Aussie hip hop outfit Thundamentals return this month with their first album in nearly three years, ‘Everyone We Know’.
Conceptually based on how reality is experienced though communication and the interconnectivity conversation provides, MC Tuka says the new record was written for audiences to take from it what they will. “It’s the kind of work people will interpret however they interpret it,” Tuka says.
“We’ve been abstract or a little bit surrealist in actually communicating it totally clearly. We never like to spell things out and we don’t like to preach, so it’s really up to the audience to interpret it.
"Basically, the premise of it is that when we were writing the record, it soon became apparent that we were talking to people that are in our lives or aspects and certain personalities that you have in your life.”
Flowing on from ideas and themes explored on their previous album ‘So We Can Remember’ in 2014, ‘Everyone We Know’ was written and recorded as a broader conversation Tuka says retains a universally human significance. “We found that we were talking to certain people a lot directly within the songwriting.
"After a while it became clear that I’m talking to a guy in this particular song who likes to turn up all the time and party too much. In another song, I’m talking to a woman I’ve just met who’s a bad dancer but she’s very attractive and seems like a graceful person.
"So we’re giving analogies of real aspects in our own life but, also hopefully people will grab on and relate to those character-types within their own life, hence ‘Everyone We Know’.”
‘Everyone We Know’ is the third, full-length studio album from Thundamentals, but the first record to be pressed by Thundamentals’ very own, newly-formed record label, High Depth. Tuka says he and the band hope to make their own, unique mark on the music industry. “It’s super-exciting,” Tuka says.
“We’re really happy with the team and hopefully this will be the first of many releases. High Depth is more of a collective, but first and foremost it is a record label and we’re releasing our first album on it, which has been a long time coming.”
‘Everyone We Know’ is available now. Thundamentals play 2017 Groovin The Moo as well as Bass In The Grass (Darwin) 20 May.
