Artist: Bonobo
Album: Black Sands
Label: Ninja Tune
Rating: 4
In recent years, more downtempo electronic artists are appealing to concert audiences by procuring and sustaining the perfect medium between laptop-produced music and live instrumentation. However, Simon Green – better known as Bonobo – has been going about in this fashion since early last decade, stemming all the way back to his Tru Thoughts debut, Animal Magic, in 2001.
Green’s fourth LP Black Sands shares similar instrumental characteristics with his past releases, while propagating new electronic soundscapes nestled among busy beats and hyperactive rhythms. Though the album is not a significant departure from the Bonobo narrative, its achievement is that it holds our attention without transporting us through profligate derivations and maintains a sense of artful sophistication.
Give these tracks a listen: “Kiara,” “1009”
For fans of: Daedalus, Fink
– Simone Wahng
