Bonobo, whose real name is Simon Green, has been a busy camper since we’ve been following him, from the very beginning of this century. We often listen to this L.A.-transplanted Brit with headphones but also in concert, with or without a band. We’re now at his seventh album, Fragments, a global hybrid pop, electronic and instrumental-based endeavour. Several motifs, textures and downtempo rhythms, soul-pop refrains… Quality electronica, that is to say: Bonobo almost systematically lays down the melody and the consensual harmony on solid rhythmic frameworks. We notice some select invitations: from Chicago the excellent singers Jamila Woods and Kadjha Bonet, the Californian multi-instrumentalist Miguel Atwood Ferguson, the New Zealand singer and producer Jordan Rakei, the English producer O’Flynn, and the Japanese singer Joji. The 12 tracks on the program should satisfy the extreme-centre and centre-left portions of these music-loving audiences… presumably now chic and tasteful.
