Khruangbin Announce New Album 'Mordechai'

Khruangbin Announce New Album 'Mordechai'

Watch the video for "Time (You and I)" by Khruangbin We are thrilled to share that Khruangbin, the Houston-based group comprised of bassist Laura Lee Ochoa, guitarist Mark Speer, and drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson, have announced their new album, Mordechai, out June 26th on Dead Oceans, in association with Night Time Stories. Mordechai comes two years after the release of their beloved and acclaimed breakthrough, 2018’s Con Todo El Mundo, and was preceded earlier this year by Texas Sun, the group’s collaborative EP with Leon Bridges. Today, they present the vibrant, Felix Heyes & Josh R.R. King-directed video for Mordechai’s lead single, “Time (You and I)”. Mordechai is a story of finding yourself in unexpected places. Travel weary and without a home after 24 itinerant months of travel and touring, Laura Lee was invited by a new friend to come hiking with his family. As they’d all made their way toward the distant promise of a waterfall, Lee had felt a dawning clarity about the importance of appreciating the journey, rather than rushing headlong toward the next destination.  When they reached the waterfall at last, Lee’s friend urged her to jump, a leap she likens to a baptism. As she did, he screamed her name—her full name, the one she’d recently taken from her grandfather. In that instant, Laura Lee Ochoa was reborn. She emerged feeling liberated, grateful for what her friend had shown her. His name was Mordechai. Musically, the band’s ever-restless ear saw them pulling reference points from Pakistan, Korea, and West Africa, incorporating strains of Indian chanting boxes and Congolese syncopated guitar. But more than anything, Mordechai became a celebration of Houston, the eclectic city that had nurtured them, and a cultural nexus where you can check out country and zydeco, trap rap, or avant-garde opera on any given night. It is a snapshot taken along a larger journey—a moment all the more beautiful for its impermanence. And it’s a memory to revisit again and again, speaking to us now more clearly than ever. Pre-Order 'Mordechai' Khruangbin, Mordechai LP/CD out June 26 via Dead Oceans Khruangbin has always been multilingual, weaving far-flung musical languages like East Asian surf-rock, Persian funk, and Jamaican dub into mellifluous harmony. But on its third album, it’s finally speaking out loud. Mordechai features vocals prominently on nearly every song, a first for the mostly instrumental band. It’s a shift that rewards the risk, reorienting Khruangbin’s transportive sound toward a new sense of emotional directness, without losing the spirit of nomadic wandering that’s always defined it. And it all started with them coming home.