Khruangbins fourth studio album, A La Sala To the Room in Spanish, is an exercise in returning in order to go further, and doing so on your own terms. It continues the mystery and sanctity that is the key to how bassist Laura Lee Ochoa, drummer Donald DJ Johnson Jr. and guitarist Mark Marko Speer approach music. If 2020s Mordechai, the last studio LP Khruangbin made without collaborators, was a party record that enhanced the bands musical reputation far and wide, then A La Sala is the measured morning after. Its a gorgeously airy record completed only in the company of the groups longtime engineer, Steve Christensen, with minimal overdubs. Its a window onto the bounties powering Khruangbins vision, a reimagining and refuelling for the long haul ahead. A La Sala scales Khruangbin down to scale up, a creative strategy with the future in mind.
