Black Sands

The biggest problem facing me when writing this article was how exactly do you classify Bonobo’s new album? While too repetitive and beat based for jazz or funk, it seems an insult to class it as “dance”, as that doesn’t reflect the creativity or individuality of the music.

My faithful friend the Spotify biographer classes it as “pretension-free, post-party intellectual chill-out”, whatever that means, and this seems a convoluted way of describing easy to listen to music. However, while the album may remain almost contradictory and hard to define, there is no denying its success in transcending genre and simply containing good music. Featuring an array of sounds, one minute you will be listening to oriental strings and jazz horns, the next some simple drum machine beats and a bass guitar, often within the same track. This variation not only keeps the album exciting, and on a grand scale, but unique, a tough achievement in the increasingly prolific world of DJ produced tracks, and one that is most welcome.

While tracks such as the first single “The Keeper” show Bonobo’s (Simon Green to his friends) ability as an all round music producer (creating a simple but jazzy riff to underlie Andreya Triana’s soulful vocals), his skills truly are at their best on tracks such as “Kiara”, where he himself has centre stage. With no vocalist to distract from Green, and without the limitation of having to have his music fit and support a vocal track, he can really let loose, creating a four minute instrumental track that achieves a variety of successes. Maintaining a constant recurring bass riff and beat, this is far from a standard dance track as the various instruments each take it in turns to play variations on the bass, each one greater and longer lasting than its predecessor.

Make no mistake about it, this is Bonobo’s grandest album, but for all its achievements it still has one major stumbling block in its path mentioned at the beginning of the article; its lack of clear genre. While at first listen it is apparently too repetitive to listen to for its own sake, its elaborate changing melodies make it unsuited for most clubs out there. This album seems most at home in the background, in the car while driving, or on the tv behind an advert or film. However, this truly is just a stumbling block, not a complete obstruction, and the listener who perseveres and gives each track its own individual chance will be rewarded with what is one of the best DJ produced records of recent years.