Thundercat - Distracted

Five years after It Is What It Is, Stephen Bruner came back with the most crowded and most emotionally scattered record of his career. Distracted, released April 2026 on Brainfeeder, runs fifteen tracks deep and treats the guest list as part of the instrumentation rather than a marketing exercise.

Greg Kurstin co-produces most of it alongside Bruner and Flying Lotus, which gives the album a glossier low end than usual without sanding off the weirdness. "No More Lies" pairs him with Kevin Parker for a slow rolling seven minutes. "She Knows Too Much" resurrects a Mac Miller verse. Lil Yachty, A$AP Rocky, Channel Tres, and Willow all turn up, and the Lemon Twigs brothers show up as writers and players on "What Is Left to Say" and "Pozole." Underneath all of it the bass playing is as absurd as ever, and "You Left Without Saying Goodbye" closes the record alone and unadorned.

Mixed by Spike Stent and mastered by Emily Lazar, it is the biggest sounding Thundercat album by a wide margin and still recognizably the work of the same guy who made Drunk.

This pressing comes on red vinyl, half speed mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios. A striking color variant of an album built for a proper hi-fi.