Nick Bollinger caught the melodic motifs, deep funk grooves and furious jazz improvisations of L.A.'s Thundercat last night at Wellington's Festival Club, as part of the NZ Festival.
Thundercat performing at the Glasshouse in Pomona, California in 2017 Photo: © 2017 Maximilian Ho Photography, Inc.
‘Are you ready to go down a rabbit ho’?’, Stephen ‘Thundercat’ Bruner asked the Festival Club crowd, early in a set in which melodic motifs opened out into deep funk grooves or led to furious jazz improvisations.
Bruner plays bass – that is, if you can call the giant six-stringed machine he wields a bass. When he solos, which he does through a good chunk of the set, it sounds more like a synthesiser.
Fingering the super-size fretboard at a digit-defying speed, he sometimes elicited a bright pizzicato sound reminiscent of Frank Zappa’s guitar. At times he seemed to have swapped roles with keyboardist Dennis Hamm.
Thundercat at the NZ Festival 2018 Photo: Melody Thomas
In addition to his own work as Thundercat, Bruner has been a musician-for-hire around his native Los Angeles for more than a decade, recording with the likes of Erykah Badu and Flying Lotus, as well as a stint with thrash-metallers Suicidal Tendencies.
But it was his work on Kendrick Lamar’s hip-hop masterpiece To Pimp A Butterfly that established him, not just as brilliant musician but a writer and producer as well. Reminders of that album were woven through the set.
At one point he dropped into ‘These Walls’, and later ‘Complexion’, singing the well-known refrains in his gently soulful falsetto, before swerving off into more manic improvisations.
With virtuoso drummer Justin Brown completing the trio, the energy and musicianship was next-level, and yet an air of relaxation showed that to these musicians, playing was as natural as breathing. Bruner - who wore bright red satin shorts embroidered with dragons and a baseball cap with bright pink dreads - grinned frequently and made goofy references to his video game addiction.
The show started punctually and ended 75-minutes later with Thundercat’s signature tune ‘Them Changes’, leaving a crowd both sated and, it seemed, a little stunned by what they had just witnessed.
Who: Thundercat
What: NZ Festival performance
Where: Festival Club, Wellington
When: Thursday, March 1
Thundercat is playing again tonight at the Festival Club, and tomorrow as part of the Auckland City Limits music festival.
