Tropical Fuck Storm are an Australian rock band and supergroup from Melbourne, Victoria, formed by Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin from The Drones. Lauren Hammel, from the band High Tension, plays drums, and Erica Dunn, from the bands Mod Con, Harmony, and Palm Springs, plays guitars, keyboards, and other instruments. Their sound is characterised by elements of art punk, noise rock and experimental rock.

Looking to reboot creatively, The Drones went on hiatus at the end of their tour supporting Feelin' Kinda Free in December 2016. The following year, Drones founder Gareth Liddiard and longtime bandmate Fiona Kitschin started writing material for a new project under the name for the record label they'd coined to self-release the last Drones album. They recruited Erica Dunn and Lauren Hammel during the summer of 2017, before embarking on an American tour. According to Dunn, "They just rang me up. Gareth and Fi were on loudspeaker like excited children. The pitch was 'Do you want to play guitar? We're just going to do some weird shit.' And I was like 'Okay, sure.' Then Gareth said 'We might go to America in the next month, are you free? And we have to write some songs.' Sure I'll clear my schedule. Hammer [Lauren Hammel] was a bit different though, because [Gareth] didn't know her and he had to take her to the pub."

They released a series of 7-inch singles later that autumn while on tour with Band of Horses and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard in the US. Their debut album, A Laughing Death in Meatspace, dropped in March 2018 and the band signed with Joyful Noise Recordings shortly thereafter. "The album title links "meatspace" – as Silicon Valley engineers derogatorily refer to the physical realm – with a neurodegenerative disorder called kuru, once found in the Fore people of Papua New Guinea. Men would eat the muscles of the deceased, while women and children ate the brains, thereby inheriting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and pot-holing their own grey matter to such an extent that they lost control of their emotions and laughed themselves to death." Videos for the songs "You Let My Tyres Down", "Rubber Bullies", "Soft Power" & "The Future of History" were released over 2017 and 2018.

The album – which saw the band utilise a range of obscure digital guitar effects, synthesisers, drum machines, and DAW software such as ProTools – received positive reviews for both its raw and unusual style as well as its lyricism. Greil Marcus wrote that the album makes "as fierce a band as" The Drones "seem austere" in comparison, writing that "the explosions in "Two Afternoons," "A Laughing Death," and "Rubber Bullies" are glorious and frightening, so big they don't feel quite real, but there's a story trying to climb out of the noise, carried by Liddiard's weariness, his uncynical fatalism, but shaped by the counter-vocals of Kitschin and Dunn." He concluded by saying that "you can feel as if this is what history sounds like as it's being written."

Contemporaries such as Thalia Zedek and Conan Neutron named it their favourite album of the year, with the latter calling it "[a]bsolutely powerful stuff. Great songs with incredible left turns. Moody, claustrophobic and staggeringly self aware, like a sentient computer raised on Bill Hicks comedy specials, Howard Zinn, Black MIrror [sic] and Twin Peaks. [...] It's a hell of a ride." In an interview in 2019, Britt Daniel mentioned his love for the band and called the album "[f]antastic. [Gareth Liddard's] lyrics are so good." DMA's ranked the track "You Let My Tyres Down" as their favourite song of the year for Triple J Hottest 100. In an interview with Pitchfork, New Weird author Jeff VanderMeer cited the album as one of many influences on his 2019 novel Dead Astronauts.

The album was longlisted for the Australian Music Prize of 2018, but failed to make the shortlist. The album was also nominated for "Best Rock/Punk Album" at the Music Victoria Awards of 2018, losing out to the self-titled album from Little Ugly Girls.

Following the release of their debut, the band would go on to play a series of national and international dates in varying capacities, including a few dates opening for Modest Mouse (on their fall tour in October 2018) and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (as a part of their Gizzfest event). On the 23rd of August that year, the band premiered the song "The Happiest Guy Around", which ended up being one half of a split single with Liars (who contributed the track "Total 3 Part Saga") as the 18th instalment of the LAMC (Less Artists More Condos) series of 7-inch singles curated by Famous Class Records; where "an established musician on the A-side" is paired "with one of the musician's favourite new artists on the B-side". The 7-inch was released on the 28th of September. Later that year, the band would also perform a live, pre-composed soundtrack to the Coen brothers' 2007 film No Country for Old Men at Arts Centre Melbourne as part of an event organised by Hear My Eyes.

On the 21st of January the following year, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard posted an image of them jamming with Liddiard in the foreground flipping the bird on their official Instagram account. This led some to speculate Liddiard's involvement with the band's new material "either as a guest or producer." On the 4th of March that year, Flightless announced that Tropical Fuck Storm had signed with them in Australia and New Zealand, and on that same day, the band premiered the video to "The Planet Of Straw Men", which would be the first single from their second album, set to be released "mid-2019" through Joyful Noise Recordings worldwide and Flightless Records in Australia and New Zealand. On the 17th of June, the band released the second single from their upcoming album, "Paradise"; the name of the album was also revealed to be Braindrops the same day, and its release date of August 23 was announced.