Thundercat
Released February 24, 2017
Jazz FM Album of the Year 2017
The Guardian Best Albums of 2017
YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=4d6yu4cfmA4&list=OLAK5uy_neDrgMIhi1YrjonmPx2QqRDAAUlfbV7_0
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7vHBQDqwzB7uDvoE5bncMM?si=GphmIBs4QEi8tYw-aVHm8Q
About:
The album is a 23-track epic journey into the often hilarious, sometimes dark mind of the Grammy-winning singer/bassist and finds a few of his friends joining him along the way including: Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell, Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Wiz Khalifa, Kamasi Washington and Brainfeeder mastermind Flying Lotus. “Drunk” is the follow up to his widely praised 2015 mini album “The Beyond / Where The Giants Roam”, and features fan favourite tracks ‘Bus In These Streets’ and ‘Them Changes’.
‘Show You The Way’ is the first single from “Drunk”, and the ballad features two of Thundercat’s heroes: iconic musicians Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald. And how did this collaboration come to be? Thundercat mentioned his love of Loggins several times during his press tour for “The Beyond…”, leading to an introduction via his keyboard player Dennis Hamm. He tells Red Bull Music Academy Daily: “These are guys that I’ve listened to and where I felt that I’ve learned that honesty in the music. Kenny Loggins is one of my favourite songwriters.” Loggins was the one that suggested bringing McDonald in on the track and, Thundercat adds: “I think one of the most beautiful moments was realising how amazing Michael McDonald is. He would go through so many ideas and have so much to offer.”
Thundercat also notes: “That song to me is about going down the rabbit hole, taking you to another place… On the edge of dark, there’s the brightest light. It means a lot to me in the sense of… the experience that I’ve had growing up with friends and people that I’ve been around where it’s inviting them into where I come from emotionally. Sometimes it’s a pretty intense thing. The point is how weird things can get. I feel like it’s very funny that, in a way, of course Michael McDonald and Kenny would be there.” The album title, like the rest of the album, is meant to be both humorous and serious. “I’ve always tried to hold true to what Erykah Badu and Flying Lotus told me: It has to come from an honest place. I feel like it’s a place that I’ve been in different ways, seen different angles of and it’s been a bit inspirational – the drinking,” he tells RBMA Daily. “It has its ups and downs and everything, but I felt like it showed the human side of what goes on behind things, something that I see with all of my friends… I felt like it was kind of interweaved in the music culture. And it’s something that’s never talked about.”
Track Listing:
1. Rabbot Ho (Stephen Bruner / Dennis Hamm) 0:38
2. Captain Stupido (Stephen Bruner / Dennis Hamm) 1:41
3. Uh Uh (Stephen Bruner / Zack Sekoff) 2:16
4. Bus in These Streets (Stephen Bruner / Louis Cole) 2:24
5. A Fan’s Mail (Tron Song Suite II) (Stephen Bruner) 2:38
6. Lava Lamp (Stephen Bruner / Dennis Hamm) 2:58
7. Jethro (Stephen Bruner / Steven Ellison) 1:34
8. Day & Night (Stephen Bruner) 0:37
9. Show You the Way (Stephen Bruner / Kenny Loggins / Michael McDonald) 3:34
10. Walk On By (Stephen Bruner / Kendrick Duckworth) 3:19
11. Blackkk (Stephen Bruner / Mark Spears) 1:59
12. Tokyo (Stephen Bruner / Dennis Hamm) 2:24
13. Jameel’s Space Ride (Stephen Bruner / Louis Cole) 1:09
14. Friend Zone (Stephen Bruner / Charles Dickerson) 3:12
15. Them Changes (Stephen Bruner / Steven Ellison / Ernie Isley / Marvin Isley / O’Kelly Isley / Ronald Isley / Chris Jasper) 3:08
16. Where I’m Going (Stephen Bruner / Steven Ellison) 2:09
17. Drink Dat (Stephen Bruner / Taylor Graves / Cameron Thomaz) 3:35
18. Inferno (Stephen Bruner) 4:00
19. I Am Crazy (Stephen Bruner) 0:25
20. 3AM (Stephen Bruner / Steven Ellison) 1:15
21. Drunk (Stephen Bruner / Steven Ellison) 1:42
22. The Turn Down (Stephen Bruner / Pharrell Williams) 2:29
23. DUI (Stephen Bruner / Dennis Hamm) 2:18
Personnel:
Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner: vocals, bass, programming (10-12, 18, 19, 21, 22)
Dennis Hamm: keyboards (1, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 18, 20, 23), piano (3, 15), synthesizers (6)
Zane Carney: guitar (2)
Steven “Flying Lotus” Ellison: programming (2, 7, 9, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21), synthesizer (15)
Zack Sekoff: programming (3)
Louis Cole: drums (4, 13), keyboards (4, 13), programming (4, 13), “basically everything” (13)
Deantoni Parks: drums (7, 16)
S. Burris: synth-bass (8)
Michael McDonald: vocals (9), keyboards (9)
Kenny Loggins: vocals (9)
Kendrick Lamar: vocals (10)
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson: strings (18, 23)
Charles “Mono/Poly” Dickerson: keyboards (14), programming (14)
Kamasi Washington: saxophone (15)
Taylor Graves: keyboards (17), programming (17)
Cameron “Wiz Khalifa” Thomaz: vocals (17)
Pharrell Williams: vocals (22)
Mac Miller: vocals (24)
Recorded in 2016, at Chalice Recording Studios, Hollywood, CA
Producers: Thundercat, Flying Lotus (except 6, 11, 12, 14, 17) and Sounwave (5, 6, 11)
Mixing: Flying Lotus
Mastering: Daddy Kev
Photography: Eddie Alcazar
Layout: Adam Stover
Design: Zack Fox
Review:
Between Apocalypse and Drunk, his second and third albums, bassist Stephen Bruner contributed to a slew of remarkable recordings by fellow Los Angeles dwellers — Flying Lotus’ You’re Dead!, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly and Untitled Unmastered, Kamasi Washington’s The Epic, and Terrace Martin’s Velvet Portraits among them. Several months before Bruner picked up a Grammy for “These Walls,” off To Pimp a Butterfly, he issued an EP anchored by “Them Changes.” His funkiest, sweetest, most vulnerable song, it reappears as the top highlight on Drunk, a fragmentary and scattered program relative to the Thundercat full-lengths that preceded it. Bruner is still fueled by numerous forms that immediately preceded his birth — smooth soul, soft rock, jazz fusion, synth funk, new wave, all late ’70s/early ’80s — and filters them through his soft-hearted, mischievous personality. He surrounds himself with a slightly different cast of old and newer associates, including the first three figures listed above, keyboardist Dennis Hamm, drummer Louis Cole, and producer Sounwave. For better and worse, there’s a lot of foolishness occurring here. Bruner dreams about being a cat (replete with meowing background melody), pens a tribute to Japanese pop culture (“Just point me to the Pachinko machines”), and delivers a sarcastic jingle regarding social media fatigue (“I’m out here probably doing the most”). At times, the whimsicality sinks into middle school humor (“Captain Stupido”) and misogyny (“Friend Zone”). Love and mortality remain Bruner’s strongest subjects, placed on full display in terse but touching ballads like “Lava Lamp,” “Jethro,” and “3AM.” In “Show You the Way,” another bright spot, he swaps verses with Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins, two of his heroes, to swirling and balmy effect. Additional guests Kendrick, Pharrell, and Wiz Khalifa add to the star power, but the main attraction is Bruner’s singular combination of tremulous yet fluid bass and aching falsetto.
Andy Kellman (Allmusic)
