Bonobo Presents FRAGMENTS Album Review — Contemplative and Organic Electronic Music

Near the midpoint of Fragments is the song Closer. It begins with gentle, distinct electronic snares, high hats, woozy synths, and bass kicks to lay the foundation of the rhythm. Soon, pieces of what sounds like a more organic instrument enters — perhaps a sort of kalimba — along with the songs key vocal sample which begins to sing in a reverberated, soulful tone: 

BONOBO Uses A Range Of Sounds To Create A Diverse Listening Experience

Fragments has a diverse mix of ambient tracks, vocal-sample heavy tracks, and traditionally structured songs with many featured vocals. The first of which is Shadows, featuring Jordan Rakei. The song begins with a simple drum pattern, accompanied by a rubbery bass line. A choppy keyboard riff rounds out the rhythm section as the song introduces both quick and accentuated synthesizers as well as strings. In this song and throughout the album, the stringed instruments, such as violins or cellos, often have an ambiguous quality that, in this writer's opinion, make it difficult at times to determine whether the sounds are electronically produced or truly recorded live. 

This mix of the digital and organic is seen in the more ambient or heavily sampled songs as well. The song Otomo has a familiar beginning filled with electronic drums, bass and mood settings synths, but it also uses a distinct melody — first played by a saxophone or perhaps another brass-type instrument whose true origins remain ambiguous. As the song progresses, the melody morphs into a sample of a large chorus singing. The timbre of the group sounds like what you might hear at a sports stadium, when the crowds chant in unison to cheer on their teams. 

The songs on the album featuring guest vocalists tend to stick to a traditional verse-chorus structure, and the sample heavy tracks like Otomo are structured more segmentally, transforming and phasing into many distinct musical ideas. Other songs however, lean more heavily in an ambient direction. The song, Elysian, begins with electronic arpeggios, what sounds like a live upright bass, strings, and gentle wind-chime-like embellishments. The song does not necessarily evolve to new sections or movements, instead Bonobo chooses to slowly layer organic and electronic sounds, such as percussion on wood-based instruments. He then quietly deconstructs the song back to silence by removing layers as subtly as he added them.