Tomás Doncker and The True Groove All-Stars have released a new album “Hard is Hard.”
Photos courtesy of Tomás Doncker
A Brooklyn musician is revitalizing his career across the pond with a brand new album.
Tomás Doncker, the mastermind behind the NYC-based record label True Groove Records, has released a new album, “Hard is Hard,” a concept album with elements of soul, blues, funk, rock and jazz thrown in.
“I am a sucker for a concept album. I love the idea of contemporary music being able to not be just a collection of songs or singles, and having a theme or a thread that ties them together,” Doncker told amNewYork. “Over the course of the last two and a half years, these songs have emerged.”
Tomás Doncker
Doncker describes the album as having two different vibes, with the A side taking a bolder approach and the B side taking a slower, more sensual approach, with both still being socially conscious in nature. The name “Hard is Hard” comes from the struggles that come with existing in our current time period.
“There is no utopia, there is no perfect place. It just is a hard time right now for everybody, no one’s got it easy. Well, there are certain people in a certain low percentage point, I’m saying the 1% of people said they got it pretty easy. But the rest of us literally don’t know, and that’s globally,” said Doncker. “I’m not in the business of giving up or quitting. I’m not in the business of allowing some person, some individual, or some corporation [to have] lustful greed and inhumanity towards their fellow man to stop me from living my life and expressing myself as an artist.”
Doncker noted a couple of highlights to “Hard is Hard” are “Post Modern Jive…Again,” which is a sequel to his previous song “Post Modern Jive” from Doncker’s album “Black Magnolia Project,” and his cover of “Ace of Spades,” which he recorded in collaboration with St Germain, a collective of visual artists, to create two music videos: a full-length version and a shorter version to share on social media.
“It’s been great to be able to collaborate with visual artists here. Nowadays, one does not necessarily have to complete a four-minute music video to promote the work. Due to the ever-dwindling attention span of humanity, shorter is better,” said Doncker. “So we do have the full-length video for ‘Ace of Spades’ because it merited that, it’s just a classic song. But then there’s other little snippets from pretty much almost the whole album.”
The album was co-produced and mixed by James Dellatacoma and mastered by Michael Fossenkemper. It also features Frank Benbini and Adriano Rossetti-Bonell (UB40), The Specials’ dynamic horn sections, and musicians from the True Groove label.
The release of the album comes on the heels of Doncker’s move to London, where he has divided his time between there and Brooklyn for the past few years.
“It’s not the first time I’ve lived abroad. I lived in Japan for four years. I lived in the Netherlands for about a year previously. I am not the first forward-thinking Black American artist to come to the UK and be welcomed warmly,” said Doncker. “People over here love music. They love soulful music. They love bluesy, funky, soulful, sweaty music. They absolutely get it, they understand the history of it, the legacy of it, the gravitas of it. I don’t have to explain who I am or what I’m doing, which is so pleasant.”
Tomás DonckerPhoto courtesy of Tomás Doncker
To kick off the album, Doncker is currently on tour in the UK in support of the band Fun Lovin’ Criminals.
“It’s exciting. I’m just so, so grateful. Gratitude is my complete attitude. I really am so grateful, this one in particular seems to have been a pathway created for this work to be shared with a vast amount of people across the globe,” said Doncker. “My profound amount of gratitude and thanks to the Fun Lovin’ Criminals: Frank Benbini, Fast Leiser, and Naim Cortazzi, and to Jonathan Read and The Specials.”
“Hard is Hard” can be streamed online wherever you stream music and is available on vinyl. You can follow Doncker @tomasdonckerofficial on Instagram.