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Khun Narin Electric Phin Band, the multi-generational psychedelic ensemble from rural Thailand whose ecstatic performances have quietly become a global cult phenomenon, return with their long-awaited third album, III, out May 15. Marking their first new release in over a decade, the band today shares its opening statement, “Poet Wong Pt. 1 (เปิดวง ตอน 1).”
A defining moment in the group’s live performances, “Poet Wong” (translated as “Band Opener”) is the omnivorous medley that traditionally begins their village processions, a kinetic collage of local and international melodies designed to gather a crowd and ignite collective energy. Part 1 unfolds gradually, anchored in the traditional lai known as tang wai, before bursting into a euphoric disco-inflected passage that showcases the band’s virtuosic interplay and hypnotic forward momentum.
Hailing from the valleys of Thailand’s Phetchabun Mountains, Khun Narin Electric Phin Band originated as a celebration ensemble for rural ceremonies, particularly pre-ordination fire rituals. What begins as a spiritual procession often transforms into something more transcendent, musicians of all ages locked into spiraling repetition, rhythms surging forward, the entire village pulled into a shared state of euphoria. At the center of it all is Khun Narin’s handmade sound system, a towering stack of horn speakers mounted on wheels and pushed through the village like a moving stage, its blast of sound pulling people from their homes, many joining the procession with instruments in hand as the parade grows in real time. At the core of the sound is the electrified phin, a three-stringed lute whose piercing, serpentine melodies cut through a dense wall of percussion and amplification.
The group first reached global audiences through a grainy YouTube upload that led to their 2014 international debut, introducing a sound that felt both ancient and radically new. Attempts to categorize it––surf rock, molam, garage psych, ritual trance––fell short. As NPR wrote, “Khun Narin is almost too good to be true.” WIRED called it “one of the most eccentric psychedelic records of the year,” while Newsweek praised its “indescribably beautiful psychedelia.” Champions, including Gilles Peterson, Bonobo, and Floating Points, have since amplified their reach, helping transform a hyper-local tradition into a global point of reference.
Now, ten years after their last release, originally recorded live in the fields of their village, the band returns with III, their first album recorded in a professional studio. Tracked in Los Angeles following their 2024 US tour and produced by Tommy Brenneck, whose credits include Amy Winehouse, Charles Bradley, Sharon Jones, Beyoncé, and Mark Ronson, the sessions capture Khun Narin Electric Phin Band with unprecedented depth and clarity while preserving the raw, communal intensity that defines their sound.
Across III, the band moves seamlessly between traditional forms and global influences, from the all-consuming medley of “Poet Wong” to the deep-rooted rhythms of “Sut Sanaen,” culminating in a reimagined tribute to patron sonic saint Santana on “Black Magic Woman.” The result is both refinement and revelation, collapsing boundaries between ceremonial music and global pop language in real time. The phin still soars in sharp, spiraling lines, the percussion still drives with marathon force, but now every element resonates with newfound dimension.
III feels like a continuation of something timeless, a living tradition amplified for the world stage. It is music that exists beyond borders, beyond genre, and beyond expectation, communal, kinetic, and joyfully uncontainable.
Click here to stream single/pre-order album.
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Ben Marc is a split musical personality. The moniker is a stage name for the London-based musician Neil Charles, who chose it as a hybrid of two nicknames from very separate parts of his upbringing: “Ben” is what his bandmates in the jazz group Tomorrow’s Warriors (which later formed into Empirical) called him, and “Marc” is what he was called growing up in Birmingham, as he immersed himself in a rich second-city culture of hip-hop, reggae, and soul. Who Cares Wins, the second full-length Ben Marc album — derived during the pandemic while he was working as a volunteer for the National Health Service in England, delivering food and providing support to the elderly in his area — is a swirling of those different lives: “I ended up thinking, ‘Well, it’s a genre — it’s just me,’” he said. “I wanted to bring out both worlds.”
A self-described “nomad,” Marc spent his upbringing bouncing around places like Birmingham in England and the island of Carriacou in the Caribbean, soaking up different musical styles along the way. That experience made him a Swiss Army knife of a session musician and bandmate; on bass, guitar, keys — pretty much anything you can think of — Marc became a go-to figure in various circles of jazz, soul, and electronic music. Whatever you needed, Ben Marc could do it.
Marc has played sessions for legends like Charles Mingus and the Sun Ra Arkestra, and formed an experimental jazz group of his own, Zed-U, featuring Shabaka Hutchings on tenor sax and Tom Skinner on drums. (A performance from this trio led him to Marc playing on Jonny Greenwood’s score for The Master — and Skinner is now a member of Greenwood and Thom Yorke’s band the Smile.) For many years now, Marc has served as a touring member of the band for Ethiopian jazz giant Mulatu Astatke — and having spent so much time bouncing around the globe with Ethio-jazz royalty, Marc says that what he learne d from Astatke is to never lose sight of what music is all about: “There’s been times when he would be angry because he couldn’t see the audience,” Marc says. “It’s for the people.”
On his debut 2022 solo LP, Glass Effect, Marc synthesized his various skills into a madcap vision of J Dilla–worthy funk and fusion. Pitchfork, in a glowing review, described it as “a heads-down collection that is evocative and maintains its integrity.” But looking back on it now, Marc sees Glass Effect as just the beginning of an increasingly dialed-in writing and recording approach. “It was just a bit of a ramshackle kind of affair,” he says of the debut, which was made in a studio space he shared with another musician. For the new single “But Why” (featuring Wahid) and the LP Who Cares Wins, Marc found his own space, moving in all his gear — synths, drums, cello, bass, guitar — and really embraced a lack of restrictions, literally and creatively. “I’ve just grown as a producer and artist, I think,” he considers. “It’s a more mature sound.”
The album’s title, Who Cares Wins — a phrase that plays on the British Special Air Service longtime slogan of “Who Dares Wins” — came before anything else, and served as a jumping-off point for the mood board of the music. The subversion of that patriotic machismo into something cheeky and rebellious guided Marc into building an album out: instrumental tracks like opener “The Blues,” which merges immaculate grooves with off-kilter samples, and expansive collaborations with artists like Kay Young (“Get You Gone”) and Khazali (“Trading Places”), who provide soulful vocal textures that experiment with structure and expectations. On “Back Again,” Marc’s friend and collaborator Speech, of the groundbreaking rap group Arrested Development, keeps the spacey romp hovering above the ground, weightless. (Marc produced the recent Arrested Development single “All I See Is Melanin.”)
Hearing the album, a funky slice of rap-infused psychedelia in which one modern soundscape flows into another, you might expect Marc to cite contemporary influences — maybe Frank Ocean or Flying Lotus. But what comes to mind first when he thinks about what inspired Who Cares Wins is the ’70s crime TV show Columbo, in which Peter Falk plays a suave detective navigating the rhythms and mysteries of Los Angeles. “The complete, baddest dude,” Marc laughs. Columbo was more than just a detective show, however. It was also a surprisingly adventurous show musically, in which different icons like Quincy Jones and Harry Mancini took the helm over the years to provide the score. “Being able to understand and read about which jazz musician or composer tapped into what,” he explained, “I was really geeking out about that.”
It may sound counterintuitive, but that’s what the Ben Marc project is all about, after all — taking separate ideas and cultures and finding the ways in which they’re actually all connected in some part of the musical fabric. “It’s definitely healthy,” Marc says, when thinking about the way that genre is becoming less and less of a thought in listeners’ minds. The audience is ready to tune in with an open ear and open mind, and Marc is happy to oblige them with music that can’t be categorized as anything other than deeply human: “It’s about bringing people together,” Marc says. “I’m just trying to bridge the gap.”
Who Cares Wins by Ben Marc is available now in a two EP format now on digital retailers before it's full release on December 5th.
"Trading Places (feat. Khazali)" is the newest featured single from the second EP.
Read an interview with the artist and preview both EP's up on an article this month with Roland.