Don't try to categorize Khruangbin, just absorb the Grammy nominated trio's music

Today's music marketplace is more interconnected than ever. The boundaries that existed between genres have been largely blurred as the internet makes it easy for consumers to explore sounds.

K-pop stars are collaborating with rappers, country music is more pop than ever (or is pop more country?), and bands are getting creatively niche in their descriptors. The result has been a cheapening of words like "genre-bending" or "crossover star."

No rule is without an exception, though, and Khruangbin is one with a capital E. The Texas-based trio of guitarist Mark Speer, drummer Donald "DJ" Johnson and bassist Laura Lee Ochoa prove that you can love what you're listening to ? even if you're not quite sure what it is. Recording Academy voters agreed, nominating the group for best new artist at the upcoming Grammy Awards.

The name ? pronounced KRUNG-bin? is Thai for airplane. Appropriately, the group's music often lifts you to a somewhat liminal state, swaying between altitudes and time zones.

That's on purpose, Ochoa, who performs under the name "Leezy" tells me. While advanced music studios have been designed to expertly filter out background noise, that creates the feeling that the music "doesn’t sound like it lives anywhere,” she says.

To counteract that effect, Khruangbin records most of their music in a barn that rattles slightly and catches the sounds of nearby wildlife.

“I think it just sort of helps that daydream," she says. "Whether or not the listener actually can tell what it is or is put in the same place that we were, I think it sort of subconsciously or not allows you to daydream to a place.”

The Grammy nomination came as a surprise for Ochoa, who says she generally classified the awards as more of a pop-sphere event. The category ? best new artist ? was also a shock. The group's inaugural album turned 10 this year. After reading the qualifications though, which describe "new" as also referring to a fresh "breakthrough into the public consciousness," Ochoa said it was “emotional and inspiring" to feel the group was making an impact.

Khruangbin's newest album, "A LA SALA," is a dreamy 12-track amble that fuses sometimes ominous bass intros with warmer, groovy melodies to create a sun-soaked sound.

Devoid of lyrics (mostly), the pressure to show-not-tell mounts.

Ochoa says the group always starts by laying the bass, guitar, and drum track ? only adding words if it feels like the song is missing something.

“We want to do what the song wants," she says, likening it to decorating a bedroom. When you walk into the room, you know which way the bed should face, she jokes, the room tells you. Songs are no different.

“As the world has advanced the way that it has, it sometimes limits our ability to have imagination," Ochoa says. "Not telling you everything is entrusting the listener to know the story already and to also know that the story can be different for everyone and that somebody’s own story is so much more powerful than the story I can tell you to have.”

It's that same trust in their audience that led Khruangbin to opt for a more quiet sound with "A LA SALA." Their previous album, "Mordechai," represented a "much more upbeat and lively expression" of the band, Ochoa explains. Made partly to appease larger festival crowds, the project leaned into more up-tempo vocal-heavy tracks where "A LA SALA" features a more subdued score.

The title of the album, which means "to the room" in Spanish, is only one component of foreign-language influence. Speer, who Ochoa describes as the mastermind behind the group's use of varied sounds and international influences, often brings in mixes that aren't in English.

“He tends to listen to music from far-flung corners of the Earth," she says. "He’s constantly digging to find unheard-of music.”

Perhaps predisposed to hear music as a collection of sounds rather than a lyric-based narrative, Ochoa says incorporating music from foreign languages can be liberating for the listener.

“Part of the power in music in other languages is that you don’t necessarily understand what they’re saying and so it becomes like instrumental music in this way," she explains. "Except that a human voice resonates with people sometimes more so than an instrument because everyone has one. And so when you listen to music in another language you can connect to it because it’s human. But you still get to make up your own story.”

That sample-heavy, international sound is part of what makes any genre label slip right off Khruangin's music.

With just over 6.5 million monthly listeners, the trio is listed on Spotify as "Indie rock" and Apple Music as "alternative."

For now, Ochoa doesn't much mind being either genre-bound or genre-bending. “Humans naturally need to find classifications for things because otherwise how would you describe them?” she says, adding as an artist (or three artists, in this case) "you don’t want to put yourself in a box.”

Joking about "Music Box," a recent Yacht Rock documentary in which the likes of Steely Dan and Toto shrugged off the label as not really describing their music, Ochoa said, "Maybe in year’s time somebody will finally come up with a genre that describes us and we can say ? politely ?no.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Best new artist nominee Khruangbin doesn't need lyrics to groove