frictionless Borders
THE idea of escape to distant climes is baked into Khruangbin’s soul. After all, they are named after the Thai word for aeroplane – a tribute to the psychedelic Southeast Asian pop that, according to bassist and occasional singer Laura Lee Ochoa, “was one of the first seeds in the Khruangbin DNA”. Ochoa is a seasoned traveller; her uncle worked for the American embassy and she used to go and stay with him in various farflung corners of the world. When she was 17, she visited him in Singapore, hopping up the Malay peninsula for that first lifechanging visit to Thailand. By contrast, drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson didn’t have a passport until he joined the band. But it turns out that their home city of Houston is a better place than you might think to hear music from across the globe.
“It’s actually the number-one most diverse city in America,” explains Ochoa. “As well as the oil and gas, it’s the biggest medical research centre in the whole of the United States, so you get people from all over the world. There’s the Mahatma Gandhi District where you can go to find Indian cassette tapes, there’s Little Saigon where you can find the Vietnamese and Korean VHS tapes which I used to get. It’s pretty easy to find these different parts of the world in Houston.”
But while Khruangbin’s music is proud to flaunt its cosmopolitan hues – you can add dub, cumbia, Ethiojazz, Turkish psych and more to the mix – the band are careful not to evoke any particular destination. “I hope that the music takes you somewhere in your mind,” says Ochoa. “Not
