Listen to this track by multi-genre virtuoso bassist, songwriter, and producer Stephen Bruner AKA Thundercat. It’s “Them Changes” as taken from his full-length 2017 release Drunk. The song appeared even earlier on the 2015 EP The Beyond/Where the Giants Roam and appeared as a single from that release. Co-written by Brainfeeder record label founder, producer, and artist Flying Lotus, the song includes a drum sample from The Isley Brothers’ 1977 cut “Footsteps in the Dark”. This component helps to fortify the song’s funk and disco foundation, calling back to a whole tradition of pop music that would go on to influence the R&B and hip hop of the 21st century.

Here, Thundercat preserves the slinky, funky grooves of that late-Seventies period. His formidable skills as a bassist is a great asset to that effort. His playing is further enhanced by his array of pedals (specifically the “Moogerfooger“) that render his instrument into a bouncy, squelchy Moog bass synth sound. This only adds to the callback to an era when jazz, funk, fusion, disco, and pop were less demarcated stylistically-speaking on records by the Isleys, The Brothers Johnson, Herbie Hancock, and many others.

Thundercat’s approach here resets everything back to where it was during that period, but in a way that also sounds contemporary. His arrangement blends styles into a whole concoction including ambient atmospherics with a whiff of space rock in there for good measure. What’s also in there is an element for which a lot of groove-centric music is not traditionally known; deep emotional vulnerability in the lyrics that one might expect from singer-songwriters like Terry Callier or Labi Siffre, and not so much by an instrumental exemplar of a jazz funk bassist. That’s a central strength on this song; undercutting expectations and doing so on several levels at once.

One of those levels is in the idea that a song can be both incredibly funky and emotionally fraught and devastating all at the same time. To pull that off, Thundercat more than proves himself as an instrumentalist on his now-iconic hollow-body six-string bass guitar which is the lead instrument on this cut. He also serves his material very effectively as a singer, rendering his lead vocal in an anguished falsetto in places and placing his voice in the middle range in the mix. That’s also rooted in jazz funk and disco traditions established by artists like Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye on “Gotta Give it Up”, and on so many hit songs by Earth Wind and Fire.

Yet “Them Changes” is also characterized by a departure from those traditions, too. This is a song that’s deftly constructed to provoke a physical response in us as listeners. But we’re not hearing an entreaty to take to the dancefloor in the lyrics, even if we very much are in the music.

This is where another element of surprise sneaks in. As good a time as we most definitely will have in dancing to this groove, this isn’t a song about good times or feeling good. It’s a song about heartbreak, literally established in the first line and reinforced throughout.

“Nobody move, there’s blood on the floor
And I can’t find my heart
Where did it go? Did I leave it in the cold?
So please give it back, ’cause it’s not yours to take …”

– “Them Changes”, Thundercat

Another aspect of this is the song’s element of surprise is in its subtle humour. Thundercat bakes humour into his material, sometimes more overtly on a song like “Dragonball Durag” and its outright hilarious video. On this cut we get a brand of humour that’s of a darkly ironic variety. As much as this song provokes dancing and physical movement, the nobody move line that kicks this song off might catch one off guard. It suggests a writerly smirk on Thundercat’s part, knowing full-well that everyone is moving on the dancefloor, bloody or not, by the time he sings that line.

As for the specific story behind “Them Changes” who other than the author can say what specific changes are reflected in the narrative and which specific events gave rise to them (if any!)? The larger point is that emotive expressions of heartbreak and of feeling lost as we sit with a black hole in our chests can take as many forms as any other human experience. Sometimes when we experience states of emotional stress like this, all we can do is sit in it and weather the storm as the rest of the world merrily or even funkily goes on as it always has.

Here, the music helps to underline that point as much as the lyrics do. In this “Them Changes” embodies an important idea; that we often carry heartbreak around with us even when the world around us seems to heave with joy, like a crowd grooving together on a big dancefloor with smiles on every face but ours. But as the song also demonstrates, sometimes it helps to sing it out in the most defiantly funky way possible to help break its hold and return us to the world again.

Thundercat is an active and innovative artist today. You can catch up to him with new releases, collaborations, and live dates at the modestly titled and accurately descriptive theamazingthundercat.com.

For more on this song and Thundercat’s approach to writing it and other songs from Drunk, check out this interview from redbullmusicacademy.com.

Enjoy!

https://thedeletebin.com/2024/07/29/thundercat-sings-them-changes/

#2010sMusic #bassGuitar #jazzFunk #ProgressiveRB #Thundercat