We Spoke to Bonobo About Working With Grammy Winners

Over the past 10 years Bonobo’s made pretty much every type of digital music, moving from trip-hop and jazz to deeper, UK bass influenced, electronica. His new album, The North Borders, is simply delicious. Electronically adventurous while still deeply soulful, every sample is chopped and dissected with the pinpoint accuracy of a master itame. It’s one of those records that’s so good it serves as a reminder of what a prick you were during those two years in secondary school when you only listened to Origin Of Symmetry.

We caught up with Bonobo on his very packed tour bus to talk working with Grammy-award winners, evacuating gigs and how Disclosure may just be the next generation Gallagher Brothers.

Hiya Bonobo! Do you think that this latest release has bought you to the attention of a younger crowd than previous records have done?

Bonobo: Yeah, for sure it has been a younger crowd this time round but I wouldn’t want to be playing to the same crowds I did ten years ago, let alone making the same music. I remember back when I toured the first record Animal Magic, it was just a lot of dudes with backpacks who were into abstract hip-hop beats or whatever and I just wanted music to be much more fun again, rather than a study of work. Now when I play it's way more fun. I was at Bristol Academy when there were all these kids about nineteen, maybe twenty years old, singing along to all the lyrics. Music is supposed to be a celebration, right? That’s when I wanted to get away from that introspective scene into an all-embracing one.

How did you approach that with fresh sounds? You always seem to keep your pulse on the radar of upcoming artists specifically here in the UK, but now you're based in the US Isn't that a pain?

Music isn’t as geographically specific as people make out now. You know, you’d used to have to go over to America with a bag of white labels and they’d never heard any of the stuff before but nowadays, things get played on Boiler Room or Soundcloud and it can all be heard and shared all over the world. I’ve felt, since being over in New York, that I’m paying more attention to the buzz blogs and sites that I enjoy that do manage to continually update with fresh artists and leads. I try and keep as much of an ear on London, probably is more so since I did relocate.

Like the all-dayer you recently curated in London, that was a for a relatively small group of people but people watched it all over the world. People like me!

Yeah! We had Gilles Peterson and The Invisible in the Boiler Room downstairs.

I’d never heard of Blue Daisy until his set that day, he caught my eye dropping Chance The Rapper mixes and all sorts – ugh, swoon!

Yeah, everything was really varied! Boiler Room did their thing downstairs and then we had the band and I over in the main room and Machinedrum was the special guest of the day, which was great to have him on board having just also joined the Ninja family. The day was fantastic until we had to evacuate the Roundhouse.

What happened?

Someone thought it would be OK to start smoking inside this beautiful listed building so, literally two thirds of the way through our set. There was a fire alarm and we evacuated the three thousand people inside. We’re all sat there out on the pavement and everyone was asking me when we can go back in, but all I can hear at this point is ringing in my ears.

It’s health and safety gone mad. Did you get back in?

After 15 minutes they let people back in. I had to push a few people out the way en route to the stage.

Oh that’s OK, I’m pretty sure headlining acts get diplomatic immunity. How has it been translating The North Borders from a solo, studio production to a live piece for a huge band ensemble? Did you ever see it growing to this scale?

The North Borders is a lot less live than the last record but I didn’t want to let any of that inform how this record was made. I’m going to make the record that I want to make and worry about all that later. A lot of people see me playing with other musicians and actually think Bonobo is a band. When you try and introduce this concept with one person, they won’t accept and just can’t grasp it.

Well, how you do approach constructing tracks? Your work is full of lush layers and vocal cuts, do you begin with a certain sample or instrument?

There is no set way I ever approach a track, with The North Borders the first thing I did on the whole record was use this thumb piano, like a little African kalimba for "Cirrus", you’ll be able to pick it out now I’ve told you. I love it, I found it in a little shop in Manhattan, it was so peculiar, it was like that curiosity shop in the Gremlins movies.

Now, it’s not every day that you get to work with a Grammy award-winner and legend in the game such as Erykah Badu. How did you snap her up for vocal duties on "Heaven For The Sinner"?

I met her in New Orleans last year after we were both doing a project with Mark Ronson and we got talking and realised that musically, we had a lot in common, so I was just like, “Right, I’m going to send you some beats.” It was as simple as that. I then met up with her again in Seattle- it just sparked from nowhere and then we took her out on the road with us in California for a couple of days which was a beautiful element to be able to add to the show as we didn’t know if our schedules would completely clash. We’re talking about doing some work on her next album too so we can continue on collaborating but in a different way.

Choosing the right collaborators to work with clearly is tough, tell us about your relationship with Leif Podasky? He’s been popping up on radars this past year making dreamy new artwork for the likes of Mount Kimbie and Foals. How did you come about recruiting his design work for the "First Fires" release, too?

I knew his work anyway; I’ve always been a fan of his. Ewan Robertson who did the artwork for Black Sands had started collaborating on the new record artwork with me and then he had a heart condition about a year ago and didn’t make it, which was such a blow. It was kind of real shock and he was only young. We bought Leif in at a fairly last-minute stage and brainstormed ideas. I really love what he does and he’s taken the sense of the album to another level - I feel it’s not just solely about the auditory when it comes to making a piece of music it’s a matter of varied aesthetics.

What do you think of the young surge of producers that are coming through here in the UK anyway— is it a scene that is going to burn itself out or could it have longevity? We have all these super young guys like Happa and Disclosure?

Yeah I know about Happa, he did that Four Tet remix, right? I can’t believe he's only fifteen. He played at a venue where a few friends of mine work and I heard his Mum had to chaperone him. He must still be in school! I think it’s a really interesting element of the UK to be honest, you’ve got more established acts now such as Disclosure who are crossing over these pop aspects just with underground dance origins. I think it’s healthy to see people like that playing the bigger rooms and stages now, it is finally making music in the UK really exciting again. I know I certainly haven’t felt this excited personally since the mid-nineties and there hasn’t been an obvious, mainstream collective consciousness of a movement since Britpop. It’s nice to see Disclosure get in the top forty, never mind a number one track before they’ve even released a debut record yet. Everything feels home-grown again.

Somehow I can’t imagine the baby-faced Lawrence Brothers rivalling The Gallaghers’ any time soon! Thanks for speaking to us, Simon!