The Universe Smiles Upon You ii

Texas musical trio Khruangbin releases The Universe Smiles Upon You ii, the reimagined version of their debut album The Universe Smiles Upon You, on its 10-year anniversary. 

The new album features various degrees of subtlety and musical reinterpretation from the original album. On The Universe Smiles Upon You ii, the band switched up the sequence and track list, removing the original album opener “Mr. White” and opting to include fan favorite “Bin Bin” which was originally an album bonus track in Japan. The new rendition of “Mr. White” now takes the place of “Bin Bin” on the Japanese edition of the CD, titled “M. Blanc.”

Khruangbin did not set out to make the album - all they knew in the first frigid days of 2025, as they shivered in the Central Texas barn where they’ve recorded almost all of their music, was that the 10th anniversary of their debut, The Universe Smiles Upon You, was steadily approaching.  What if, they had wondered, they went back to the barn where it all began and recut the record that had started it all, on the actual 10th anniversary of those sessions? They decided, at least, to try. 

It did not take long for Laura Lee Ochoa, Mark Speer, and DJ Johnson to know that the idea was indeed a good one, that in holding up a mirror shaped by the past 10 years to their formative set of songs they could feel and hear how they had changed as people and players. The result is The Universe Smiles Upon You ii, 10 entirely new renditions of the songs from Khruangbin’s oldest album, played and sequenced in a way that works for them now without being strictly allegiant to who they were then.

In many ways, The Universe Smiles Upon You ii represents the close of Khruangbin’s first chapter, the complete culmination of the music they made when they arrived at the barn in January 2015. During the last decade, they have reached an apotheosis of sorts, their love of Thai pop and heavy dub and American soul and Ethiopian haze perfectly crystallized in a string of splendid records and live shows that have hypnotized massive theaters and festival crowds alike. They’ve repeatedly sold out the United States’ most famous venues, from Red Rocks and Forest Hills to the Hollywood Bowl and Radio City, and they’ve crowned festivals from Glastonbury to Bonnaroo. After more than a decade of relentless touring and recording, their expertly polyglot 2024 album, A LA SALA, helped earn a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist.  

The Universe Smiles Upon You ii provides a point of pause for Khruangbin, a chance to step back from a sound they now know so well and figure out where it may go from here. Khruangbin’s splendid next run, then, begins where the first one did, too - in the barn, finding their way into the world through the songs of The Universe Smiles Upon You.