Bonobo - Fragments (Vinyl 2LP)

Fragments is the seventh studio album from Bonobo, the electronic and downtempo project of British producer Simon Green, released by Ninja Tune in January 2022. Its twelve tracks move between club-built house cuts and slower, string-led ballads.

The album took shape over roughly two years, with Green creating, recording and mixing it himself. Its sound draws on his work with modular synthesis, his own Fender Rhodes playing, recordings of harpist Lara Somogyi, and arrangements by violinist and arranger Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, who features on the opening ‘Polyghost’.

Four vocalists appear. Jordan Rakei sings on ‘Shadows’, Jamila Woods on ‘Tides’, Joji on ‘From You’ and Kadhja Bonet on the closing ‘Day By Day’, while O’Flynn co-writes and co-produces ‘Otomo’. Green has said ‘Tides’ was the track the rest of the album came together around. ‘Rosewood’ was released as the lead single.

The cover art is by Neil Krug, who also created the artwork for 2017’s Migration.

This is the standard black double vinyl edition, with a digital download included.

If Fragments is your way in, Black Sands is the Bonobo record to go back to next, and Jordan Rakei’s What We Call Life follows the soul thread running through ‘Shadows’.