Bonobo releases live film of Royal Albert Hall concert

To celebrate the one year anniversary of Bonobo’s 5-night residency at London’s Royal Albert Hall in their 150th year, an official film of the performance has been released. Bonobo’s residency at the Royal Albert Hall  became the longest continuous run of performances for a solo musician, and the longest run ever for an electronic artist.

Focusing on tracks from his most recent album ‘Fragments’, as well as songs from his wider catalogue, the film also includes the impromptu moment when the organist AnnaLapwood joined the band for “Otomo,” on the venues famed pipe organ. Footage of the occasion became a genuine viral moment online, receiving over 6 million plays to date on Lapwood’s TikTok. The collaboration came about quite by chance. Lapwood was practising as she often does on the organ at 1am after one of the Bonobo shows and his trumpet player Ryan Jacob and sound engineer Tommy Williams were still in the building. They asked her to play Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D minor”, and she kindly obliged. After introducing them to the historic organ itself and its 9999 pipes, they planned for her to join the show the next night as a surprise guest. 

The concert film, filmed by DJ Magazine, was directed by JonDommett and has also been mixed especially for the film by TommyWilliams. It shows an artist at the top of his game, expertly blending acoustic and electronic music, to levels arguably not seen before in such iconic surroundings. In addition to Lapwood, the show featured tour vocalist NicoleMiglis and guest vocalist AndreyaTriana, a 15-piece string section, brass ensemble, immersive visuals by Strangeloop and his longtime core band. 

The ‘Fragments’ album tour has been seen by an audience of over 750,000 across four continents in just over a year between headline shows and festival appearances. He also performed four times in just 24 hours at GlastonburyFestival, headlined WarehouseProject and Lost Village Festival in the UK, completed a tour of Australia, North America and India, performed at Sonar Barcelona and at Fuji Rock Festival in Japan. In late 2022, his band headed to Europe for shows across 9 countries, and Bonobo headlined with two separate DJ sets at Printworks, London. Bonobo is also co-headlining Field Day alongside Aphex Twin in London on the 19th August. With two recent GRAMMY nominations around ‘Fragments,’ Bonobo now shares the record for the most nominations, Seven, in the Dance/Electronic Recording category with The Chemical Brothers and Madonna. ‘Fragments’ was also nominated for his first BRITs Award for Best Dance Act. 

Since ‘Fragments,’ Bonobo also surprise released three dancefloor singles on his label OUTLIER imprint with Ninja Tune in “Defender,””ATK,” and “Fold,” which was alongside JacquesGreene. Bonobo has also recently announced a series of curated OUTLIER DJ events in Austin, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Montreal between June and September. The shows will feature Amtrac, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, TOKiMONSTA, JacquesGreene, O’Flynn and more guests to be announced at a later date. In addition, following his previously acclaimed Boiler Room appearances, Bonobo also returned to do a very special live set at DGTL in May in Amsterdam. 

‘Fragments’ hit #3 on Billboard’s Top Dance / Electronic Albums chart and #5 on the Official UK Albums Chart amongst other worldwide chart entries. He performed album highlights on his debut NPR Tiny Desk and additional coverage came from Pitchfork, SPIN, ZaneLowe, The FADER, Billboard, and print magazine cover stories with DJ Mag and ElectronicMusician. The album led NPRMusic to rave, “the grooves cut so deep…it has so much life in it, it makes you want to move.” TheObserver deemed it a “brilliant, wondrous work,” giving it 5 out of 5 stars. Over his career Bonobo has worked with a wide range of artists including ErykahBadu and JonHopkins, as well as remixing Gorillaz and MichaelKiwanuka with his catalogue accumulating over 2 billion plays on streaming services.

by Damion Pell

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