Thunderhank

Their name resembles that of an Action Man bad guy. Or the follow-up to the Battleship film where Rihanna gets two lines in a script this time round. But Thunderhank is actually the name gracing a project coming out of LA between two like-minded DFA-obsessives. Or at least that’s what you’re inclined to presume when you hear a song like ‘House’. It’s ridiculously well-produced, poised to the point of being intimidating. But lining its seams is an endlessly fun pop approach. It’s nerdy-as-hell and cool-as-fuck all at once. - DIY MAG

Super great EP from Thunderhank. This whole EP has a nice, updated mix of nostalgia and chill wave. Head over to their Bandcamp and check this EP out. - Urban Outfitters

1. Hackle Scam Populator (Karen Gwyer Remix) – Sculpture
2. Free Food / One Men Striper – Karen Gwyer
3. Downtown – High Ends
4. Before You Ever Talked – Belgian Fog
5. Feel It In My Bones – Blackbird Blackbird
6. Bad Water – Carroll
7. Without a Face – Luluc
8. Cat In The Hallway – Tiny Ruins
9. Jan. 3rd – WHOOP-Szo
10. Neon Visions – SMLH
11. Can’t Do Without You – Caribou
12. Jenni – Thunderhank - Music Between Friends

Esta nueva banda nos llega desde LA y tras la escucha de su EP de presentación, te darás cuenta de que esto va en serio, lo puedes comprobar tu mismo escuchándolo a través de SoundCloud & Bandcamp. “Melodías de voz que se van haciendo cada vez más grandes hasta que te engullen por completo”
Déjate acariciar por Thunderhank - New Things on the Blog

Happy Music Monday! Today is all about Thunderhank, two brothers from LA, Henry and Sam Bellingham. Heavily influenced from the pop music their parents played to them as babies, and current slow tempo electronic, their sound feels just right. Aside from the fact that this is the first of their officially released tracks, you would think they’ve been at the game for a lifetime. We spoke with Henry about Thunderhank and he mentioned that as their full length album has come to life, House and Tracker are the slower songs of the group. Listen for beautiful layered sounds; chattering drum line, light and playful synth, strong guitar, and melodic complimentary vocals. - Witness This

This brand new LA-based duo are showing some serious potential with two stirring debut singles, “House” & “Tracker”—both quietly released via SoundCloud & Bandcamp. “Tracker” is easy and inviting—a real daytime mellow tune. “House” is a bit more of an attention-grabber with its slick, punching drum kick slowly leading you into a hollow mix of rippling synth stabs and wind-wailing guitars. The cooled down vocal melody grows bigger and bigger until it reaches the heights of what sounds like a full on choir confidently belting to the sky, “Dream baby dream!”

It really grows on you. - Portals

Thunderhank are Henry and Sam Bellingham. Two brothers from L.A., they create the kind of perfectly produced electronic loveliness that’ll have tech geeks salivating and music fans swooning; it’s no wonder that we’ve fallen a little bit in love. There’s currently two songs on their soundcloud – ‘House’ portraying their fun, poppy side that will easily slip its way onto your summer playlist, whilst ‘Tracker’ is a little more stripped back.

Their understated, emotive and electronic approach to songwriting seems to be on the up, thanks to the likes of Deptford Goth. It’s not that it’s a new concept – it’s just that this kind of genre is finally getting the love and attention it deserves. We had a chat with the guys to talk about their songwriting process and their hopes for the debut album.


How did you guys start writing? Was it a case of pots and pans in the kitchen as kids?
We each started trying to write music and play in bands at about 9 years old. The songs were just simple four chord punk progressions but playing music in front of people for the first time was really big for us. Before that we would stage concerts in our grand-moms garage for our parents and play air guitar but the first time we tried writing was later than that.

Were your parents an influence on your music-making? What sort of stuff did they play when you were growing up?
Our parents taste is so eclectic that we could play any style of music and easily say that they influenced it but this project in particular was definitely influenced by the funk and dance stuff that they played. There are really funny home videos of us as babies getting down to Rick James. Even when we were playing more rock sounding music with our friends, there was never a time in our lives where we didn’t love music with a groove.

Your songs are pretty stripped back. Is this deliberate? Did you want the lyrics to be the main focus?
I personally have a hard time saying that anything we do is deliberate. I don’t think we’re at that point yet but I hope to be there in time. Right now we just try to see what genuinely sounds best to us, and even in that respect we have a lot work to do. I can say that we have pet peeves during the recording process – probably the biggest one being that we don’t want sounds piled up without any purpose but to blow the listener away. Moments like that can be amazing, but we tend focus more on the bare bones, which is why someone might see it as stripped back.

Could you describe your songwriting process?
The separate parts of any song can happen a million different ways, but when we actually try to structure a song we start with a beat/bass line foundation and build from there.

You’re currently recording your debut album. What’s your recording set-up?
We have a friend who has a really nice studio and he’s helping us record. It’s not DIY in the sense that we’re in our bedrooms working on a laptop but it’s something we put together without money from an outside source.

Both songs on your soundcloud have a heavy electronic influence. Did you always work with that side of music or was it a progression from acoustic instruments?
We’ve been back and forth with electronic and acoustic instruments for the last five years and with these songs we actually purposely made sure we had a little of each. That’s definitely something I enjoy hearing on other peoples recordings a lot too. Eventually, I would like it if instrumentation were something that listeners didn’t even think about. Like when I listen to P.Y.T. by Michael Jackson I’m not wondering whether this or that instrument is “real” or “fake”, the sounds are so perfect together I could care less how they came to be. That type of non-reaction to authenticity is what we love about a good pop production.

What can we expect from the album?
We’re going into this with the intention of getting more and more groove based as far as the basic underpinning of the songs are concerned. That being said, things happen during the recording phase that you can’t control or fight so we never deal in absolutes until it’s done. Still, definitely expect something more up-tempo than “House” or “Tracker”. - Yankie

Ils s’appellent Thunderhank, sont américains et viennent de sortir leur premier EP éponyme que l’on vous recommande chaudement (et tout particulièrement le single House qui rappelle forcément le génial Alan Vega). - Le Disco Lab

Something about this groove reminds me of that HAIM song “Forever”.
I listened to this EP by Delaware’s Thunderhank 3x in a row. The production and mixing are top-notch and I love the whispery approach on the vocals that occasionally excites to Foals-esque levels. - Glofi Must Die

Musik begleitet mich in jeder erdenklichen Lebenssituation. Jede Tätigkeit, jeder emotionale Ausbruch, jeder noch so kleine Alltagsschritt wird musikalisch untermalt. Es gibt keinen Tag, an dem Musik nicht einen wesentlichen Teil meines Alltags bestimmt. Der Beginn einer jeden Jahreszeit veranlasst mich alljährlich kleine Playlists zu erstellen und so, meinen Sommer, Frühling, Winter und Herbst zu begrüßen und auch musikalisch einmalig zu gestalten. Der Sommer 2014 ist was Besonderes und deswegen schaffen es auch nur fantastische Musiker in meine Playlist. Eine Band hat es mir diesen Sommer ganz besonders angetan: Thunderhank aus LA!

Thunderhank verkörpern alles, was diesen Sommer ausmacht – Leichtigkeit, einen Hauch Melancholie, ein wenig Fernweh und die Sehnsucht nach langen, warmen Sommerabenden.



Aber um wen handelt es sich hier genau? Die zwei Brüder Henry und Samuel Bellingham gründeten Thunderhank 2013 in Los Angeles. Die zwei Musikbegeisterten Männer, die ursprünglich aus Delaware stammen, zog es vor fünf Jahren nach LA um ihren Traum einer Musikkarriere zu realisieren. Gedacht, gemacht. Im Frühling diesen Jahres veröffentlichten sie ihre Debüt-EP – Eine Mischung aus akustischen und elektronischen Instrumenten die unter die Haut geht und diesen mehr als nur angemessen begrüßt.

„Dream Baby dream… „Eine Botschaft, die sich in einem meiner Lieblingssongs „House“ wiederholt. In der Tat lassen mich die Klänge dieses Liedes träumen. Thunderhank fangen die Energie und die Unbeschwertheit dieses Sommers in ihren musikalischen Werken auf. Ein Sommer zum, Träumen und Schwärmen!

Hier könnt ihr euch die fünf Tracks anhören. - Cale Magazine

Brothers Henry and Samuel Bellingham formed Thunderhank while living in Los Angeles in 2013. After attending high school in Wilmington, Delaware, the brothers lived in LA for five years during which they studied music, played in various self-imploding musical groups and, finally, decided to strike off as a duo. The music is made with a mix of acoustic and electronic instruments and uses ambient textures to obscure the formal pop song structures. When their first work – “Tracker” – received a wave of attention they then recorded and co-produced the remaining four songs on their debut EP, “Thunderhank EP,” with Cal Campbell in Calabasas, and remixed “Tracker”. Henry and Sam moved to the Philadelphia area after graduating college and put together a band that performs Thunderhank’s recorded and new songs live. - Banter Media & Management

The world's introduction to the Henry and Samuel Bellingham brothers' electro-acoustics known as Thunderhank was the tracer-beam-bedroom buzz of the “Tracker” single. The Delaware-by-LA duo included the song on their self-titled EP that also features our premiere of “Jenni”. Born from the starts and stops of bands from their music studies days, the Thunderhank EP highlights Henry and Sam's hand at carving out crystalline pop with Cal Campbell co-piloting the production wheels.

On “Jenni”, the beaches of bottled Balearic waters are enjoyed on Los Angeles lawn chairs unfolded on the sandy shores of Venice Beach. The soft croon and synth sentiment rumbles with the aerobic bike pedal spin of percussive samples on a Euro-by-West Coast vacation of sun. The rays of Wilmington sun shine into the many sides and prismatic faces of indie California's diamond-like digi-pop. Thunderhank whispers simulations and synthesized sensations in an exotic display of affectionate gestures that evoke the feel of a beach-side party ported for home or hotel. The fine-tuned mixing and recording from Henry, Sam, and Cal turns “Jenni” into a time-jetting stunner, sharing love-letter lyrics on a backdrop of sophisticated pop guitars encrusted with the high end keyboard gemstones.



Thunderhank's Bellingham brothers talked to us about how they became a duo, and everything in between the roads that stretch from LA to Wilmington, Delaware.

Electronic-affected approaches to music have become one of the central corridors where many artists convey a host of expressions, and was wondering what brought the two of you to work in this medium?

To put it simply, it began out of necessity. We both have always loved and admired electronic music, but really spent the majority of our early music careers studying and performing on acoustic instruments. After struggling to find musicians we gelled with, especially a drummer, we began to focus on using electronic sounds to flesh out our songs. It’s been a relatively short period of time, but we have really fallen in love with crafting music electronically and are excited to get better at it.

When did you bros begin first working on the project Thunderhank?

We first started Thunderhank around April, 2013. We were living in Los Angeles at the time and had developed a reputation for starting these self-imploding bands that never managed to release anything. After something like our fourth project had fallen apart, we decided that maybe we would have better luck as a duo.

Favorite albums that you both are down with?

We really enjoy much of the same music, so this list could be a really long one. I guess for the sake of space, I’ll just keep it to the music that influenced this first EP. The songs “Your Life” by Konk and “I’m Corrupt” by Kid Creole and The Cocoanuts are two big ones for us. As far as albums go, we were really feeling the Alexander O’Neil album “Hearsay” and Melba Moore’s “Other Side of the Rainbow” at the time.

“Jenni” is super slick, give us the gear breakdown behind this electric number.

There have been so many different variations of “Jenni” that it’s hard to remember what was actually used on this final recording. Like the rest of the EP, we tired to combine elements of both electronic and organic sounds. We used an organic drum set and created rhythmic variations with electronic percussion sounds. I can’t remember what we used to record the guitar, but I’m pretty sure we used a Prophet V and a Nord Electro for all the synth sounds. We love to experiment in the studio and sometimes you get so deep into crafting a sound that you forget what you started with.

What fellow peers can you both report from the Wilmington, Delaware scenes?

There are a few bands in Wilmington, DE who are doing pretty well for themselves. FIANCE is a dreamy pop band that has been getting some great press recently and they are all set to release their debut EP. Our buddy Sam Nobles has a group called Tip Toes, which deserves recognition. Also, our friend (and live drummer for Thunderhank), Dave McGrory has a project called DYEV that we really like.

What is Wilmington like, and in what ways do you find it lending influence to the music of Thunderhank?

To be honest, we have lived in Los Angeles for the past seven years and only just moved back to Wilmington, DE in late December. The Thunderhank EP wasn’t really influenced by Delaware at all, except for “Tracker,” which was written while we were on a 2-week trip visiting our parents. What I can say is that when we left, Wilmington DE’s music scene was dominated by a combination of underwhelming riff-rock and psychedelic folk bands, all consisting of the same 6-7 guys. Now, it seems like a younger wave of wide-ranging musicians has injected new life into the scene, broadening the scope of what you might see when you walk into a venue. The emphasis is being brought back to the music itself, and as a result we are getting better quality acts.

Can you tell us the upcoming Thunderhank release schedule?

We are excited to have released or first EP, but are very eager to get back into the studio to record this new batch of songs we’ve been working on. Over the past couple months we feel we’ve begun to craft a more cohesive sound, which we are eager to share with our listeners. We begin recording the last week of May and hope to have something released by early/mid July.

The Thunderhank EP is available now from Bandcamp. - Impose Magazine

Formed by two college friends in LA during 2013, Thunderhank released their debut EP at the end of April and their assured, measured take on pop music has been creeping out to more and more people ever since. Melding soft vocals with playful ambient textures, the self-titled EP is a beautifully crafted collection of songs that buried itself further under your skin with every repeated listen.

‘House‘ is the latest track to be lifted from said EP and it’s devilishly handsome. The sound of an undisturbed LA morning slowly being brought to life, the languid vocals drift steadily across a bed of percussive ripples and occasional stabs of jaunty guitars and keys to create something both elegantly subdued and softly hypnotic. Dream baby dream, indeed. Lose yourself in its soft sway below and check out the whole EP here. - GoldFlakePaint