Revisiting a Modern Classic: "Currents"

 On a fateful night in Los Angeles many years ago, Kevin Parker of Tame Impala was in the back of his friend’s old sedan, tripping off of psychedelic mushrooms while slightly high on cocaine. His friend was playing music by the Bee Gees, and “Staying Alive” came on. “The beat felt overwhelmingly strong and, at that moment, it sounded pretty psychedelic.” Parker told The Guardian in a 2015 interview, recounting the experience. “It moved me, and that’s what I always want out of psych music. I want it to transport me.” 

This experience caused Parker to reevaluate what psychedelic rock is, and to reevaluate his own music as well. He realized that songs outside of the typical psych-rock genre could still possess its qualities. After Tame Impala’s 2012 release of the album Lonerism, the band started to see their first real mainstream success. It is important to know that the term “band” is used very loosely here. Parker writes, records, and produces all of Tame Impala’s music exclusively by himself, typically undergoing extended periods of isolation when composing and recording an album. Currents was almost entirely created in Parker’s studio home in Australia, and he would constantly be moving from room to room to access different instruments. Every sound you hear on a Tame Impala project is produced or recorded by Parker himself, whether that be the sound of his drum kits or the sound of his footsteps. The only time Tame Impala is really a band is when they perform live, as Parker physically cannot play every instrument himself at the same time. Also, everything’s a little more fun with your friends around, no? This complete creative control allows Parker to take Tame Impala in whichever direction he wants to, and after the success of Lonerism he decided that the direction he would take would be an entirely new one. In fact, Parker claims he had only one rule when recording Currents; to abandon any rules that he had set up in the past. 

Parker’s willingness to abandon traditional psychedelic rock sounds allowed him to experiment with sounds that he had previously strictly avoided. Parker has admitted to avoiding using pop sounds in his music in the past, out of a misguided belief that “pop music was easy” and that “indie-music snobs would turn their noses up at it”. On 2015’s Currents, his 3rd major studio album, he abandoned this perspective completely. Parker wanted people to be able to dance to his music, along with simply reaching more people. However, he still wanted the album to be entirely his creative vision, and not at all dictated by the mainstream. To do this, he utilized synthesizers more than he ever had on Currents, and used his guitar less. There is still guitar on every song of the album, but it is used mainly to compliment other more prominent sounds. Instead, the synthesizer was the prominent instrument. On previous albums, the guitar was always prominent, and the synthesizer was the compliment. Parker had always flirted with synths on previous projects, but on Currents, he married them. This led to Currents being a true genre-blending album, mixing elements of psychedelic rock with electropop, disco music, and R&B. The end product was truly unique, and it was clear that Tame Impala’s music would be forever different.

Currents is an album about change and personal growth. Parker himself said that the main theme of the project is a “deep feeling of transition in your psyche”. At the time of the album’s release, Parker was 29 years old, had just broken up with a longtime girlfriend, and was changing the sound of his music; so needless to say, he was going through a transitional phase of his own. However, Parker doesn’t beat you over the head with stories of his own changes and how they are affecting him. Instead, he allows the listener to interpret the album their own way, and reflect on their own personal changes that they may be going through. He accomplishes this through the use of incredibly vague lyrics. Most of the lyrics on Currents can apply to almost any person, and almost any given situation. Instead of telling the listener what to feel, Parker is encouraging the listener to feel, and to draw on their own emotions rather than his. For example, take the album’s third track, called “The Moment”. The chorus of this song is simply, “I’ll only know in the moment / Anticipation growing / It’s getting closer”. Throughout the song, “It’s getting closer” is repeated, until the song abruptly ends. Some have interpreted this song to be about making a move on a woman, and only being able to know if it feels right in the moment that it happens. However, others have said that the song is about death, and the fact that no one truly knows that they’re dying until the moment it happens. A person can anticipate death, and know that they are getting closer to it (technically we all are getting closer to death with every passing second, but that’s besides the point), but they can never know for sure that they are dead, until they are dead. Clearly a dead person can’t report on what death is like, hence the song’s abrupt end. These two interpretations of the track are vastly different, but can both be equally supported by the song’s content. Parker pushes this intentional vagueness even further by prioritizing the sound of his music over his lyrics. This is rather common in previous Tame Impala projects, and psychedelic rock in general, but Currents pushes this principle to new territory. Parker’s lyrics are often incomprehensible, especially on first listen, and many times his voice sounds like it is part of the instrumental. He lets instrumentals occupy minutes of songs without saying a word, and when he finally sings again, his words carry more weight. Listeners may not be able to understand much of Tame Impala, but this makes the lyrics that they do catch significantly more impactful. 

Last, and most importantly, I want to discuss the sound of Currents. Currents is ear candy perfected. The songs are incredibly catchy, and often may seem like simple pop songs on the surface, but once you peer beneath this surface there are layers upon layers of instruments and production, and some of the most complex instrumentals you can find in music. Some sounds are buried so deep that you won’t even notice them until you have your headphones on and turned all the way up. This makes Currents one of the most replayable albums of all time. I’ve listened to Currents an uncountable amount of times, and I discover a new sound every time I listen to it. Each song flows seamlessly into the next, and the music is so cinematic that it feels as if you are listening to a movie; the visuals to which are all in your head. Parker’s production ranges from uplifting, to spooky; from calm, to unapologetically aggressive. The listener’s ear is a yoyo for the music to play with as it pleases.

The opening track, “Let it Happen” is a seven minute long rollercoaster ride in which Parker shoots you up into the sky; then takes an assault rifle to your hot-air balloon and laughs as you fall. Right before you hit the ground, the music catches you and flings you back into the heavens, where you open up a parachute and glide for a while. Tame Impala’s Currents is a beautiful album, full of little complexities that every listener will relate to differently. It fits any setting, whether that be a dance floor, a car, or a dark bedroom as you drift off to sleep. You can rave to it, you can slow dance to it, you can sit and do nothing to it. Oftentimes I’ll find myself simply wondering, “How the fuck did he make this?” Kevin Parker gives us a glimpse into his mind through his music, before pulling back the curtain entirely and leaving us in the dark. Because at the end of the day, he is the artist, and we are the consumer; and the less we know, the better.