Tame Impala Currents Full Album Download Zip
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Currents is the third studio album by Australian musical project Tame Impala, released on 17 July 2015 by Modular Recordings. It was released by Interscope Records in the United States and by Fiction Records in the United Kingdom, while Caroline International released it in other regions. Like the project's previous two albums, Currents was written, recorded, performed, and produced by Kevin Parker. For the first time, Parker mixed the music and recorded all instruments by himself; the album featured no other collaborators.
After the release of his previous album, Lonerism (2012), Parker began work on Currents, largely recording at his home studio in Fremantle. He engrossed himself with writing and recording, and in keeping with his reputation as a musical auteur, laboured over the details of each song, ultimately causing the release date to be delayed by two months. In contrast to the psychedelic rock sound of the project's prior work, Currents marks a shift to more dance-oriented music, with more emphasis placed on synthesisers than guitars. Parker was inspired to seek a change out of desire to hear Tame Impala's music played in dance clubs and a more communal setting. Thematically, the record is about the process of personal transformation, which many critics interpreted to be the result of a romantic breakup. The album's cover art depicting vortex shedding is a visualisation of these themes.
Currents was supported by the release of the singles "Let It Happen", "'Cause I'm a Man", "Eventually" and "The Less I Know the Better". The album became the project's best charting release, debuting at number one in Australia, number three in the United Kingdom, and at number four in the United States. As of January 2023, Currents has sold over one million copies in the United States. Like its predecessors, the album received critical acclaim and appeared on various critics' lists of the best albums of 2015. At the 2015 ARIA Music Awards, Currents was awarded Best Rock Album and Album of the Year, and it also received nominations for the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album and the J Award for Australian Album of the Year.[5] In December 2021, the album was listed at number 12 in Rolling Stone Australia's list of the "200 Greatest Australian Albums of All Time",[6] and in 2020, Rolling Stone ranked Currents 382nd on its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".
Tame Impala emerged in the early 2010s as one of psychedelic rock's most prominent new acts.[7] The group, fronted by musician Kevin Parker, released two albums that received adoration from music critics: Innerspeaker (2010) and Lonerism (2012).[8] "Elephant" became an alt-rock radio hit, and was placed in several television series and commercials.[9] Parker founded the band and is typically the sole operating member in the studio.[10] In between Tame Impala releases, Parker founded the space disco band AAA Aardvark Getdown Services.[7]
The album's change in style has root in several events. Parker began to feel that even songs outside the psychedelic genre could possess its qualities; he made this assumption while under the influence of psychedelic mushrooms and cocaine and listening to the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive".[13][15] At some point, Parker broke up with his girlfriend, French singer-songwriter Melody Prochet, and moved from Paris back to his hometown of Perth.[15] According to Parker, "the only rule was to make an attempt to abandon the rules that I've set up in the past." This included toying with things he considered musically "cheesy" or taboo, including drum machines and various effects.[16]
Currents was recorded, produced, and mixed by Kevin Parker at his beachside home studio in Fremantle, Western Australia.[17] The two-room studio contained a minimal amount of equipment: "a ramshackle drum kit, a guitar covered in duct tape and some battered vintage synths."[10] Parker likened his small setup to an aeroplane cockpit.[15] In an adjoining room, he began designing the light show that would accompany live performances of the album by using automated stage lights on stands.[8][10] He hoped to deviate from the creative process by which he created Lonerism, which he described as torturous, but ultimately found himself "falling down completely the same hole again" on Currents.[18]
The decision to exert control in every aspect of production aside from mastering came from obsession. He said, "I felt like, this way the album is even more my heart and soul, my blood, sweat, and tears."[8] Parker set a deadline to complete the record because of his tendency to procrastinate; he described having a deadline as "a blessing in disguise because it forces you to make decisions there and then. Which in the end makes for good art."[16] Currents was due to be completed in January 2015, but the deadline was pushed back several times.[17] Late in the process, he became self-conscious about the honesty of his lyrics.[10] He became obsessive about minor details in the work,[11] making him unable to wholly enjoy it upon its completion. Shortly before its release, he said, "I still think this album is completely unlistenable."[19]
Currents features styles of psychedelic pop,[27] disco,[28] R&B,[29] and electropop,[30] but the album's chord progressions and rhythms are most indebted to R&B.[31] Kevin Parker listened to R&B from the 1990s during recording,[18] which he had forced himself to reject while growing up due to peer pressures. He said, "Music guys aren't allowed to be into R&B when they are teenagers because all the teenybopper kids blast that shit in their cars." As such, learning to let go of preconceptions and embracing the music felt liberating to him.[32] He had previously refrained from making his music more pop-oriented because he thought "indie-music snobs would turn their nose up at it,"[33] and he discovered that writing pure pop music was a challenge.[34] Parker attributed his openness on Currents to producer Mark Ronson, whose album Uptown Special he collaborated on.[22][32]
Many of the songs were composed over several years, both in the studio and on the road. Parker saved ideas using a voice recorder on his phone,[33] and wrote many songs on a drum machine.[35] Guitars are present in every song on Currents, but are used to accompany and answer other instruments.[31] This was partially due to his gear being inaccessible: "We'd finish one tour in say, Europe, go home for two weeks, and all our gear, including my guitars and pedals, would be on their way to South America." He had a larger array of synthesizers at his home studio, which allowed them to become the prominent instrument. He said, "It's really just whatever is sitting around when I think of the song."[31] The album incorporates Parker's falsetto, as well as a vocoder.[18]
The lyrical themes of Currents centre on personal transition[13] and growing older.[22] Parker's lyrics on the album are entirely autobiographical.[15] His vocals are clearer and less affected than in prior Tame Impala releases,[17] which is partially owed to him having more pride in his lyrics; he said he hoped it would be easy for listeners to understand them.[16] Parker considered the primary theme of the album to be a "deep feeling of transition in your psyche," or, in a broad sense, fully entering adulthood.[16] He began learning about the concept of the Saturn return halfway through the recording process, which explained his feelings of reflection. He said, "I was halfway through making the album when I heard about it, and it gave what I was doing a lot more meaning; suddenly things made a lot more sense."[20] Accordingly, on the album his reaction to transition is acceptance, exemplified by the opening song, "Let It Happen".[16] Parker also felt buying the home where he recorded Currents "really changed my perspective about where I saw myself, like a place that I belonged."[9]
Currents has also been frequently characterised as a breakup album.[36][37] Prior to recording, Parker made the decision to break up with French singer-songwriter Melody Prochet. Several songs on the album examine it from his angle as the instigator of the breakup, which consists of guilt and self-questioning.[38] Parker downplayed the notion that the album was entirely aimed at former lovers, however,[15] and likened it to an inner monologue: "It's really me talking to myself, another part of myself... to my old self, the part of me that resists change and wants me to stay as I am."[39] For Parker, the album meant "looking forward and a sudden adoption of confidence."[35] The album's title reflects this, with currents being "these unstoppable forces; the parts of you that are trying to change you."[13]
Parker stated that "The Less I Know the Better" "shouldn't be on a Tame Impala album because it has this dorky, white disco funk."[41] "'Cause I'm a Man" attracted controversy upon its release due to perceived sexism in its lyrics, but Parker meant the opposite: "The song is about how weak men are basically, and how we make all these excuses."[11] "New Person, Same Old Mistakes" closes the record, and expresses self-doubt. Parker said, "The last song is meant to sound like the final battle between optimism and pessimism, a confrontation between the side of you that wants to progress and the side of you that wants to stay the same."[39] Barbadian singer and songwriter Rihanna covered the track for her eighth studio album Anti (2016) under the title "Same Ol' Mistakes".[42] It consists of Tame Impala's instrumental, extended to a length of 6 minutes and 35 seconds, with Rihanna's vocal replacing Parker's.
The album's promotional cycle began when lead single "Let It Happen" was released as a free download on 10 March 2015. One day later, Parker was in New York for a mastering session with engineer Greg Calbi.[11] The album was originally set to be released in May 2015, capitalizing on the group's appearance at Coachella.[32] But as the album neared mastering, Parker was not yet done with lyrics for two songs. His perfectionism led to the album's release date being pushed back to July.[22] In the interim, three more singles were released: "'Cause I'm a Man" and "Disciples" in April during a Reddit AMA, and "Eventually" in May.[1][43] Due to the album's delay, Chris DeVille at Stereogum noted that "about a third of the record [had] gone public already" by the time it was released.[32]
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