Simon Green (born 30 March 1976), known by his stage name Bonobo, is a British musician, producer and DJ.
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Green has recorded and performed solo DJ sets under the name Barakas, and together with Robert Luis from Tru Thoughts as Nirobi and Barakas.
Green’s first release under the moniker Bonobo was in October 1999 with the song “Terrapin” on the Tru Thoughts compilation When Shapes Join Together. He released his debut album Animal Magic on Tru Thoughts in 2000. With this album, completely self-produced and self-instrumented, he became one of the “new downtempo pioneers.”
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In 2001, Bonobo was signed to Coldcut’s label Ninja Tune and in 2003, after one album of remixes on Tru Thoughts in 2002, he released Dial ‘M’ For Monkey. In 2005, Bonobo contributed to the Solid Steel series, with his Bonobo Presents Solid Steel: “It Came From The Sea”, the release date was scheduled for 10 October 2005, but was released a week early, the mix features several exclusive tracks as well as remixes and re-edits.
His third album, entitled Days to Come, was released on 2 October 2006, the first single from the album was “Nightlite”, featuring vocals by Bajka. Following Days to Come his tracks have appeared in a number of media-related items. Days to Come was voted Best Album of 2006 by Gilles Peterson’s listeners.
The song “The Keeper” featuring vocals by Andreya Triana was released in September 2009 as the lead single from his fourth album Black Sands, released in March 2010. Black Sands brought rapturous praise and saw Green expanding his music to include gamelan, afrobeat and middle eastern music influences. After their collaboration for Black Sands, Green produced Andreya Triana’s debut album Lost Where I Belong.
In February 2012, Black Sands Remixed was released on Ninja Tune, featuring tracks from the original Black Sands record remixed by electronic producers such as Machinedrum, Lapalux, Floating Points and Mark Pritchard.
The first single off the most recent Bonobo album, “Cirrus”, was given its worldwide debut on Gilles Peterson’s BBC Radio 6 programme on 19 January 2013. The album is titled The North Borders and was set for release on 1 April 2013, but was released early in its digital format after a promotional copy was leaked prior to the planned launch date.
In July 2014, Bonobo announced on his Facebook page that October 2014 would see the release of “The North Borders Tour – Live.”; a DVD and live album recorded on The North Borders Tour over the course of the past eighteen months.
Bonobo uses a wide variety of samples in his music combined with heavy, often complex basslines. His music generally develops linearly – with new elements such as basslines or percussion coming in one after the other. In Days to Come, he mixes this sonic background with the clean yet distinctive vocals of Bajka, who often uses harmony to build up a multifaceted sound.
Whilst often touring solo, and performing DJ sets, in 2014 Bonobo opted to follow the growing trend amongst electronic acts of playing with a full band. The band plays live renditions of studio material, with a singer, keyboardist, guitarist, saxophonist, string section, electronics, and drummer. Simon Green mainly plays bass guitar, and leads the band from the middle.