Khruangbin share their 'space twang' sound in The Current studio
by Jill Riley
February 17, 2026
Ten years ago, the Houston-based band Khruangbin gathered in a barn in rural Texas to record what became their debut album, The Universe Smiles Upon You. A decade later, the band members reconvened in that same barn to revisit that music — sessions that resulted in a 10th-anniversary “revisited” edition of the album, which Khruangbin have dubbed The Universe Smiles Upon You ii.
While on tour in support of the revisited album, Khruangbin were in the Twin Cities to play at First Avenue in Minneapolis. Before the show, they stopped at The Current to play selections from The Universe Smiles Upon You ii, creating a sound that The Current’s Jill Riley has described as “space twang.”
Watch the musical performances above, and below, watch and listen to Jill Riley’s interview with Khruangbin. A full transcript appears beneath the interview video.
Interview Transcript
Jill Riley: You're listening to The Current. I'm Jill Riley, joined in the studio by the band Khruangbin. DJ is here. Laura is here. Mark is here. Welcome to — well, welcome back to The Current, and welcome back to the Twin Cities.
Mark Speer: Thank you so much for having us.
Jill Riley: It's nice to have you back.
Laura Lee: I love it here.
Jill Riley: You know, ahead of this interview and ahead of your First Avenue show, I wanted to take a look back at what venues you've played in the Twin Cities, because an old friend of mine had posted a picture of you guys playing in the Seventh Street Entry back in 2016, and it was so cool to see just you guys on that small stage in The Entry, and then seeing the progression of, you know, then the Turf Club and First Avenue, Mainroom and the Palace Theatre, but you made a pretty deliberate decision to play First Avenue, because I'm thinking, "Wow, they could play a much bigger venue."
So this is all related to something big that you did for the 10th anniversary of your debut album. So I really want to kind of get into talking about the the updated version. Is that kind of the right way to put it? The updated version or the revisited, maybe, version?
Laura Lee: Revisited.
Jill Riley: OK, revisited version of The Universe Smiles Upon You. So the 10th anniversary, on the 10th anniversary of that album, you released a revisited version. And I wonder what the motivation was to revisit the album?
DJ Johnson: Yeah, we really just wanted to celebrate 10 years of this album coming into the world. And we kicked around some ideas about how to do that, and that was the one thing that felt the most like what we would do if you told the kids 10 years ago, "Hey, this is all going to happen." That's what we would have done. So that's what we landed on.
Jill Riley: Yeah, I think often I get into these conversations about, like, if you could go back in time, what would you do differently? And that's kind of a scary rabbit hole to go down, because you never know what you'd change. But the conversation will lead in a direction of, if you could go back in time, would you just go back to what you knew then? Or would you want to go armed with what you know now? And it seems like that's what you're saying in approaching revisiting an album.
Mark Speer: Yeah, there's no possible way that we could re-record the record exactly how it was. And that wasn't the intention. It was like, well, these are the songs. This is how we're going to interpret it in that moment, and capture it on the same days to the 10-year anniversary; like, we recorded it exactly 10 years from when we recorded the first one. The weather was not that different, maybe even colder this time. But yeah, other than that, the environment was the same. We use the same gear. We're the same, but we've got some extra miles on us.
Jill Riley: Miles. Knowledge. Wisdom! I like that. So tell me about where you recorded it, because I keep reading "the barn."
Mark Speer: The barn. Yeah.
Jill Riley: Now, I grew up in Minnesota, my mom's family had a dairy farm, so "barn" maybe means something different to me, like thinking about, like, studio equipment and thinking about a barn. But do describe it. It's a barn?
Laura Lee: It's a barn.
Jill Riley: It's a straight-up barn.
Laura Lee: It's a real barn.
Jill Riley: OK.
Laura Lee: It was used to house tractors.
Jill Riley: OK.
Laura Lee: And it's on Mark's family's property, and they traded tractors in for cows. Much more beautiful. Cows are much more beautiful. And so there was just an empty barn. And back before The Universe Smiles Upon You, when we were looking for a rehearsal space that was affordable and you weren't sort of competing with musician neighbors for sound, his parents were generous enough to say, "Well, there's a barn out there." So we would go out there and play. But it's not at all a studio barn.
Mark Speer: It hasn't been converted or anything. It's just, it's still just, like, tin, corrugated siding and a frame and doors, and that's kind of it.
Laura Lee: Yeah, there's no insulation for anything. There are critters that, you know, house themselves in there. And there's some prep work each time we go out there to make sure that we don't disrupt their lives, but we ask them politely to leave for a short amount of time while we are in there.
Jill Riley: And you're on this, like, 10th generation of the critters with the re-recording, with the revisiting. The Universe Smiles Upon You ii. You know, I looked at the track listing for the, I guess, original version, and then the re-recorded version. And it looks like not only did you revisit these songs, but you even kind of revisited the structure of the album. I really want to talk about one of the songs that you performed in the studio today, "Little Joe and Mary ii." The way that you guys lock into this groove, I kind of wanted it to go on forever.
Mark Speer: Oh, good.
Jill Riley: I mean, it sounded incredible. I mean, the, you know, the foundation of the rhythm section, but then the way that, like, Mark, your guitar, and you had a pedal steel player that is not sitting with us right now, but the way that you guys kind of locked in, and you were going back and forth, I think it's an incredible groove. And I wonder if you could talk about that song a little bit, and talk about your fourth player that you have on the road with you.
Laura Lee: Love talking about Will.
Mark Speer: Yeah, Will's the best. Let's just, let's start with Will.
Jill Riley: Let's start with Will.
Mark Speer: We've known Will [Van Horn] for a very long time. He has performed, I think, on every release we've ever put out. Am I right?
Laura Lee: Except for A La Sala.
Mark Speer: Except for A La Sala. That's right, it was only us three on that one. But yeah, he's been extended family of ours for a very, very long time, and when it came time to put together this tour, especially, he was present with us for the entire recording session of The Universe Smiles Upon You ii. And it was such a joy, really refreshing. And he just kind of brought all kinds of cool ideas and great sounds. And so it was like, well, when we actually take this thing on the road, let's bring Will, too. And it's been really fun, I think.
Laura Lee: It's been great. Yeah, it's really added a lot. Yeah, and it's not everyone that you can just lock in with, like you're talking about. You know, I've found it to be so rare with Mark and DJ, and then you think of having another person to lock in with all three of us, and we sort of all feel that. But, yeah, it's been a joy.
Jill Riley: I just, I love the pedal steel on it. And I have an emotional reaction to hearing the pedal steel in almost any shape or form, but especially in classic country music. But there really was, there was like — what did I write down? — I wrote "space twang." But there was this great, like, twang to that song. And did the song originally have that kind of vibe to it? Or how did you make adjustments when re-recording it?
Laura Lee: The original song did have pedal steel.
Jill Riley: OK.
Laura Lee: And in fact, we've never, except for one time, we've never played that song live, because without Will, it really lacks the je ne sais quoi.
Jill Riley: There's something missing. Yeah.
Mark Speer: The space twang.
Laura Lee: The space twang. Yeah, it's missing the space twang.
Jill Riley: Exactly.
Mark Speer: Oddly enough, when we recorded it this last time, he played synthesizer on it, which I thought just added such an interesting kind of sound, like. So we were going for this very sort of fireside, intimate living room sound. We recorded in the living room at the farmhouse because it was just really, really cold that day.
Laura Lee: And Mark really wanted the sound of a fire.
Mark Speer: Yeah.
Laura Lee: In the recording, which, it was there, and it's in there.
Mark Speer: Yeah.
Laura Lee: But Will played synthesizer, and weirdly, it added a spaciness, and we were playing sort of more acoustically, and how we were performing that, the synthesizer brought the space twang back. It kind of kept it from being too, like, too dusty, too acoustic.
Mark Speer: Like, you know when you hear like, Springsteen stuff from the '80s, and you think, "Oh, yeah, American music, Springsteen." And it's got this, like, synth part in it. And you don't think of Springsteen as being very like, electronic or synthy, but it's all over that stuff, and it just kind of adds this kind of expansive ...
Jill Riley: Makes it big.
Mark Speer: Yeah, makes it big!
Jill Riley: Yeah.
Mark Speer: And I was like, "Man, that's awesome. Let's do that," you know? So, hats off to Springsteen.
Jill Riley: Well, hats off to you guys. I love it. I just, that version that you recorded here at The Current. I was just ... [jaw drops] I was in the zone. I wasn't in your zone, but I was in a zone. You're listening to The Current, and I'm talking with Khruangbin. We are talking about The Universe Smiles Upon You for the 10th anniversary of the album, it was revisited, so The Universe Smiles Upon You ii. And you guys are currently on tour in support of this revisited album. And you know, you made a deliberate decision to play smaller venues. And I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit, what the motivation was there?
Mark Speer: Oh, just ticket sales were terrible, so...
Jill Riley: That is not true! That can't be true.
Laura Lee: We've been sort of, like, fantasizing about this tour for years, ever since the venues started to get bigger. We, like, loved this exact size of room. First Ave is like one of the rooms, we think of; 9:30 [Club] in D.C. … It's like these certain rooms that just have this energy that you just can't get when the stages get bigger, the first row gets farther away.
Mark Speer: Yeah.
Laura Lee: You can see less people.
Mark Speer: And we get further away, too, because we have to fill the stage. We have to, like, make it visible for the people in the back. You know what I mean? Because we want everybody to get a good show. You play the smaller venues, and it's just like that energy that we can create, because we're all close onstage, and we're through amps, and we're using wedges.
Laura Lee: Yeah, we're not using in-ear monitors, which is another thing. It's like, you're really connected to the room.
Jill Riley: Yeah.
Laura Lee: You can every single person yelling. It's awesome.
Jill Riley: But you like it. You like that energy and that feedback. Yeah.
Mark Speer: Yeah, it's awesome.
Laura Lee: I mean, we also like the big stages, and we also like the production and kind of getting to make art in that other way. But this album felt like the perfect time to sort of give ourselves the gift of going to these rooms that we loved in the moment, and going back with the wisdom, but sort of being playful with that time of our lives that is impossible to recreate, but we can, kind of, like, dip a toe in.
Jill Riley: Yeah. I was just mentioning various venues that you've played in the Twin Cities, and kind of going back to probably that first headlining tour of playing in the Seventh Street Entry. Do you have any moments that you recall from, you know, I know, 2016, but do you have moments that you recall from, like, that part of the tour, coming to Minneapolis for that show?
DJ Johnson: Yeah, absolutely. I remember the first time we played here, it was, you know, seeing the stars on the brick wall outside, and looking at all those names, and obviously Prince being the legend he is, and recording Purple Rain there. Yeah, I remember the first time we played First Ave, after the show, and everybody cleared out, we all took a trip back into Seventh Street Entry, and kind of stood in the room and just kind of looked around like, "Wow," like, "It seems so small now, you know, after playing that stage." And, yeah, there's always been kind of a longing to get back to the more condensed rooms, because there's just a different energy when people are gathered more packed together in a smaller room, you're closer to the crowd. You can actually hear people from the stage. It's great.
Laura Lee: When, I think it was when we played First Ave, I went into a yoga class, and it was like a really good vibe. Not all yoga classes are created equal.
Jill Riley: OK.
Laura Lee: And I was just having — it was a really good space — I was having a really good time. And the building got struck by lightning, and we all had to evacuate, and we're all on the street. And I was talking to one of the girls that was working out next to me, and I was like, "Wow, it was so good in there. This is wild." She was like, "You know, that's Prince's old studio we're in."
Jill Riley: Whoa!
Laura Lee: I was like, whoa! How does that happen? You know, we saw [Giorgio] Moroder here.
Mark Speer: Yeah.
Laura Lee: We have a lot of memories here.
Mark Speer: I mean, Seventh Street at first, when we got on that stage, it actually felt, it did feel really big. I mean, they all felt big at that time, you know? Like, it was kind of like our first big tour like that in the States, you know? And I'm really glad we kind of started small and got, you know, bigger and bigger clubs, because I definitely wouldn't want to just drop into a 15,000-cap room. I don't think I could really handle that one.
Jill Riley: That sounds terrifying, actually.
Mark Speer: But I really do, like, the kind of size that we're playing in right now. It just feels really, it feels really good. It feels really comfy. Yeah.
Jill Riley: Yeah. Well, I think in honor of the comfy spaces in the Twin Cities, DJ, I gotta call out your hat. You can't see this if you're listening on the radio, so you'll have to watch the video on YouTube. But I love that you packed your Turf Club hat for this tour.
DJ Johnson: I had to have it with me. It was one of the things that — I've had it since we played Turf Club, and I fished through my stuff, and I was like, "This is the time to bring it out and rock it in Minneapolis." So glad I still have it.
Jill Riley: I'm talking with Khruangbin on The Current. And you know, before we wrap up, at The Current, you know, we've been following along with your career and just enjoying playing your albums. I mean, at this point — what? Four studio albums, a collaboration album with Vieux Farka Touré, a couple collaborative EPs with another Texan, Leon Bridges. I mean, as the years have gone by, I just hear more sounds from more parts of the world, and when listening to your band, I can't pinpoint where you're from, but I do know that you're from Houston, Texas, and I wonder what role Texas or what role Houston plays in your music? Because I don't know if, like, I would put your band on a map, but it certainly is. I mean, you have a home. Yeah.
Mark Speer: Oh yeah. I mean to me, I think that we wouldn't sound like the way we do without having come from Houston, given that it's such an international city, and so many people move there from all over the world, and you grow up with first- and second-generation immigrants from everywhere, and it just becomes kind of part of your DNA. If you're not from Houston or from around that area, like, it might seem like unusual.
Jill Riley: Yeah, I've never been there.
Mark Speer: For us, it's just very kind of normal. You know?
Laura Lee: I haven't been hanging my hat in Houston for a number of years, but every time I go back, not only does it look like me, but it looks like Khruangbin, and feels, it's just like, "Of course we're from here." This is, this is Khruangbin.
Jill Riley: Yeah.
I think that we wouldn't sound like the way we do without having come from Houston, given that it's such an international city, and so many people move there from all over the world, and you grow up with first- and second-generation immigrants from everywhere, and it just becomes kind of part of your DNA.
– Mark Speer of Khruangbin
Mark Speer: Yeah. We really just wanted to take everything that we love about growing up there and the music and the arts and just put it into this project.
Jill Riley: Excellent. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.
Mark Speer: Thank you.
DJ Johnson: Thank you.
Laura Lee: Thank you.
Jill Riley: Glad you're back in the Twin Cities. Thank you for coming by The Current, and the best wishes with the rest of the tour.
Mark Speer: Thanks for having us.
Jill Riley: Hopefully we'll see you down the road.
DJ Johnson: Thank you so much.
Jill Riley: That's Khruangbin. I'm Jill Riley. You're listening to The Current.
Songs Performed
00:00:00 Two Fish and an Elephant ii
00:08:10 Little Joe and Mary ii
00:14:22 White Gloves ii
All music from Khruangbin’s 2025 release, The Universe Smiles Upon You ii, available on Dead Oceans.
Musicians
Laura Lee – bass, vocals
Mark Speer – guitar, vocals
DJ Johnson – drums, keys, vocals
Will Van Horn – pedal steel, synthesizer, auxiliary percussion
Credits
Guests – Khruangbin
Host – Jill Riley
Producer – Derrick Stevens
Video – Evan Clark
Audio – Eric Xu Romani
Graphics – Natalia Toledo
Digital Production – Luke Taylor
External Link
Khruangbin – official site
