The Khost

“You can go home again, so long as you understand that home is a place where you have never been” – Ursula K. LeGuin.

Have you ever stood on the cusp of a valley and felt hollow? The good kind of hollow; the hollow that leaves room for so much air that you could breathe in the scene around you? Or have you ever cuddled up under a blanket with a thunderstorm tearing across a plain, your mind expanding into the spaces left by the rolling echo? If you’ve done either of those things, or countless other experiences which leave you strangely large and yet perfectly at home, then you’ve already heard The Khost‘s Stella Maris. It is of the intimate school of the post-rock, filled with small moments of shared togetherness. Take a deep breath and then say “warm” really slow, let the Rs roll off your tongue into the Ms. That’s this album, a sustained moment of expression that’s filled with ease and evocation.

The main musical instrument which creates this sensation of homecoming are the vocals. They are almost never comprised of one line, instead constantly benefiting from a choir approach. The main line is firm in the center but it’s always surrounded by two, three and sometimes even four other vocal tracks, singing behind, above, and beneath it. This creates not only that warm sensation we mentioned but also a feeling of size which should be well known to listeners of post-rock. It is all important; it magnifies the gentle and wise lyrics into new places, giving you the sensation that the music is all around you. It’s such a simple tool but The Khost use it in a complex way; in post-rock, it is usually reserved for the moments after the crescendo, where the instruments go silent and the vocals guide the track to its closing.

But here, it is the track. The very first vocal moments on the album, the hopeful openings of “Sunsets”, are made from this powerful unguent. This sets the tone for the whole album; this is not your parents’ post-rock, with fierce tremolo pickings and crashing crescendos. This is beauty of a different sort, a more subtle sort. The guitars are no different; hailing from the yndi halda school of post-rock, the touches on the strings are light and composite. By “composite”, I mean that they only make sense together, when all guitar leads fit together into a grander whole. So too the strummed chords but these couple with the bass, which takes over as the main motivator of most tracks. This can best be heard on the lovely “Lucid Dreams”, where the bass speaks the main line while the guitar lightly accentuates certain moments.

The last fragment that makes this album so good is the album itself. The structure is superb; instead of relying on the rise-fall-rise structure so common in post-rock, or collpasing into a monolithic, single track structure, Stella Maris just flows. It’s easy to let your mind go and suddenly find yourself at the end of the album. So much has passed but any attempt to parse it into separate tracks or moments is futile. This is why you might feel me struggling to describe this album as I write. There are are really no words for how calm, silent and full I feel when it ends. Like yndi halda’s Under Summer, it is post-rock at what I’ve always felt was its best. Instead of pretenses to grandeur, instead of a mimicry of emotions produced by tried and true musical tools, it simply is.

What is it like, to come home? No one really knows. But I bet it feels a whole lot like this.

https://thekhost.bandcamp.com/album/stella-maris - Heavy Blog is Heavy

The Khost is a band from Austin, Texas comprised of Brad Grosvold (guitar/vocals), Robert Avila (guitar/vocals), Aron Fernandez (bass/vocals), Jonathan Shanthamurthy (keyboard/vocals) and Rudy Rivera (drums/vocals) who recently released a three-song EP entitled Waking Indigo.

Their style of music shouldn’t be unfamiliar to people who have been on the pulse of indie rock for the last couple of years. Some obvious comparisons to indie rock behemoths such as Grizzly Bear and Local Natives are obvious but lesser known older acts such as Yume Bitsu come to mind as well. Like all the previously mentioned bands The Khost uses reverb like it’s another member of the band. Their clean guitars and vocal harmonies are often gorgeous but nothing new among the plethora of post-rock/shoegaze hybrids we have seen in recent years. That being said The Khost is doing it better than a majority of them, which is an accomplishment in itself.

The EP starts off with “Parallelogram,” which initially combines a field recording of waves, electric piano and guitar. It’s an hypnotic yet serene flurry of notes that eventually gets swept up by lush drums and well implemented vocals.The DIY is above average but still a bit shy of something you would expect from a more established act. In particular the lead vocal could have been treated better.

The second track “Feathers” has the most energy out of the three tracks but still contains some excellent instrumental work. Lyrically, the song is a mix of ambiguity and poignancy. The vocalist sings, “Take yourself from all the sadness. Look away and don't come back. Of course we will all miss you. Maybe we will meet again.”

The seven-minute closer “Golden Bodies” was the highlight of the album. It also contains the most open space and the band takes their time building up the song. The guitar melodies were the most memorable on the album but the same could be said about the vocals. There aren’t many lyrics but the song doesn’t need it. The only lyrics are “In my dreams I will Die, I will rise one last time. I will shine oh so bright, I will be soon at peace. Lets all say farewell.”

Waking Indigo is a solid EP with well-written songs but I can’t help but think that the band has more in them. They are on to something and have undeniable talent. If they can break the mold on their next release The Khost will become a serious contender in the arena of music.
Become A Fan - The Equal Ground

The Austin music scene is a jungle. No doubt about it. Creatures of all breeds constantly mingle, mate, and make noise together in this wild city blurring all “rules” of obligatory “scenes” or “niches”. Austin creatures are connected by an innate, instinctual love of the rhythm of nature from the chest pounding electronic scene to the wild packs of howling guitarists. You’ll find the wise old owl of country and the nose-studded and horn- headed punk sitting hand-in- hand, watching strange new breeds constantly evolve, adapt and give birth to sounds you won’t hear in any other scene in the world.

Enter The Khost, formerly known as Mammoth Indigo (which admittedly may have inspired the jungle metaphors), a talented and determined group of young musicians from right here in Austin who blend twinkly melodic post-rock with upward soaring vocals inspired by spirituality, sacred geometry, and astronomy all sprinkled with a love of math-rock and shoegaze. The journey into their debut EP, “Waking Indigo,” was planned and began in the early morning in my backyard on a lovely Austin morning with a cup of coffee and my ears engulfed by my headphones. I pushed off shore, my head ready to be submerged.

The opening track, “Feathers”, ushers in the album’s melodic intertwining guitars, a staple of their sound, which gives rise to earthy drum beats that propel the bittersweet vocals forward and upward, glowing with the feeling of reaching for something and getting so close we can taste it, only to have it move back a little further.“Golden Bodies” is a good example of how the keys and bass retain a minimalist approach and tasteful restraint to create a sea-like foundation for the vocals and guitars to swim like synchronized dancers. And when the drums come in, we are all splashing happily in the water together. “Parallelogram” brings all the water metaphors together with the track opening with the sound of gentle waves. The melody starts, the drums load them into the cannon, and then pause-BANG- it shoots them into the sky to explode into harmonies that perform an air show for your ears.

It’s hard for a band to go through a name change, but if The Khost keep working hard like they did on “Waking Indigo,” they should have no problem and I look forward to seeing them evolve, explore new territory, grow into their new name, and vice versa, their new name grow on and become them.

January 20th, 2015 was an extraordinary night for Austin band, The Khost, as friends and fans gathered at Trailer Space Records to say farewell to Mammoth Indigo and welcome The Khost, as the newly transformed band released their new EP “Waking Indigo”. Along with The Khost, sharing the stage that night were bands Summer Salt and CAPYAC. - The Austin Live Review

From the band-saturated capital city of Austin, Texas, the new DIY post-rock/shoegaze band The Khost has done a good job of setting themselves up to stand out from many of the others thanks to their dreamy, hazy tracks that focus on “film, sacred geometry, astronomy, and spiritual alignment.”

The band’s self-titled debut EP is arresting, comprising of songs that are hypnotic and chill all at the same time. The guitar melodies and rhythms are minimalistic and woven together magnificently with vocal harmonies as tracks like “Parallelogram” so aptly demonstrate.

“People have told me that ‘Parallelogram’ makes them feel like they are floating when they are hearing it live,” according to guitarist and vocalist Robert Avila. “I’ve also been told that there are certain notes that just make their bodies just feel good for some reason.”

“Golden Bodies” is a gentle, ambient track that is very much like a soft dreamscape, with mellow keys and guitar notes, soft drums and lush choruses. Avila says that the band “cranked this song out in a couple of hours with just a couple of bowls and a basic understanding of where we wanted to go. It’s about dying stars in the universe.”

“Our music has been described to put people in a self-reflexive state of mind which is exactly what we are going for,” Avila says. “We are known for interlaced guitar melodies and vocal harmonies accompanied by a minimal driving approach.” The rest of the band features talented musicians like Jonathan Shantamurthy on keys and vocals; Brad Grosvold on guitar and vocals; Aron Fernandez on bass, Rudy Rivera on drums, and live show lights and visuals from James Flores.

The Khost has opened for bands like Televangelist, Wonderbitch, Play by Numbers, Transit Method, and Ideophonic, and include among their top musical influences bands likeRadiohead, Local Natives, Daughter, Explosions in the Sky, and Pretend. Watch out for The Khost! - Indie Rock Cafe

"... The Khost follows up with their melodic chant-driven post rock. Throughout their set, The Khost transitions from intense “walls of sound” suggesting feelings of anger and denial, to the softer and more lulling sounds of acceptance. Twinkling back and forth between guitar riffs and melodic chants, The Khost takes the audience through their experiences with grief and ultimately overcoming it." - The Austin Live Review

It was a dark and stormy night, but we partied anyway. The penultimate round of our Summer Music Sampler series brought together some unique, atmospheric groups who had dazzling technical abilities but still knew how to keep things fun and lively, as Ashley Bradley’s photos hopefully prove. Math Patrol showed off a song they made by turning their zipcodes into chord arrangements and time signatures (yes, really!), Play by Numbers rejected the traditional “band hypes up the audience with cliche acknowledgments of their existence” method of stage banter in favor of a sassy text-to-speech machine, and the Khost closed out the night with passionate group singing over epic soundscapes. If you missed out, don’t fret, we’ve got one last Summer Music Sampler up next week, and that one will be a display of some of Austin’s most fascinating electronic musicians. - OVRLD

On "Parallelogram" by The Khost, the band kicks things off with some delicate piano
melody and sea-side wave samples, followed closely thereafter by finger-picking guitar
melodies. An exercise in subtlety and restraint, this slow-burning song builds up to
gradually before the vocals enter the song, ultimately sounding like a cathartic release
before the first lyric is sung. Unaccompanied electric guitar serves as the melodic
constant that carries the song between verse and chorus sections within this song,
hinging on a few repetitive notes that effectively become an unforgettable ear-worm
for the listener. Drums are used sparingly yet effectively, bashing away at cymbals
while the piano, bass, and guitar inter-mingle in a blissful cacophony of organized
noise. Each instrument stand on it own, independent of the others, but in the moments
where they all intersect, the end result is pure magic. - ///Aside///Beside///