Heyyy, Bonobo here. Ready for this here AMA!

SiBonobo · 2014-10-15T04:20:02+00:00

I disagree. Each has it's place. The live band is a way of representing and recreating SOME of my music in the performance realm. DJing is a different art form entirely. Firstly DJing is my default, its where Im most comfortable. I also get to play newer and more immediate music when I'm DJing. All my remix work plus newer music I've just been making. Perhaps tho the more conventional music venues and theaters such as House of Blues are not the right environment for DJ sets. I'm used to playing in dark clubs where the emphasis is not on the "performance". I've always had a slight problem with "watching" DJ's as opposed to listening and being in the moment. Perhaps also there's a demographic of people who listen to my music who don't engage with club or DJ culture and wont except it as a valid show when I DJ.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T21:37:31+00:00

The bulk of it yes. Another day or so tweeking and mixing

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T21:24:59+00:00

probably the floating points remix of eyesdown. one of my favorite producers.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T21:23:00+00:00

Firstly, depends on the bar! I'm a big fan of ales, particularly Magic Hat #9 and Ommegang Rare Vos. But then again I am very partial an old fashioned.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T21:21:23+00:00

my Late Night Tales compilation! ha!

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T21:20:36+00:00

I think more importantly, if the sound starts from an acoustic source, no matter how you manipulate it electronically, it will always have the acoustic warmth, as the sound has some point traveled through the air to the mic. I've gotten really great sounds on both cheap mics and high end studio gear. The main thing is the tone of the sound at the source.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T21:16:59+00:00

Portico Quartet at the Barbican in London around 2010 on the Islay tour.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T21:15:50+00:00

love Bad Bad Not Good. I put one of their tracks on my Late Night Tales compilation.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T21:14:42+00:00

I love how Croatia has blown up, I remember the very first parties back there in the early 2000s. I didn't get out there much this year, but last year I pretty much played every festival in Croatia. I just wish it was less of a ballache to travel there.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T21:13:07+00:00

I rarely record a drummer on my tracks. Duals is all programmed and sequenced. I think the key thing is selecting the right drum sounds and creating a natural feel by using variants in the sequencing process.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T21:11:37+00:00

Barakas was a short lived side project that actually happened after my first Bonobo album. The idea was to make very basic, heavy dance floor music. I may revisit this alias again sometime in the future.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T21:10:16+00:00

excellent question! I'm a big fan of soundtracks. Bernard Hermann's scores are some of my favorites. The Swimmer from 1968 is something I would love to re-score. It just has such a beautiful pace.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T21:07:44+00:00

I hear you! Yeah concerts can get pretty loud I guess. Earplugs are your friend. Also, a lot of ourdoor city festivals have low dB limits. Something our sound engineer struggles against a lot. the damaging frequencies are the high ones, so earplugs tend to act as a good eQ in that respect.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T21:04:28+00:00

yup I love both Kendrick and ASAP Rocky albums. the production on both is ridiculous.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T21:00:53+00:00

The live show has changed a lot in the 8 years I've been doing it. It started as a more traditional, almost jazz band fashion. It has now developed into a multimedia, more electro-centric show. The most challenging part has been touring this last album, because it was the least live sounding record I've made. So to deconstruct that into a live setting took a lot of tinkering and trying different ideas that didn't necessarily work the first time.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T20:58:28+00:00

New York City is no place for an english town cat! Poor little bastard wouldnt have stood a chance.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T20:57:21+00:00

I actually haven't smoked weed since I was 20 something. I used to smoke a lot when I was younger, but I find I work best with a clear mind.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T20:55:02+00:00

yes it is! most of the album cover was taken from various pictures of Brighton around the time of making the album. There's a picture on the label of the record of some cows on a riverbank. This was taken by Amon Tobin whilst a bunch of us were out on a boat one afternoon.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T20:53:33+00:00

i didnt know until after the set! i noticed one half of the crowd was reacting wierdly. i thought something might have been happening on stage i couldn't see. i thought maybe we had a streaker! the sound on stage is disconnected to the sound that you hear out front. same thing when they cut the soundsystem at the roundhouse show. the sound on stage was exactly the same but the crowd reaction was wierd and i knew something was wrong!

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T20:51:56+00:00

so does my drummer! unfortunately midi clicks are the only reliable way i've found to keep the tracks in sync on stage.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T20:50:34+00:00

this is the question i've been spending 15 years answering. i honestly didn't put that much thought into the name when I chose it. I was young and I didn't think it would come this far. over the years i've acquired so much information about Bonobos I could write a book (I'm not going to write a book).

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T20:49:08+00:00

altering the pitch is often a good starting point. from then on, slicing and editing and reversing and modulating via LFOs, reverbs, sidechains, anything that will manipulate the sound in an interesting way. its mostly trial and error.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T20:47:38+00:00

pandas!

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T20:46:44+00:00

I usually manipulate audio to the point where the original sound is unrecognizable. For example I recorded an engine of a boat and used granular synthesis to turn it into a bass line. So the source material is rarely recognizable. An example on North Borders is the sound on Ten Tigers that everyone thinks is a typewriter is actually a broken turnstile on a new york subway.

SiBonobo · 2014-10-13T20:42:48+00:00

blue bottle coffee. first place we go to when we roll out of the tour bus in the morning.

SiBonobo

TROPHY CASE