Andrew Veeder on December 7th, 2013

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Thundercat, neé Los Angeles’ Stephen Bruner, brought his 2013 tour to a close at the sold-out Echoplex on Thursday night, returning home triumphant traversing and North America. After a rousing introduction by the Gaslamp Killer, the six-string bass virtuoso took the stage fronting the three-piece band, flanked by Dennis Hamm on keys and Justin Brown on drums, and put on a masterful spectacle of avant-garde, funkadelic jazz-hop that had the whole place captivated. The visceral set was impressive on every level and more like a journey, with each player excelling at their own instrument in such improvisational ways that the innovative combination of them all was almost too much to take in, like an ecstasy of intoxicating psychedelic rock ’n’ roll jazz.

Some songs had segments that hit you like the sonic equivalent of that intense tunnel in Willy Wonka, while others twinkled with beautiful rhythms, Bruner’s voice seductively floating above it all. His lively and unpredictable fingertips danced across that huge Ibanez bass so fast they were almost a blur, his hands flying with agility across the neck and strings like he was pushing the space-time barrier as he shredded that bass with rapid-fire precision. The set featured multiple songs from his excellent 2013 album “Apocalypse,” including “Heatbreaks + Setbacks,” “Tron Song,” and “We’ll Die,” as well as “Is It Love?” and a smooth cover of George Duke’s “For Love I Come” from his debut album “The Golden Age of Apocalypse.”

They tore through “Lotus and the Jondy” in a nasty display of shredding and jamming, Bruner possessed as his fingers fluttered in a fury over that bass as he plowed away with an eyes closed, teeth out, spiritual stank face that results from an overload of funk flowing through your body. “Evangelion” felt like it was challenging how complex and experimental a sound you could create with only three people, like an instructional video of how to push the limits. And then they rained nu-disco funk down upon the audience and closed with “Oh Sheit It’s X,” grooving the euphoric crowd into the liveliest it was the whole night, with dozens yelling when the beat dropped out, “Oh sh*t, I’m f*cked up.” “I just wanna party, you should be in here / and in this ecstasy, baby,” he sang on the chorus, perfectly articulating the sentiment we were all sharing after such a phenomenal performance.

The diverse and excellent bill of Los Angeles artists began with beatmaker and rapper Jonwayne forgoing the rhymes in favor of an “unapologetic beat set” – 40 minutes of weaving snippets of his signature dense and lo-fi production into an awesome instrumental collage full of soul samples and eclectic percussion. He later tweeted, “It’s called ”˜adapting to the situation.’ I feel that’s what was best as an opening.”

Next up was rising star Moses Sumney, a one-man folk-soul machine who had the nearly-full house transfixed with his live looped hand-claps and vocal percussion, emotive guitar melodies and incredibly captivating and richly soulful voice. Songs like “Man On the Moon” and “Plastic” had the crowd respectfully quiet and entranced, before kicking it up a notch with his cover of Majical Cloudz’s “Childhood End,” building his own backing beat piece by piece and making it his own. He ended with the stunning “Everlasting Sigh,” again constructing a rhythm of hand wipes and tones to begin and eliciting audience support in clapping before winding them down and bringing the beat back in. It was lovely and all too short.

The crowd was stylish and diverse in age, and felt like a casual jazz hangout with everyone nodding their heads and feeling it in their own way.

Photo by Carl Pocket