Khruangbin: The Universe Smiles Upon You ii (2LP) [DEAD OCEANS]

Why you'll love it

Khruangbin re-recorded all ten songs from their 2015 debut in guitarist Mark Speer's family barn, on the same January dates they first wrote them, and you can hear the birds and the creaking walls in the mix. This is the standard 2LP set.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Dead Oceans pressing (cat# DOC383)
• All ten songs re-recorded in January 2025

About the album

Asked what they would tell their younger selves, Laura Lee, Mark Speer and Donald "DJ" Johnson did the sensible thing and went back to the barn. Ten years after The Universe Smiles Upon You, the record of Thai funk, surf and soul that started everything for them, they set up again in the Speer family barn in Texas from January 4 to 6, 2025, the very dates the original came together, and played the whole thing again. Everything the band has done since grew out of that first barn session, so going back there made a lot of sense.

The songs are reworked rather than copied, the arrangements a touch looser and more rippling, with the room itself audible in the gaps. "White Gloves ii" got its own video, "People Everywhere ii" still makes a crowd sway, and "August Twelve ii" drifts along like a slow afternoon. Dead Oceans dropped it as a surprise on November 6, 2025, the same week as the original's tenth birthday.

Stereogum called it "the album so nice they had to make it twice." We would only add that the barn deserves a writing credit.

Tracklist

Listen

On Dead Oceans (cat# DOC383), first out in 2025.