{"id":10217,"date":"2026-04-14T14:11:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T14:11:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/thundercats-distracted-reviewed-surreal-humour-soft-focus-soul-and-cosmic-anxieties-collide-154126\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T14:11:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T14:11:49","slug":"thundercats-distracted-reviewed-surreal-humour-soft-focus-soul-and-cosmic-anxieties-collide-154126","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/thundercats-distracted-reviewed-surreal-humour-soft-focus-soul-and-cosmic-anxieties-collide-154126\/","title":{"rendered":"Thundercat\u2019s Distracted reviewed: surreal humour, soft-focus soul and cosmic anxieties collide"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cDoes humour belong in music?\u201d a TV reporter once asked Frank Zappa. The musician was sufficiently bemused to use the apocryphal question for an album title. Chances are Stephen Bruner would also answer in the affirmative even if Apostrophe<\/em> wasn\u2019t one of his favourite records. Bruner\u2019s fifth album released under the name of Thundercat, Distracted<\/em> is chockablock with deft one-liners, surreal non-sequiturs, wry observations and goofball pop-culture references. In musical terms, he takes just as much delight in stylistic shifts, with Bruner and his trusty bass affably slip-sliding between genres however he sees fit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cDoes humour belong in music?\u201d a TV reporter once asked Frank Zappa. The musician was sufficiently bemused to use the apocryphal question for an album title. Chances are Stephen Bruner would also answer in the affirmative even if Apostrophe<\/em> wasn\u2019t one of his favourite records. Bruner\u2019s fifth album released under the name of Thundercat, Distracted<\/em> is chockablock with deft one-liners, surreal non-sequiturs, wry observations and goofball pop-culture references. In musical terms, he takes just as much delight in stylistic shifts, with Bruner and his trusty bass affably slip-sliding between genres however he sees fit.<\/p>\n

All the ideas and quips can arrive at such a clip, it\u2019s somehow reassuring to know it\u2019s enough to crack him up, too. Evidence arrives at the end of \u201cNo More Lies\u201d, a collaboration with Tame Impala\u2019s Kevin Parker, one of a typically impressive roster of guest stars that includes Flying Lotus, Beck Hansen, A$AP Rocky, Lil Yachty and The Lemon Twigs (Mac Miller, the MC whose death in 2018 inspired the heavier vibe of Thundercat\u2019s 2020 album It Is What It Is<\/em>, also makes a posthumous appearance on \u201cShe Knows Too Much\u201d). Over a woozy yet irresistible psych-funk groove that trumps everything on Tame Impala\u2019s tepid Deadbeat<\/em>, Thundercat ponders the challenges of both being honest and keeping the lies straight in order to keep a romance afloat. \u201cMy therapist told me that I should tell you the truth<\/em>\u201d, he offers. He later attributes his appearance of indifference to the possibility that \u201cmy emotions have been sanded off<\/em>\u201d, a confession that seemingly jars him too. \u201cI live in LA, sweetie \u2013 what do you expect<\/em>?!\u201d he adds, capping it off with a lusty cackle.<\/p>\n

Bruner\u2019s self-deprecating wit is one of many things that have made his music so engaging. And while Distracted<\/em> bears flickers of Zappa\u2019s more caustic brand of humour, Thundercat ultimately seems less like a modern-day counterpart to the original Mother of Invention than to George Duke, his sunnier former sideman. Over the course of the keyboardist and composer\u2019s four-decade career, Duke freely traveled back and forth across the realms of rock, jazz, funk, R&B and pop with consistently mellifluous results. Bruner has shown a similar aplomb while simultaneously occupying a wide array of niches. How else to describe an enthusiastic fellow traveler for the disparate likes of Suicidal Tendencies, Kendrick Lamar and the costumed cast of hipster kids show Yo Gabba Gabba?<\/p>\n

Like It Is What It Is<\/em> and 2017\u2019s Drunk<\/em>, Distracted<\/em> sees its creator knit together airy avant-R&B, Stevie Wonder\u2019s most synth-heavy soul, Beach Boys harmonies, AM Gold pop and the vanguard jazz of his childhood pal Kamasi Washington, all with a low-end foundation that\u2019s one-part Larry Graham to two-parts Jaco Pastorius. All of the music\u2019s potential edges feel softened by the prevailing narcotic haze. While the ecstatic sunshine pop of \u201cWhat Is Left To Say\u201d and breezy strut of \u201cShe Knows Me Too Well\u201d may benefit the most from this liquid, limpid aesthetic, even the features by the guest MCs can feel similarly dazed and mellow. Fittingly, on the burbling almost-party-track \u201cI Did This To Myself\u201d, Lil Yachty delivers a shoutout for those \u201cwho sip codeine, not no Red Bull<\/em>\u201d, a nod to the cough-syrup concoctions that once fueled DJ Screw\u2019s chopped-and-screwed beats, another key component of the Thundercat DNA. Also present and accounted for are the free-associative lyrics in which personal reflections and criticisms intermingle with in-jokes and Star Wars<\/em> and Star Trek<\/em> references (\u201cYou\u2019re my Uhura<\/em>\u201d, he croons in \u201cWalking On The Moon\u201d and clearly there could be no higher compliment to a paramour).<\/p>\n

For all the good cheer it exudes, Thundercat\u2019s music bristles with anxieties and uncertainties. On Distracted<\/em>, the grief themes of It Is What It Is <\/em>intersect with preoccupations about attention deficits and self-reinforcing cycles of negative thinking. Those edgier undercurrents can shift a song\u2019s direction, like when the fusion-y flurry of bass guitar notes upends the initially placid nature of \u201cADD Through The Roof\u201d.<\/p>\n

Such shifts in mood and mode reflect the album\u2019s piecemeal creative process, Thundercat assembling its contents with Adele and Beck producer Greg Kurstin and various conspirators over the last five years. Some of Distracted<\/em>\u2019s best songs initially arrived in the interim \u2013 <\/em>\u201cNo More Lies\u201d was first released as a single in 2023 and the shimmering \u201cI Wish I Didn\u2019t Waste Your Time\u201d in 2025.<\/p>\n

Ironically, Distracted<\/em> may be his most coherent album to date. Less prone to abrupt zigzags than its predecessors, it\u2019s his smoothest as well. Though no song brandishes yacht-rock tropes so flagrantly as Drunk<\/em>\u2019s \u201cShow You The Way\u201d, he nevertheless enters similar waters with \u201cThunderWave\u201d, a gorgeous duet with neo-soul singer Willow Smith that brandishes the sheen of \u201980s R&B love ballads like Patti Austin and Jeffrey Osborne\u2019s \u201cBaby, Come To Me\u201d. Incongruously named for a Mexican stew, \u201cPozole\u201d achieves the same delicacy as Bruner fuses Stylistics-calibre Philly soul and pillowy \u201870s soft-rock.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, some of those pesky worries aren\u2019t so easily resolved. Distracted<\/em>\u2019s affecting closing track, \u201cYou Left Without Saying Goodbye\u201d finds Bruner battling his demons and doing all he can to soothe himself (\u201cjust breathe, it\u2019s ok<\/em>\u201d). Thundercat being Thundercat, he takes solace in cracking wise, ending the album with a lewd and left-field joke about a potential side hustle. \u201cMaybe I should start an OnlyFans and show some feet<\/em>\u201d, Bruner croons over a bed of creamy, cosmic soul gradually dissipating into the ether. Frank would\u2019ve most definitely chuckled at that one.<\/p>\n

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