ATK by Bonobo
Five-time GRAMMY-nominated musician/producer/DJ Bonobo has shared “ATK,” his first single since the release of his new album Fragments (Ninja Tune) in January. The single is out today on his label OUTLIER in partnership with Ninja Tune and was featured on Apple Music’s New Music Daily this morning.
“ATK” was made around the same time as Fragments. Initially a DJ edit of Atakora Manu’s ‘Dada,’ it became something fuller and a track of its own. I felt it was a little too bashy to fit on the album and wanted to save it as an OUTLIER release to be aimed more at the dance floor,” says Bonobo aka Simon Green. Manu was an influential Ghanaian Highlife guitarist, composer, and studio engineer that formed the legendary Kakaiku No. 2 Band with Moses Kweku Oppong in the late ‘60s.
“ATK” arrives with a video directed by the McGloughlin Brothers (A$AP Rocky, Max Cooper) that takes the viewer on a train ride through multiple textures, landscapes and shapes of all different scale. The video showcases glimpses of graffiti, colorful windows and walls, Portuguese tiles and train stations across the world that mimic the fast-paced beat of the track.
“We wanted to create a minimal film embodying ideas of serendipity and perception, allowing the world to reveal itself in unusual ways spontaneously. If you have ever looked out of a train window to see the wires and tiles weave and dance in a magical way, this, in essence, is what we wanted to capture in our film. Our own living ‘zoetrope’.” -McGloughlin Brothers.
It’s been a tremendous year for Green. Fragments hit #3 on Billboard’s Top Dance / Electronic Albums chart and #5 on the Official UK Albums Chart. He also earned two nominations for the 64th GRAMMY Awards, one for “Heartbreak” which was released on his OUTLIER label, made his NPR Tiny Desk debut, released a live session with KEXP and hosted a BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix special from Glastonbury. In interviews with The Fader, Billboard and WNYC, Green discussed the struggle to find creative inspiration while the world stood still as he made Fragments in his LA studio beginning in 2020. Additional reviews and coverage came from Pitchfork, SPIN, Zane Lowe, Spotify’s Best Electronic Songs of 2021 and print magazine cover stories with DJ Mag and Electronic Musician. The album led NPR Music to rave, “the grooves cut so deep…it has so much life in it, it makes you want to move.” The Observer deemed it a “brilliant, wondrous work,” giving it 5 out of 5 stars.
Bonobo is in the midst of a major world tour that’s breaking records across four continents. He recently played Royal Albert Hall in London where his 5-night residency became the longest continuous run of performances for a solo musician, and the longest run ever for an electronic artist. He also performed four times in just 24 hours at Glastonbury Festival in June, the largest green-field music and performing arts fest in the world, just completed a tour of Australia, performed at Sonar Barcelona and at Fuji Rock Festival in Japan. His North American run with a full band starts in Toronto on September 19. Highlights include Brooklyn Mirage on September 25 and the Greek in Berkeley on Oct 20 and Los Angeles on October 22. Once he wraps the upcoming tour, Green will have played to an audience of over 750,000 fans worldwide on this Fragments tour.
One of the biggest names in dance music, Green is a favorite mainstage performer at the world’s greatest music festivals and has sold out legendary venues from London’s Alexandra Palace to Red Rocks. He has also worked with a wide range of artists including Erykah Badu and Jon Hopkins and remixes for Gorillaz and Michael Kiwanuka. Other collaborators include Jamila Woods, Joji, Kadhja Bonet, Jordan Rakei, O’Flynn, and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, all featured on Fragments.
