Description
After wrestling with writer’s block through lockdown, Simon Green, aka Bonobo, has resurfaced with a masterpiece in wistful, cathartic electronica, his seventh studio album Fragments.
This is his most engaging in a decade: soothing, energetic and just right for the current moment.
There’s a particular sort of music that thrives in months like these, and it’s often Bonobo’s. Now that the festivities have fizzled out and all the big shots – Adele, Ed Sheeran, ABBA – have had their fill, scrappy upstarts are chancing their luck at Number One and thoughtful, meditative music has a chance to shine. Electronic musician Simon Green’s decision to share his seventh album ‘Fragments’ in January – almost five years to the day of his previous, ‘Migration’ – feels pointed; the month’s slower pace encourages you to let an album as richly rewarding as this envelop you completely.
In any case, Brighton-born, LA-based Green may still land his first chart-topper with this one. His last album, released a decade-and-half into his career, was his most commercially successful work yet and ‘Fragments’ has similar momentum and potential; this is the most engaging record Green has released since 2010’s ‘Black Sands’ – it is light, airy and remarkably well pieced together.
