Bleep

Thundercat's most realised vision of soulful jazz-fusion and boogie yet with the absolutely stunning Drunk. Calling on an A-list of who's who within his world to stop by for a drink, guest spots come from Flying Lotus, Kamasi Washington, Pharrell, Kenny Loggins (!!!) Wiz Khalifa & of course the one and only Kendrick Lamar. Drunk is the most perfectly executed album of hip-hop rooted soul science you are gonna hear in 2017 and is set to sit perfectly alongside You're Dead! & To Pimp A Butterfly as an absolutely top shelf classic of recent times.

Along with his partner in crime Flying Lotus, the multi-faceted Thundercat is a leading light within the hip-hop, jazz and beat scene that is centred around the Brainfeeder imprint. Having instantly turned heads with the Squarepusher style bass meets smokey L.A. rap productions of his debut long player The Golden Age Of Apocalypse back in 2011, Thundercat has continued to refine his sound with head turning records that splice soul, jazz, funk and beats into an addictive soup that when the needle hits the groove, it feels like the loose-limbed funk is being injected directly into your spine.

On Drunk, Thundercat's soulful delivery is distilled into twenty-three tracks of truly psychedelic variety, themes flit between romance to late night sessions hitting the bottle. Each track appears and drifts out of view within a short space of time, but with so many on offer, this truly adds to the charm. His smooth as butter cinematic orchestration sees each track spill into the next with a head dizzying cheers. Delivering his vocals in a somewhat spoken word style, Thundercat uses the laid back vibe that has come to characterise his music to crowbar in some rather sordid ideas and dark thoughts, this is non so evident as on "Bus In These Streets" where his halftime vox give the real world daily horror of reading the news with the immortal line "From the minute I wake up, I'm staring at the screen, watching the world go insane" when sung over a tipsy fusion backdrop the urge to want to take a sip of something strong is evident.

While starting out as an upbeat record of punch-drunk jazz-fusion and psychedelic soul, as it progresses onwards it becomes clear that behind the bleary-eyed grin, Thundercat uses the album to carry through some rather staunch transcripts based around alcoholism, anxiety & heartbreak. All of this makes for an utterly compelling record that once you start to drink it up, it's hard to fight the urge to revisit Drunk night after night after night.

It's telling that even at this stage within a night of heavy-handed drinking, Thundercat is undoubtfully at the top of his and pretty much everyone else around's game.