Khruangbin has announced a third, full-length studio album, Mordechai, which is due out on June 26th via Dead Oceans, in association with Night Time Stories. Mordechai follows the band’s previous 2018 album, Con Todo El Mundo, and the collaborative EP with Leon Bridges, Texas Sun, from earlier this year.
Related: The Story of Khruangbin: Global Sounds, Sonic Journeys, & “All That Rad Sh*t” [Interview]
Along with the album announce, the Houston-based trio, comprised of bassist Laura Lee Ochoa, guitarist Mark Speer, and drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson, also released a new single and music video for “Time (You and I)”. Unlike many of the band’s previous releases, Mordechai will feature vocals on nearly every song, and the first single is no exception. While Khruangbin has explored many different sounds, everything from East-Asian surf rock to Persian funk and Jamaican dub, the shift in direction on Mordechai marks a new beginning for the band.
Inspired by a journey that Ochoa took with a near-stranger, who later became the namesake of the album, the lyrics throughout the album come from hundreds of pages of her writing during a self-imposed day of silence. The band has always been multi-lingual, however, “Time” takes it to the next level as the lyrics include phrases in English, Spanish, French, Mandarin, Arabic, Russian, and many more languages. The video itself captures a couple traversing a city, building sandcastles in the oddest of places, and enjoying their time spent together as if they were children. The song’s structure carries fluidly, and without any concrete direction somehow finds itself at a logical ending, repeating “That’s life” in a variety of languages.
Watch the music video for “Time (You and I)” below.
Khruangbin – “Time (You and I)” [Official Music Video]
[Video: Khruangbin]
Click here to pre-order Khruangbin’s forthcoming album and scroll down for a full tracklist.
Khruangbin was supposed to accompany Tame Impala on a tour of Australia and New Zealand this spring, however, due to the ongoing pandemic that has forced the cancellation and postponement of all live events, that tour will not occur as scheduled. For the latest tour information, head to the band’s Facebook page and check out Live For Live Music‘s concert cancellation tracker for daily updates on events around the globe.