Consumer Guide Album

Khun Narin Electric Phin Band: Khun Narin Electric Phin Band [Innovative Leisure, 2014]
From rural Thailand, a loose, multigenerational gaggle of musicians play their lively yet quiet and medium-tempo version of something called phin phayuk, a phin being the traditional, long-necked, three-stringed lute they electrify. Why American enthusiasts call the result "Psych & Funk" beats me as it always does. I'm beginning to intuit that "psych" means any vernacular instrumental music that seems to wander a little and isn't the mysterious and antique "jazz." But "funk," well--it's true my wife always guesses that they're from some sub-Saharan place, but the rhythms are both straightforward and more poky than pushy, their trance factor a matter of scale and timbre even when they get tricky. This is probably why phin phayuk has sounded just right at breakfast on three or four occasions. In rural Thailand, it starts parades. In Manhattan, it's wake up and make the tea music. B+