As far as debut albums go, the The Golden Age of Apocalypse is definitely a head-spinner, precisely the sort of improbable hybrid from an almost-unknown artist that the Brainfeeder crew has come to specialize in over the last couple years. After all, it's not every day that you find a record that simultaneously recalls the laid-back sprawl of Erykah Badu's Return of the Ankh and the bustling mania of Mouse on Mars' Iaora Tahiti, the slick jazz futurism of Herbie Hancock's Headhunters and the gentle homespun soul of Bill Withers' Just As I Am. This is the sort of densely layered, expertly played, genre-crossing marvel that could easily turn bloated or excessive, or come off like a display of pure skill with little heart behind it. But Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner seems more interested in using his well-honed chops to turn out sunny (if bogglingly detailed) ear-candy than he is in crafting big statements (despite the album's portentous title).
Co-produced with Brainfeeder major domo (and Thundercat pal) Flying Lotus, Apocalypse has the digital sheen of many FlyLo productions. But Bruner’s experience as an in-demand rock and soul bassist gives the album a live band's freedom of movement, one that's closer to the fusion records that reared him than the sequenced rhythms that have come to define dance music, even at its most out-there. After a silly and nostalgia-inducing sample from the 1980s cartoon that gave Bruner his pseudonym, "Daylight" is the album's true opener, another in Brainfeeder’s line of shouldn't-work-but-does experimental beat confections. It merges the bustling energy of 21st-century left-field electronic music (crunchy mutant techno rhythms, a mix saturated with whimsical sound effects) with the floating-on-a-cloud airiness of 1970s soul (vaporous falsetto vocals, bright-but-wistful melodies). It really does feel like a long lost Mouse on Mars track, as if that most playful of German electronic acts had called up a member of the Soulquarians camp at the same time that Common decided to collaborate with Stereolab.
That's all a bit of bait-and-switch, though. There's no doubt plenty of Brainfeeder's psychedelic and IDM-like attention to sonic detail at various points on Apocalypse, along with nods to the fractured rhythms of London's broken beat scene and the earlier West Coast post-rap experimentation of Stones Throw. But like the latter L.A. pioneers, Thundercat takes avant electronic music's futuristic sound-sculpting and reconnects it with the history of African-American pop. He's particularly smitten with that moment in the 70s when soul music got looser and smoother and more electronic, and electric jazz started taming the wildness of improvisation with the slickness and structure of the pop song. Bruner's not beholden to the days of fusion past, of course. He takes detours into smoothly gliding 80s synth-funk ("Walkin'") and queasy prog ambience ("Mystery Machine [The Golden Age of Apocalypse]"). But still, know that this is more of a jazz album than an electronic music album, and more of a soul album than either.
And it's on the third track, "Fleer Ultra", that Bruner's true loves finally leaps to the fore, because that's the first time the bass really goes bananas. Bruner is undoubtedly what was once called a "musician's musician," a practice-space hound who reveres good playing. He's unashamed of his talent, but he also knows it's better put to use making hooks. And throughout Apocalypse it's Bruner’s exceptionally fluid bass work that ties together the new millennium computer madness and the cuts that feel like they could have been laid down in the analog days of 1974. Even the drowsiest songs here pop with super-animated basslines. His already justly lauded cover of George Duke’s "For Love I Come" turns the tempo of the original down a few notches, letting most the of song play out as an amorphous but silky swirl of electric keyboard and his echo-warped voice-- he makes sure to bring out those bass chops for the climax. As a singer, Bruner is much better than he has to be, considering his musical inventiveness is already plenty attention-grabbing, but while his fluttery, heartsick vocals lend Apocalypse much of its charm and memorability, it's those basslines that are the real earworms.
So this isn't really a song album, at least not in the sense that it’ll give rock or even R&B fans looking for verse-chorus-verse much to chew on. As with FlyLo, it's still best to approach Apocalypse as instrumental head-trip, albeit one that's occasionally got tunes you can hum. But like his fusion heroes, Bruner wants it all: the future shock of electronics, the tightly edited pleasures of pop, the love-sick opulence of quiet-storm soul, and the show-stopper instrumental breaks of jazz. The fact that he's mostly pulled it off, with a record that's serious in intent while playful in execution, is pretty astounding.
