Bonobo: Days to Come

Bonobo’s latest release “Days To Come” is the ultimate musical accompaniment for watching the mating rituals of primates. Sometimes watching that stuff on TV makes me uncomfortable, especially around family but drop Bonobo in the background, lend those little buggers some rhythm and watch them dance.

Bonobo is DJ/composer Simon Green, under the label Ninja Tunes and his latest album is “Days To Come”. Turns out, Bonobo is also a species of primate -- not any primate though -- the horniest of primates. They’re uber-sexual, everyone humps everyone, boys, girls, no matter. It’s like that Blur song. It’s like the future.

Makes sense, this whole album has a voyeuristic feel to it. Smooth beats, non-sensical lyrics, dreamy transitions, a subtle presence of exotic instruments. Put it in your ears and walk. Sit in a café by the window and watch people. Leave it in your car and think. The track Hatoa has infectious beats like that. It gets in your heart and your legs and if you’re just sitting on the couch your breathing falls in sync with the rhythm. There is a scientific word for that: entrainment.

“Days To Come” is a great album to entrain yourself with. It isn’t your typical after-party mix. It’s sophisticated, yet worked in like an old leather bicycle seat. Simon Green is no novice; he’s sculpted something here, in sound. You can feel it. Funny how albums like this, without words, communicate ideas and feelings to you as if you are relating to the emotions of the artist. That is what I was thinking listening to Nightlite. It has some lyrics, but they're ethereal and no more significant than the tambourine or other instruments that stroll in and out of this song. It’s a lonely song. Maybe lonely is an easy emotion to hit.

Despite the somber Nightlite, the album overall is funky and optimistic. My favorite track is Between The Lines. I don’t know if Bonobo knows much about bonobos but Between The Lines definitely has a monkey-ing around feel to it. It starts off with some kind of obo and spooky saw-violin when in stomps this elephant rhythm with a dancing Asian flute on its back. It’s like Jacques Cousteau in his brass underwater helmet searching for Dr Zeus at the bottom of some dark cavern in the deepest reaches of the Congo. Just inside the tree line bonobos are hump-hump-humpin.

Check it out.

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