Six years on from ‘It Is What It Is’, Stephen Bruner returns with ‘Distracted’, a project that feels less like a conventional album than a late-night trip through the more eccentric corners of hip hop radio. Like Frank Ocean’s ‘Channel Orange’ in its sequencing and atmosphere, the songs bleed into one another through miniature skits, spoken fragments and sudden stylistic pivots, giving the whole thing the loose, mixtape-like feel of a broadcast assembled in real time. It’s a terrific framing device for a musician whose instincts are fundamentally restless.
That restlessness is audible immediately on Candlelight, where DOMi and JD Beck’s hyperactive jazz chops collide with Bruner’s rubber-band six-string bass. It’s dizzying fusion played with almost comic virtuosity, the sort of track that reminds you Thundercat is still one of the most technically gifted musicians orbiting modern R&B and hip hop.
The best moment arrives with She Knows Too Much, featuring a posthumous verse from Mac Miller. Framed by warm Rhodes chords and soft brass, it channels the golden age of jazz-rap without feeling nostalgic for its own sake.
Miller’s voice drifts through the mix like a half-remembered conversation, while Bruner’s falsetto circles themes of insecurity and romantic self-sabotage.
It’s the sort of bittersweet, groove-led songwriting that has long been his sweet spot, and the spoken “You’re just lost / and I’m here to find you” carries an emotional punch in the context of Miller’s unhappy demise.
Elsewhere, the radio-hopping format works to mixed effect. No More Lies, with Kevin Parker, leans into hazy psych-soul, the pair harmonising over a plush groove that sounds like a soft-rock hit beamed in from an alternate 1970s. By contrast, What Is Left to Say veers fully into Steely Dan-style yacht rock. It’s slick, expensive and immaculately played, but comfortable. So, so comfortable. There’s rather a lot of this breezy soft-focus material, and not quite enough of the punchier, funk-inflected energy that powers She Knows Too Much.
Still, the musicianship and creativity is formidable. Bruner’s bass remains the gravitational centre of everything; anchoring a record that constantly shape-shifts between cosmic jazz, psych-soul and west coast hip hop. For all its detours, ‘Distracted’ ultimately succeeds because its versatility never feels cynical — instead it’s just the sound of a virtuoso following his curiosity.
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