Freeform jazz improvisation is, by virtue, an acquired taste. Yet nobody's arguably done more in the past 15 years to make it a more common flavour in people's sonic diets than Thundercat.
Need proof? Witness the sold out crowd at RISING festival on Saturday night - the last show of Thundercat's Australian tour - and you'd think everyone would know their Stanley Clarkes from their Mahavishnu Orchestras.
That's the real beauty, though. Poll the room and you're likely to find fans have come to the musician born Stephen Bruner via other sonic trails, whether it be his crucial services to Kendrick Lamar and Flying Lotus, playing for Snoop Doog and Erykah Badu, or collabs with everyone from Gorillaz to Kimbra and, most recently, Tame Impala.
He rivals Kevin Bacon as a figure who makes games of 'six degrees' that much easier, and his eclectic solo albums are just as far-reaching.
Fronted by his honeyed falsetto and ferociously dynamic bass-work, Bruner's records are an intoxicating brew of cosmic funk, neo-R&B, future-soul, prog-jazz, hip hop and yacht rock crossbred with his various interests: anime, video games, terminally online humour.
That's in the studio. For his live show, Thundercat treats his songs like polite prototypes, warping them into mind-melting displays of technical skill, extending even his simplest tunes into odysseys.
"Who's ready to party?" he greets the gathered at Melbourne's Forum, wearing a relatively modest outfit - his yellow-green dreadlocks draped above a flashy, encrusted necklace piece and a red-black Freddy Krueger sweater.
With a variety of tones - from froggy hiccupping to octave-pedal squelch - he delivers the bass spectacle diehards paid for: displays of impossible dexterity as his fingers make dizzying sprints up and down his six-string bass. Pity any fret in the house tonight, it's going to be absolutely shredded.
His playing is simultaneously groove-anchored, harmonic, and melodic - blurring the lines between musical elements to a sometimes-confounding degree. And his band are right there with him.
Long-time keyboardist Dennis Hamm mans an intimidating bank of keys and synths while veteran jazz drummer Mike Mitchell (aka Blaque Dynamite) makes kit demolition look easy. Sporting yellow neon frames and hair buns, he's barely 10 minutes into the set before his intensity requires a tech to sneak onstage mid-performance to adjust his drums.
The trio spares no time carving up ears with the explosive 'How Sway' (titled after a Kanye West rant). On record, the track is a one-minute-ish burst. On stage it's a whole other beast, stretched into a hyperactive video game boss battle soundtrack performed at a delirious tempo even hardened ravers might find 'a bit much'.
Similarly, the bubbling 'Tron Song' is twisted into a rhythmic monsoon of hammering grooves, while the buttery 'Dragonball Durag' remains faithful but still leaves room for Thundercat to jam out an extended upper-register freestyle.
He also goofs around talking about how Diablo IV and Street Fighter 6 threaten to eat up his social life and any chance at healthy relationships, prompting him to perform 'Friend Zone', which is all darting synths and burping bass runs.
Time and again, the trio treat the recognisable refrains and melodies as launch pads to detour into wild soloing. It's intense, and mostly thrilling rather than indulgent, but my sympathies for anyone entering tonight's performance without a cursory knowledge of Thundercat's catalogue and style.
Judging by the occasional group snaking their way back out from the throng during another extended solo, not everyone was prepared. But the head-nodding and whoops of recognition as each muso finishes their turn in the spotlight or collectively returns to an identifiable chorus suggests the crowd is mostly populated by acolytes.
It's Thundercat's neatest trick. Bringing together both jazz aficionados and those who wouldn't be caught dead listening to the genre, and convincing all he's a singular talent with a fireworks show of musicianship.
Speaking of expectations, big shout out to support act Fly Boy Jack who defied them with an increasingly impressive warm-up set. The new project of Jordan Dennis and evidently talented beatmaker Joju, the pair nailed a range of hip hop heaters - trap, old school gangsta, "where my weed smokers at?" G Funk - with winning efficiency and invention.
Stand-outs included Dennis' light speed, Busta Rhymes-like flows and a track about growing up Christian that sounded like a drum'n'bass take on good kid m.A.A.d City-era Kendrick.
By the time they got the front rows participating in a rowdy 'woof woof woof' hook for the boom-bap 'Dog', the duo had truly won the crowd over. The majority of us have evidently been sleeping on Flyboy Jack but their opening set was a wake-up call to their talent and promise.
Thundercat's success and popularity isn't just because he's a fearsomely talented bassist but because he's as unique a songwriter as he is low-end virtuoso.
There's very real feelings at the heart of his sonic freak-outs, which walk the razor's edge between hilarious and depressingly sad.
Tunes about joining the mile high club ('Overseas') and suites dedicated to his pet cats (Tron and Asuka - saved you the Google) mask complex struggles with intimacy, anxiety, and loss.
Thundercat should win the "Grammy for therapy" as he jokes onstage at one point.
His 2020 album It Is What It Is was largely him grieving the late Mac Miller - a close friend and collaborator. Seven years earlier, Apocalypse reckoned with the death of Bruner's Brainfeeder label buddy and school friend, Austin Peralta.
He isn't above stage banter about farting in the sheets or singing 'Meow meow meow' as soulfully as Marvin Gaye but if it seems like Thundercat is shredding and singing like his life depends on it, it's because in some ways he truly is.
An ode to another friend and collaborator, 'I Love Louis Cole', is melodic synth-soul but played at terrifying trash metal speed that only a drum machine should get away with. Cue Thundercat and Mike Mitchell egging each other on, as if to see who can pack more notes into a single bar.
Bruner then explains the track is a true story about the time he got drunk at a house party and punched one of Cole's friends. He asks the crowd if we can relate to being too shitfaced. "This is Australia, right?" he laughs impishly.
Despite the chuckles, Thundercat is legitimately in a better place. Self-described as a former "raging alcoholic", he's gotten sober, taken up martial arts, and embraced a new-found perspective on life.
"Yes, I've been doing lots of work. I drink water, I eat vegetables now," the artist deadpanned with while in the country.
"Being okay is such a whole different art form. Everyone loves the conversation of mental health and wellbeing and it's like, to be honest with you, ever since I sobered up - Now I can really see my ADD in HD."
Getting leaner and cleaner clearly hasn't dulled the edge of his invention, nor his playing. The audience seems more dazzled and exhausted after 80 minutes than the 38-year-old muso is.
He rounds out the evening with the familiar sticky groove of 'Them Changes'. It's easily his biggest and most beloved number and it's hard to shake the feeling that Thundercat's set could benefit from another hit like it - a song that instantly unites the room in an inclusive groove and sing-along.
It's not that he couldn't or even hasn't equalled 'Them Changes' - his Tame Impala collab 'No More Lies' concludes the night and could very well fit the bill - but Thundercat isn't interested in playing by the rules. He never has.
Hear Thundercat on Take 5 right here