Khruangbin’s third studio LP Mordechai, comes after their breakthrough 2018 release, Hasta El Cielo (Con Todo El Mundo In Dub). The globally influenced trio is originally from Houston, but they haven’t been back to Texas in a while, as they have been touring all over for nearly three and a half years. Mordechai is their homecoming album, written and recorded in their farmhouse studio in Burton, Texas. and is a culmination of those travels as well as a homage to Houston. Laura Lee’s (bassist) homecoming provided her with the clarity that was needed to create the well-executed diversity shown. Khruangbin’s range of globe-trekking sounds has been a staple of past records and Mordechai is no different: East-Asian surf rock, Persian funk, Cumbia, and a conversation between two old friends on “Connaissais de Face”.
The opening track “First Class” is a detached fever dream that features Mark Speers (guitarist) faint guitar gliding and pulling the song into every new sound introduced. The title is a play on words, as “khruangbin” in Thai means “engine fly” which correlates to airplanes and the international influences the group employs. “First Class” begins with Speers guitar, Laura Lee’s subtle bass, and Dj Johnson providing the beat—the trio working in unison to create an acid jazz track that could fit somewhere in René Laloux’s 1973 animated film Fantastic Planet. Throughout “First Class” the trio sings “champagne” and “first class”. At the refrain the tempo picks up and over-layered harmonization’s, they sing “H-town”.
Themes of memory and the past are the backbone of Mordechai. “Time (You and I)” features these notions throughout Lee’s singing, “That’s life/If we had more time/We could live forever”. While the song is about losing time and going separate ways, the guitars and flutes offer a whimsical and youthful element. “Time (You and I)” plays out like a teenage summer romance. “Connaissais de Face” is sung entirely in French apart from the conversation that takes place between two old friends when the trio isn’t harmonizing. Harping off the theme of time and memory, the woman in the conversation says, “I have lived nine lives” in reference to the different arcs her life has taken.
Khruangbin has always spliced international genres with their own brand of Texas-bred psychedelia—Mordechai is no different.
