[Photos by Cody Deel]
With a die-hard army of fans spreading across the globe, Bonobo has built up a reputation for himself for his DJ sets, as well as his shows with his live band. Last Friday night at the Ogden Theatre was a welcome and extremely artful mix of Bonobo’s unique sound with more progressive European house music, which kept listeners engaged and was a solemn statement confirming that seeing a Bonobo DJ is not a downgrade to seeing a show with his live band, just a different beast, which should be given just as much attention and calories on the dance floor as the former.
Los Angeles based producer and DJ Jeremy Sole kicked off the night with a tasteful and eclectic collection of original tracks and remixes wrought with intricate drum production and a wide dynamic of sounds both sampled and synthesized. After an hour set from Jeremy Sole, and a 20-30 minute interlude, Bonobo took his rightful place on the stage, boasting a new light rig and an at first elusive, glitched out remix of crowd favorite “Kiara.”
After getting the crowd warmed up with a mix of tracks from his most recent albums, the set started to mix more into a deep, melodic house that erred from Bonobos normal sound and pushed the set to a new level of energy, one that would not have been possible with the typical Bonobo we are used to hearing from his albums.
House music is increasingly proliferating the global electronic music arena, and top notch producers like Bonobo are able to gracefully transcend the many stereotypes that the style carries with it and combine their unique musical taste and style to create something fresh. With a distinct European flavor, he combined full and pumping synth pads with glitchy, slightly arrhythmic melodies that provided more of a rich context to dance to than your standard house music.
Towards the end of his set, he digressed back into a more traditional Bonobo sound, and gave the shape of the set a really nice affect. As the show drew closer to the end, the whole set felt like a palindrome, starting with traditional Bonobo, going into more experimental, higher energy house music, and back into Bonobo. It was a voyage, which had swept the entire crowd up for 90 minutes of bliss.
After leaving the stage briefly, leaving a revolving synth loop playing which served echoed like a siren calling him back to the stage, the DJ came back on to play one more song, a remix of London Grammar’s “Hey Now.” The whole crowd was singing and rocking out in unison. The remix is very good, check it out below:
All in all, the DJ’s set was very impressive. After seeing a producers live band, one can feel apprehensive when going to see a solo DJ set because it usually just isn’t as good (I’m not going to name any names, but I’m sure a few of the same names are running through your head right now as well). It was creative, interesting, danceable and overall very engaging. With all the options for live music available on the average weekend in Denver, I can say with confidence I made the right call in coming to the Ogden last Friday.
