila!\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
If the record is anything to go by, they certainly did know what to do. Put simply, Ali is a stunning body of work. Lead single \u2018Savanne\u2019 has an air of suspense; the track\u2019s smoothness goes through your body in the form of a deep bassline, meandering guitar and the gentleness of Vieux\u2019s sung and spoken words. Vieux\u2019s particular favourite interpretation on Ali is \u2018Tongo Barra\u2019. \u201cIt is so funky and different from the original, and such a nice blend of Malian and American style.\u201d<\/p>\n
The album does feel like a harmonious and synchronised blend. Despite the obvious distinctions between the work of Khruangbin, Vieux and Ali\u2019s work, it\u2019s difficult, if not impossible, to tell where these musicians as individuals begin and end.<\/p>\n
This sense of harmony is an extended metaphor for how both Khruangbin and Vieux want Malian, African and other forms of music to meld: they want to make world music, that is actually world music, in that it\u2019s experienced as something that is expansive rather than cordoned off to wily white record collecting obsessives or oxymoronic \u2018world music\u2019 categories in major American award shows.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an old and dated term,\u201d says Vieux. \u201cI mean, my music is much more closely related to American rock, blues and funk than anywhere in, say, parts of Asia and even parts of Africa. Either you should just call music, music or be more specific as to where it\u2019s from \u2013 [otherwise] it disrespects the diversity of music outside of the west.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite this suggestion, Vieux adds that he doesn\u2019t really know the solution to this linguistic problem, but as westerners themselves (though the members of Khruangbin are diverse in their own right), they\u2019re doing their bit to make sure artists that they work or come into contact with are properly credited. They use their significant platform to shine a light on talent from around the world; for example, the album artwork for Ali is by Malian artist and contemporary of Ali, Abdoulaye Konate.<\/p>\n
We speak a little about the recent successes of commercial African artists like Burna Boy, Tems and Uncle Waffles and Hispanic artists like Bad Bunny and Ozuna \u2013 is this perhaps a sign of progress?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does feel like everything is slowly opening up,\u201d says DJ, \u201cand people are realising that there are gems everywhere.\u201d In their own discussions, Khruangbin have changed the expression of all music to \u2018Earth music\u2019, a term that may appear similar to, but crucially doesn\u2019t have the baggage of, \u2018world music\u2019. \u201cIt\u2019s Earth music because we\u2019re all here,\u201d Lee exclaims.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t have to physically be there to feel and be moved by Earth music; the beauty of it is that it entices curiosity far greater than the arbitrary labels that have far too often divided and dampened how we experience culture. After our interview, Khruangbin will go on to play their brand of Earth music in Idaho, greeting an audience which has been relatively under-exposed to non-western artists. When they tour Ali across the world with Vieux, they\u2019ll introduce the masterful work of one of Africa\u2019s most lauded musicians to a variety of people who will experience the essence of music before its genre, and hopefully find something that resonates with them in spite of the distance and time.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father was a very important figure in Mali. He is a big source of pride and inspiration for the people there,\u201d says Vieux. \u201cMy responsibility is to take care of his legacy and move it forward to the next generation and I hope that with Khruangbin, I can spread it even further around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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