You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishikesh, your way.

Krungben is a band from Houston, Texas, who first formed in 2010.

Anami called them the low-key superstars of psychedelic music.

They've released three albums, and the most recent is called Mordecai, that came out in June 2020.

In the past, most of Krungben's songs have been instrumental, or if they did have vocals, they'd be minimal.

Their new album is different. It features vocals and lyrics prominently, and in this episode, the three of them explain their philosophy on vocals and their process of writing lyrics.

I spoke to each of them to get their perspective on how they made the song, so we won't forget.

This is Laura Lee.

My name is Mark Speer, and I play guitar.

My name is DJ, and I've played drums for Krungben.

We wrote everything musically, in terms of guitar-based and drums. We wrote at the farm in Burton, Texas.

We've always recorded there since the beginning. For us, it's the perfect place to write, because there's minimal distractions out there. It's very quiet.

No wifi on the property. Wide open Texas landscapes.

Cows, lots of grass, trees, a really good place to center yourself.

It's where the vast majority of all of our songs were written, but I don't do my best work in a sort of like jammy situation.

I like my own time. I like to be in my own head with each song.

I was listening to this song called Kushi by Ms. Paka-Sani singer, Nausea, her song.

It was really funky on the bottom, but the vocals are really sweeping and pretty and like a light.

I wanted to have a song that made me feel the way that song did.

So the song started with bass.

We kind of ham stuff off back and forth, and so everybody in the band has their own time with each song.

I went in just kind of like, okay, this is what she's doing. This is where I want to be.

...