Sound Study will follow unexpected resonances, feedback, and musical migration around the world. Tune in for situated listening, original field recordings, and occasional interviews with guest DJs, artists, and scholars.

Khun Narin’s Electric Phin Band, music producer Josh Marcy, and Thai music blogger Peter Doolin (check out Mon Rak Pleng Thai!) join this month’s Sound Study to celebrate the band’s soon-to-be-released album III.

Khun Narin’s Electric Phin Band are a multi-generational powerhouse from rural northern Thailand whose ecstatic, amplifier-blown folk music has quietly become one of the most unlikely global cult phenomena of the last decade.

Hailing from Phetchabun Province, the group formed as a community celebration band — playing weddings, temple fairs, ordinations and village parades. At the center of their sound is the electrified phin, a traditional three-stringed Thai lute whose piercing, spiraling melodies cut through walls of percussion and portable PA distortion. What might begin as a local procession quickly transforms into something transcendent: hypnotic riffs cycling endlessly, rhythms pushing forward with relentless momentum, musicians of all ages locked into communal euphoria.

The conversation was recorded in October 2024 while Khun Narin was on tour in Los Angeles. Their new album III comes out on Innovative Leisure May 15th!