Thundercat: The Beyond/Where the Giants Roam | Album Review

Stephen Bruner has featured on two of the albums of 2015 so far, Kasami Washington's The Epic and Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly, and the bassist has long attracted plaudits for his work with Flying Lotus, Erykah Badu and others. He's no slouch when it comes to his own work either, and this new six-track mini-album comes with airy atmospherics, heavyweight rumbles, cameos from Herbie Hancock and Washington and a sense of an artist working out the bigger themes of life and death. Bruner's talents ensure exquisite basslines, but there's also a great deal of musical adventuring here too, with That Moment and Them Changes tripping towards the far side of town. Those expecting interstellar funk jams may wonder if they're in the right room, but down-tempo moods and introspective colours show Bruner is adept at following other lines.