A bass guitar centered album, very modern, while still being unequivocally driven by the bass guitar.
If you've ever passed by the funk and jazz-lite dollar bin at the record store, Stephen Bruner kindly asks that you pause to revel in the pastel colors and unfettered joy. The virtuosic bassist and singer comes from a diverse pedigree: a boy band, a stint in Suicidal Tendencies and, more recently, a hired low-end for space-age R&B artists like and Sa-Ra. But as Thundercat, Bruner digs into astral soul music that's often both funky and heartbreaking — especially on Apocalypse, out June 4.
Co-produced and co-written by producers and Mono/Poly, Thundercat's follow-up to The Golden Age of the Apocalypse was written after the death of keyboardist, FlyLo bandmate and friend . It can be, at times, bittersweet, as if attempting to smile and dance the pain away in the gossamer late-night plea "Heartbreaks + Setbacks," the somber yacht-rocker "Without You" and the time-signature-shifting jazz-pop "Tron Song." But then there are tracks that really want to move, like the mutant fusion of "Lotus and the Jondy" or your next party-starter, the sweaty and somewhat self-deprecating "Oh Sheit It's X." That one's a team effort — a FlyPolyCat joint, if you will — with Bruner's crooning and playful Off the Wall falsetto on top of ridiculous capital-F Funk handed down from the .
Thundercat knows how to write genuinely affecting and technically bad-ass songs around his instrument — a rare art, usually given to some serious "." But with Apocalypse, Thundercat has made an emotionally complex record, while still finding time to party.
Co-produced and co-written by producers and Mono/Poly, Thundercat's follow-up to The Golden Age of the Apocalypse was written after the death of keyboardist, FlyLo bandmate and friend . It can be, at times, bittersweet, as if attempting to smile and dance the pain away in the gossamer late-night plea "Heartbreaks + Setbacks," the somber yacht-rocker "Without You" and the time-signature-shifting jazz-pop "Tron Song." But then there are tracks that really want to move, like the mutant fusion of "Lotus and the Jondy" or your next party-starter, the sweaty and somewhat self-deprecating "Oh Sheit It's X." That one's a team effort — a FlyPolyCat joint, if you will — with Bruner's crooning and playful Off the Wall falsetto on top of ridiculous capital-F Funk handed down from the .
Thundercat knows how to write genuinely affecting and technically bad-ass songs around his instrument — a rare art, usually given to some serious "." But with Apocalypse, Thundercat has made an emotionally complex record, while still finding time to party.
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