Sunday, May 23, 2010

Bonobo







It's hard to pigeon-hole the music of Bonobo. I could best narrow it down to "loosely electronica based atmospheric orchestral compositions which is kind of up-tempo ambient in style, melodic, some instrumental tracks and some vocal tracks, part ethereal and part driven and beat based"...but you see what I mean, kind of hard to describe. Suffice to say he's signed to Ninja Tunes which will give you an idea - just look at the calibre and diversity of stable mates such as The Cinematic Orchestra, Fink, Mr Scruff, Hexstatic and Amon Tobin.
My friend Ru turned me on to the creations of multi-instrumentalist Simon Green a few years ago and I've had his albums on heavy rotation ever since, especially when I'm sat on trains or in airports, for me it's kind of transit music.
So three years since his last LP Days To Come, there's new Bonobo album out called Black Sands, which he's been touring with an eight piece band/orchestra fronted by singer Andreya Triana who also appears on the new album. They played the Hippo Club in Plymouth a couple of nights ago and I managed to sneak my camera gear down to the front row and get some shots. Griff from Jelly Jazz collared them for an interview which is well worth a read and features some new tracks and the video to "Eyes Down".
The tour continues, climaxing at this years Glastonbury, go look and listen if they're passing by.
For all you music heads the set list was as follows:
  • Kiara
  • Ketto
  • All in Forms
  • Stay the Same
  • Days to Come
  • The Keeper
  • (Drey's solo bit)
  • Kong
  • Noctuary
  • Recurring
  • We Could Forever
  • Eyesdown
  • Nightlight
  • Transmission '94
  • El Torro (encore)
  • Between The Lines (encore)

And images from the top down are: Nightlight; Mr Green (a.k.a. Bonobo); Flutist; The Drums Hold it All Together; and Spotlight Silhouette.

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