Khruangbin A La Sala

The grace of Khruangbin’s dusty, evocative groove music is that it feels both totally effortless and impeccably put together. Arriving after the group spent a few years exploring collaboration (including 2022’s Ali with the Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré and the R&B-centric Texas Sun and Texas Moon EPs with singer Leon Bridges), A La Sala goes back to the bass/guitar/drum-and-occasional-distant-vocals setup they managed to get so much mileage out of in the first place. The collection conjures the psychedelia of spaghetti western soundtracks (“Ada Jean”), the pop of West African funk (“Pon Pón”) and the whispered intimacy of indie folk (“May Ninth“) in strokes so minimal it almost breezes by. Of course, breezing is what this band does by design, and in their range, they give you an album as varied as a mixtape and as gently communicative as a great lamp—you know, the kind of thing that can change the whole mood just by turning it on.