Bonobo brought the energy at Somewhere Out There Festival on 16 August, lighting up Fort Canning Park with a wide-ranging set that had the crowd dancing nonstop. From fan favourites to deep cuts, the acclaimed musician, producer, and DJ crafted a vibe that proved to be the ideal climax to the debuting festival.
We caught up with Bonobo before his anticipated performance and dove into the depths of his career as one of the greatest names in electronic music, experiencing his perspective on creating the original soundtrack of the acclaimed anime Lazarus by Shinichirō Watanabe, exploring the sounds of the City in Nature that he would love to feature on one of his tracks, and even understanding his boundary-breaking creative process.
Your music blends so many sounds – how would you describe your set to someone who’s never heard you?
Oh, It's very melodic. There's lots of electronic and acoustic elements all kind of merging together, and it's a little bit of everything, really. It's very hard to describe one's own music, but I would say it's mostly a kind of melody-driven electronic music.
Is there a track that accidentally became something completely different than you intended?
Most of them yeah. Most of it's kind of an experimentation, really. I kinda start just messing around with sounds and seeing what happens. But yeah, often, we try to do something that's not the thing you were planning to do. That's when the exciting stuff happens. So I try and encourage things to take on a life of their own.
What's a rule you constantly break in music production?
I don't really have an answer for it, really. I know it's a cliché thing. There aren't any rules. I think if you follow the rules, you're not really gonna find anything that is original or exciting. So I try not to, try not to think about the rules too much.
If you had to sample one Singaporean sound (hawker centre chatter, MRT announcements, etc.) into a track, what would it be?
Oh, I think, honestly, like, all the nature sounds out here. There's a lot of very exotic insects and strange animals and things in the trees that you can't see, but you can hear them. I think that the most unique thing about Singapore is the sound of all these mysterious little animals hiding in the bushes.
What’s one song you’ve retired from sets that fans still ask for?
Oh, well, there's a lot of songs. I mean, this is kind of controversial because when I'm DJing, I think a lot of people want me to play the super down-tempo stuff, and I don't really do that when I DJ. So there's a lot of stuff on Black Sands, like ‘Stay the Same’ and ‘Terrapin’, Basically, all of the chill stuff — that's what people are really holding up their phones, asking me to play, like, a very, very down-tempo song in the middle of a kind of very high, heavy dance floor moment. So, sometimes I do it, but most of the time, I don't.
What’s a genre of music you love but rarely get to incorporate into your own work?
Oh, something I really love. Well, I grew up on, like, kind of old rock, you know, listening to, The Smashing Pumpkins and Dinosaur Jr. and kind of quite shoegazey, grungy kind of music. So, I feel like my music's definitely influenced by that, but maybe not in a direct way. But I feel like I have got a shoegaze record in me at some point, so maybe that'll happen in the future.
What’s the biggest difference between playing a club versus a festival like Somewhere Out There?
Well, I think with a festival crowd, it's kind of generally a more kind of funkier vibe, isn't it? I think people at a club — you can probably go a little bit deeper and you can play longer. Festival sets are generally shorter, so you don't get to really kind of go on that journey. So, I feel like festival sets kind of have to play the bangers. But, you know, each thing has its own merit.
Scoring for Shinichirō Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo) is a dream for many – how did you first get involved in Lazarus?
So, Watanabe-san asked me. He was into my music, we had a few calls about it, and we kinda talked about the ideas of the show and, what his vision was for it, and I knew what his previous stuff had sounded like. So I kinda came into it with my own ideas. But he was — I mean, he was a real pleasure to work with. It was just really nice to sort of have this discourse with him, and he kinda just let me do whatever I wanted, really, which was great. But yeah, it was a really exciting thing to do.
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