Bonobo Tickets

Since making his music debut in 1999 on When Shapes Join Together, Bonobo has attained a devoted cult following. Initially starting out with a trip-hop aesthetic, Bonobo (aka Simon Green) began incorporating sounds from jazz and world music into his arsenal. Now he’s at the forefront of an electronic movement that blurs the lines between analogue and digital instrumentation.

Green grew up in rural Hampshire, born to parents who were heavily involved in the British folk scene. From a young age, he could sit down at the piano and pick up a melody, but while folk jams were a regular thing around his house, Green had very different tastes, gravitating toward alt-rock and hip-hop. As a teenager, he became a skater and a fan of punks like the Dead Kennedys as well as neo-hardcore acts from Skint Records and Mo'Wax.

In the 90s, Green moved to Brighton to attend art school and became entranced by the city’s booming beats scene. By that time, he’d learned to play drums and guitar as well as mastering four-track tape recorders and effect pedals.

Adopting the moniker Bonobo – a reference to both the chimpanzee species and Will Self’s sci-fi novel Great Apes – Green released his instrumental debut album Animal Magic on the indie label Tru Thoughts in 2000. A year later, he re-released it after signing with Ninja Tune and in 2003, Bonobo’s follow-up Dial ‘M’ For Monkey arrived.

His third record, 2006’s Days To Come, brought him more widespread recognition. Loaded with soul and jazz grooves, it was voted Album Of The Year in Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards, a new music celebration for his BBC Radio 1 show. In addition, the track Ketto was used on the TV series Skins.

After spending a few years performing in clubs throughout the UK and Europe, Bonobo began spending time in the US and assembled a band. In 2010, he unveiled his fourth album Black Sands, boasting a stunning photograph of the Lake District’s Derwentwater as its cover artwork, and relocated to New York.

Bonobo’s fifth record The North Borders came out in 2013 and peaked at No.34 on the UK albums chart. To support it, he went on an extensive 18-month worldwide tour, consisting of over 175 shows across three continents.

During that time, which Bonobo described as a “transitory state”, he began creating material for his sixth album, working on his laptop instead of a conventional studio. After the tour wrapped, Bonobo moved from New York to Los Angeles, where he connected with producer and Coldplay collaborator Jon Hopkins.

Bonobo revealed the single Kerala in 2016, along with a video starring Gemma Arterton. The following year, he released his No.5-charting Migration, a collection of vocally charged songs with brooding soundscapes and hypnotic beats. With Bonobo turning 40 and coming to terms with the recent loss of his father, the album explored themes of family and identity as well as human existence and the environment.

In 2017, Bonobo also released the three-song EP Bambro Koyo Ganda featuring the song Samurai as well as vocals from the Grammy-nominated musical collective Innov Gnawa on the title track.

The late-10s saw Bonobo continue with his typically packed global touring and DJ schedule, playing everywhere from Glastonbury to clubs in New York and the Sydney Opera House.

Since 2016, he hosted his popular Outlier club shows and festival stage takeovers in cities around the world. As the curator with a different line-up each time, he kicked off Outlier in Brooklyn, but has since presented it in both London and Manchester as part of a collaboration between Manchester International Festival and The Warehouse Project.

Bonobo provided a Fabric mix in 2019 to kick off their new series. In 2020, he also launched an Outlier label in partnership with Ninja Tune. Its debut release was a house track called Heartbreak with UK-born, LA-based producer Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs.

In 2021, Bonobo announced a new album Fragments, set for a January 2022 release. To support the album, a string of Bonobo UK tour dates, including three nights at the Royal Albert Hall, were confirmed for May 2022.