Press Play: Thao and the Get Down Stay Down

Thao the Get Down Stay Down have released their new album A Man Alive. The album is the band’s most rhythmically conscious to date. Thao introduces a personal vulnerability in her lyrics that was not revealed in the band’s previous albums.  

The 2013 album, We the Common was externally focused. Thao’s inspiration for the album came from her advocacy work in California women’s prisons. Thao wanted to focus on and illuminate the struggles of others.  The female artist has decided to take a different approach in this new album. Thao remarks on the abandonment of her father, and how his absence has been ever present throughout her

life.

She takes the plunge into the pain of rejection.  One can wonder if the previous album We the Common gave the Thao the courage to sing about her own pain musically because she spent so many of her creative efforts giving a voice to others.

Listeners can expect to develop a more intimate relationship with Thao & the Get Down Stay Down by sharing the relative experience of trauma and triumph. The album is not only different lyrically, but it takes a new approach musically as well. The band has incorporated more loops, rifts, and features than they had on previous albums.  A Man Alive channels the devastation of abandonment in innovative and personal ways.