Tame Impala - Currents (Staff Pick!)

Title: Tame Impala - Currents
Year/Genre/Sub-Genre/City: 2015, Alternative, Psychedelic Pop Synth-Pop, Perth, Australia 8/26
Condition: New (BC) | Members: Kevin P (86' - ) | Producer: Kevin Parker
Cultural Facts:

1. Family Ties: Kevin Parker's parents separated when he was young, and music became a major connection with his father Jerry, who played in bands and kept instruments around the house. Parker has described spending countless hours alone learning drums, guitar, and recording, helping explain why Tame Impala eventually became essentially one person building entire records himself.

2. Studio Lore: Parker wrote, performed, recorded, produced, and for the first time fully mixed Currents himself. Most of it was built in his Fremantle home studio, with Parker obsessively layering drums, bass, synthesizers, vocals, and effects until what sounds like a full psychedelic band was largely the work of one person.

3. Album Art: Robert Beatty's cover is based on vortex shedding, a fluid-dynamics phenomenon where flowing material forms swirling patterns around an obstacle. Parker had become fascinated with diagrams of turbulent flow, and the image perfectly matched an album centered on currents, movement, and personal change.