How does Thundercat start his day? “Overworked, underpaid,” the bassist-singer born Stephen Bruner shrugs on ‘You Left Without Saying Goodbye’, the final track on his first album in six years. That might seem like a long stretch of absence to be overworked and underpaid, but Bruner has certainly kept busy, appearing on songs by Silk Sonic, Justice, Kaytranada, and more. Many of the collaborators he picked up along the way feature on his guest-heavy new album, Distracted, including Tame Impala (alongside whom he appeared on the Minions: The Rise of Gru soundtrack), Channel Tres, and A$AP Rocky. After popping up on the title track of Gorillaz’s 2023 album Cracker Island, he also got producer Greg Kurstin on board, helping offset his drowsy expressions of overstimulation, inertia, and restlessness with more balanced production. It finds him lovestruck and world-weary, the grief of It Is What It Is still lingering in his mind, yet Distracted manages to stay mostly focused.
1. Candlelight
The opening track begins in an intimate mode, a loungey prayer against burnout that doubles as a tribute to two important figures in Stephen Bruner’s musical education, Reggie Andrews and Meghan Stabile. DOMi & JD Beck’s appearance doesn’t exactly scan as passing the torch, but it puts their youthful virtuosity, which pushes the song towards astral jazz, in a different light. The fact that it dims out in just two and a half minutes feels like an illusion.
2. No More Lies
The next track strangely feels way longer than it has any right to be. As Thundercat’s first proper new music since the pandemic, it’s remarkable how much it cedes ground to the psych excursions that marked Tame Impala’s lockdown-anticipating The Slow Rush, though that squelchy bass is unmistakable. When it comes to expressing a uniquely LA brand of male loneliness, though, Bruner and Kevin Parker, reprising his ‘Dracula’ role, are a great match. “It’s not your fault/ I’m just kind of an ass,” Bruner sighs, goofing off even in the painful act of saying goodbye.
3. She Knows Too Much [feat. Mac Miller]
Thundercat’s basslines on Balloonerism, the latest posthumous Mac Miller album, buoyed about half of its songs in subtle ways. It’s no surprise the collaboration Bruner digs up here is a highlight, the brassy instrumentation totally enmeshed in Miller’s energy rather than prodigiously standing apart from it. The lyrical sensibility isn’t too far removed from ‘No More Lies’, but the execution is way sweeter.
4. I Did This To Myself [feat. Flying Lotus and Lil Yachty]
After Miller laments that he can’t buy his way into this girl’s love, Thundercat echoes the sentiment ‘I Did This To Myself’, adding Lil Yachty and Flying Lotus to the party. Bruner’s high falsetto and sense of humour perfectly intersect: “Girl, you look annoyed/ Like you’ve already had enough/ Do I remind you of your ex?” While Yachty dramatically proclaims that he’s mad, Bruner seems to use his fluid bass playing to drift off, without a care in the world.
5. Funny Friends [feat. A$AP Rocky]
Perhaps Thundercat wanted to maintain the 15-track album streak, but ‘Funny Friends’ sounds like it belongs on a different record – maybe it was destined for A$AP Rocky’s Don’t Be Dumb, where the unreasonably pompous beat would make sense. But it also boasts a melodically irritating chorus about being funny friends until the end, and you know what they say about showing and telling.
6. What Is Left to Say [feat. The Lemon Twigs]
Aesthetically, Thundercat and the Lemon Twigs’ retro sensibilities complement each other well, if not well enough to cruise down three choruses. Just skip after the second one for cringe-safe listening.
7. I Wish I Didn’t Waste Your Time
Bruner’s paranoid earnestness is a breath of fresh air, if an odd counterweight to the track’s kaleidoscopic synths. It’s one of the few tracks where Greg Kurstin’s pristine production feels slightly mismatched, especially as it leaves room for some clunky rhymes.
8. Anakin Learns His Fate
Interpersonal politics give way to world-weariness as Bruner’s geekdom keys into moral profundity. If that’s the goal, at least, it incentivizes the musician to craft a fuller journey of a song, complete with a wordless, laid-back outro that seems to offer a hideout.
9. Walking on the Moon
It naturally leads into ‘Walking on the Moon’, which opens with the lines, “Your warm embrace, I’m underwater/ So abiotic, no one around us/ Where no one has gone before.” It’s lovely and deeply silly in an almost transcendent way, one of the album’s best arguments for slaphappy distraction.
10. This Thing We Call Love [feat. Channel Tres]
Reviving the album’s collaborative spirit after a string of solo tracks, the song’s flirtatious mood is elevated by the full-bodied beat, not to mention Channel Tres’ sultry vocals. The theme remains “There’s no one here, girl, but us,” but it’s hardly suggestive at this point.
11. ThunderWave [feat. WILLOW]
If Thundercat were to reserve a single guest spot for Distracted, it probably would have been WILLOW. Their mellifluous duet finally embodies the warm union the album has been teasing over the last few tracks, a schmaltziness that’s too genuine to resist.
12. Pozole
It doesn’t have a proper feature, but you don’t have to look at the credits to figure out that the Lemon Twigs are behind the production on this ethereal ballad. “Does it even matter if I show you who I am?” Bruner asks, returning to the evasive fallibility of the earlier songs.
13. A.D.D. Through the Roof
Bruner’s most thoughtfully self-aware verse unfurls in a single stretch on ‘A.D.D. Through the Roof’, staying true to its title. As he prepares to show off his unparalleled skills on the six-string bass, it’s almost a surprise, and not an unpleasant one, when keys turn up to do the heavy lifting; there’s more than one way to ease a restless mind.
14. Great Americans
‘A.D.D. Through the Roof’ and ‘Great Americans’ could be a two-parter, but this one’s genuinely funny, potentially the funniest Thundercat has been on record. With a line like “Dear Lord, send help, I’m talking to my cats (Meow),” it’s all about the delivery, and Bruner nails it. He recently joined A$AP Rocky on SNL; clearly, he deserves his own guest spot.
15. You Left Without Saying Goodbye
Another song about overstimulation might seem, well, a little overwhelming, but it’s a fitting closer, skulking its way to a conclusion with no attempt at resolution. It’s also how I imagine it feels to watch Thundercat and King Krule on the same festival day. You wonder why the guy started ghosting you? Probably out there thinking about other women, you assume, when really what’s on his mind: “Just don’t forget the magnesium.” In a recent interview, he said, “What’s the saying? ‘You live long enough to see yourself become the villain’? You keep going, you might come back around again. Maybe somebody’s got to chop your hand off or something.” It’s in that headspace that you can imagine him thinking up the final punchline: “Maybe I should start an OnlyFans and show some feet.” The joke deflects, whatever gets you through the day, and you go back to work.
