Review Summary: Bonobos on typewriters
The path of the easy-listening genre stalwart is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the listener and the tyranny of lo-fi hip-hop playlists on YouTube. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the plebs through the valley of trash taste, for he is truly his genre's keeper, and the finder of lost cafes. And he will strike down with gentle downtempo and deep house those who attempt to poison and destroy background music. And you will know my name is Bonobo when I lay my slick beats upon thee!
A-fucking-men, fam. Thinking of Bonobo's dip in critical success across his last couple of LPs, I wonder how seriously he must take this news in relation to his faithful congregation of monthly listeners numbering in the millions and the sheer professionalism in sound selection, arrangements, and progressions that has continued to bolster even his less successful releases. The proliferation of algorithm-driven hackneyed bullshit on YouTube that seems to garner most of the attention of people for whom the word “chill” is seemingly always ready to ejaculate forth from must be strange to witness from where Bonobo sits.
Perhaps the separation of those listeners—who I guess are busy plagiarising their latest thesis or tripping hard and trying not to panic (probably both)—from Bonobo's fanbase speaks to the delicate attention that his music invites. Like the rest of his work, lazy loops and misplaced samples are nowhere to be found on
Fragments. It's a case of every sound in its right place, every idea developed in a way that is thoughtful and skilfully executed at best and pretty at worst, every track clearing that rather translucent bar that separates “that was boring” from “that was nice”.
So it was, so it will ever be. Or so it seems. Bonobo's consistency appears to be a blessing and a curse; fans will never be disappointed, critics will never be impressed. This lands a release like
Fragments—which I'm sure people would rave about were it excavated from some obscure deep house scene in Nowhereheim, Germany or whatever—in a zone where it'll probably never get the credit it deserves as soft ratings and accusations of unoriginality push prospective listeners towards newer trends, leaving Bonobo gently raving in no man's land with an already established fanbase, unconcerned about the shitfight taking place in the trenches in the name of dramatic upheavals and crowning glories. Fuck that noise. Come dance.
