The Story
Bonobo is Simon Green, a producer and DJ from Brighton who emerged from the town's late-nineties downtempo scene and quietly became one of electronic music's most reliable craftsmen. After his 2000 debut 'Animal Magic', he signed to London's Ninja Tune label, where he has remained ever since — an unusually long and steady partnership in a genre that burns through careers quickly.
'Black Sands' (2010) was the turning point: a record that fused jazz drumming, string arrangements, and club low-end into something warm and cinematic, and gave him the material to build a formidable live band. From there each album widened the aperture — 'The North Borders' (2013) leaned into vocal collaborations, while 'Migration' (2017) and 'Fragments' (2022) both earned Grammy nominations and pushed him into arena and festival headline slots without ever losing the music's patience and detail.
Green has long balanced two performing lives: the Bonobo live show, a full-band production with strings and guest vocalists, and marathon DJ sets — including his Outlier club night and a celebrated entry in fabric's mix series. That double identity is why he can headline the Hollywood Bowl one month and a Brighton beach or a Shanghai club the next.
In 2026 he announced 'Distance In Static', his first album since 'Fragments', due 11 September on Ninja Tune. The record features collaborators including Arooj Aftab, Joy Crookes, Nilüfer Yanya, and Ichiko Aoba, with much of it completed at Neil Young's Broken Arrow Ranch in California, and a newly designed live show set to tour North America from November.
