Sunshine state Los Angeles born Stephen Bruner loves the intergalactic cartoon felines Thundercats so much, he took their name as his own.
With a career’s worth of top-shelf session work with everyone from Snoop Dogg, and brother to Grammy winning drummer Ronald Bruner, Jr. makes the fact that Bruner is both the bassist of Suicide Tendencies, and responsible for this album of electro-jazz fusion seem not quite so odd. Long time friend and part of Flying Lotus Brainfeeder collective, Bruner has tapped into the vein established by Lotus’ Cosmogramma LP of last year-A continuum where break-beats and solo existentialism are paired with abstract sounds.
Bruner’s influences are simple and clear: Jazz and soul then focuses on the electronic aspects. While these inspirations are embellished it is where technological cinematic flourishes, and Bruner really brings something memorable is in his virtuoso playing. Entitled The Golden Age of Apocalypse and issued autumn of last year by the Brainfeeder label, it has already been hailed by BBC radio DJ Gilles Peterson as “the most essential bass player’s album since Jaco Pastorius’ Jaco Pastorius.” Bruner is undoubtedly what was once called a musician’s musician, a practice based enthusiast who reveres good playing and he is unashamed of his talent.
“HooooooO” opens the beat as a short intro with a sample from the 80’s cartoon over a 70’s fusion clip before “Daylight” kicks in with a bumpy psychedelic pop beat with synthetic programming mashed with analog. Breezy and dreamy soulful vocals chants over the up-tempo rhythm; “Open your mind, daylight.” This is spaced out soul from a newly arrived time machine.
It is on the third track, “Fleer Ultra,” that his true loves finally leaps to the fore, because that’s the first time the bass really buzzes. On the mellow “Goldenboy,” Thundercat toys with time signatures, cooing Moogs, and a melodic bass technique that would make Jaco Pastorious proud. The noteworthy “Walkin’” is about as close to convention as Thundercat comes here. The tune struts in all its 80s glory like a would-be Michael McDonald demo submission for Eddie Murphy’s Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack. Throughout Apocalypse, it’s Bruner’s exceptionally fluid funky bass work that ties together the new millennium computer madness and that feels like they could have been laid down in the analog days of 1974.
However The Golden Age of Apocalypse is likely to confuse a number of those expecting some form of Cosmogramma part deux. It is primarily a jazz album with a touch of electronic interference, and clearly a sum of Thundercat’s numerous influences and co-collaborators rather than drawing on one area in particular. Regardless of the musical position it occupies in comparison to its immediate peers, Thundercat has a defiantly esoteric and individual debut, as well as a fantastic showcase for his remarkable talent. Perhaps not everyone’s cup of coolade, The Golden Age of Apocalypse seems specially made for a hipster SEGA game or long, hot, chilled California sunshine days.
