Days to Come

• Days
• bonobo
• To

Simon Green aka Bonobo's third album contains the kind of quantum leap in quality that very few artists make. 'Days To Come' has the feeling of a classic all over - a big, brooding, emotional and uplifting record that you can dance to, do the dishes to, or sit and really study. Simon Green has always been expert at welding together music dripping with atmosphere, combining his own musical and technical talents in such a way as to make utterly organic-sounding machine music. This is not just a knob-twiddling producer but a multi-instrumentalist at work, who writes, plays and then manipulates almost every note of music he releases. And 'Days To Come' shows a new structural awareness growing from this, a feeling for the song form and the gradual build which raises it way above the work of many of his contemporaries and cries out for him to achieve the kind of mainstream success that his talent has long hinted at. Bonobo's debut album 'Animal Magic' was released by Brighton label TruThoughts just as the journalistic vogue for 'chill out' music began to peak. Having rejected the advances of more than one major label, Green decided to sign with Ninja Tune and for them he produced 'Dial M For Monkey', a brooding and intricate record which not only continued his move away from traditional sampling techniques, but broadsided the idea that he only made music for people to listen to in transcendental bubble bath yurts. Now, with 'Days To Come' the processes and techniques he developed on the transitional 'Dial M…' have reached fruition, mainly (though not solely) because this album could be seen as a collection of songs. The fantastic band (who have headlined the Big Chill and the Glade at Glastonbury), now also featuring Bajka on vocals, will be touring from this autumn onwards, and are set to transform these studio pieces into living, breathing music. The days to come look bright indeed, but sad and beautiful and lovely, too. Don't miss them..