The Universe Smiles Upon You ii – White

Description

If you could go back in time ten years, what would you want to tell yourself? This was a question Khruangbin posed to themselves when approaching the ten-year anniversary of their debut album, the once cult classic, now genre-defining work The Universe Smiles Upon You. “If we could go back and tell ourselves how much was going to happen to us after that record, what would we want to celebrate?” asked Laura Lee, bassist, vocalist, and founding member of the band. Instead, they thought: “Let’s do it again.” The Universe Smiles Upon You ii was recorded on January 4-6, 2025, in the same family barn of guitarist Mark Speer, across the same dates where TUSUY was first conceived ten years earlier. Though the conditions were the same-dirt floor, brutally cold, minimal sound isolation, all takes live-the songs aren’t. They’re re-approached, some changed more than others, harnessing the lightning-in-a-bottle energy of TUSUY while discovering what would be unique this time around, in this stage of the band’s life. The result moves like ripples on the water across ten hypnotizing tracks, the barn creating a sense of spaciousness, serenity and creative freedom, nearby wildlife (listen out for the birds on “August Twelve ii”), rattles and creaks of the barn and all. It’s a tapestry of small movements in nuanced arrangements, slowly revealing the new life, stories and character of someone you’ve met again for the first time in ten years.

• 1Little Joe and Mary II
• 2Balls and Pins II
• 3White Gloves II
• 4The Man Who Took My Sunglasses II
• 5People Everywhere II
• 6Bin Bin II
• 7August Twelve II
• 8Dern Kala II
• 9Two Fish and An Elephant II
• 10Zionsville II