Bonobo: Black Sands (2LP) [NINJA TUNE]

Why you'll love it

This 180g 2LP set includes printed inner sleeves and a download card. Black Sands went silver in the UK, and its songs have turned up in House of Cards, The Newsroom and the game Sleeping Dogs.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 180g vinyl
• Printed inner sleeves
• Download card included

About the album

The lake on the cover isn't some far-flung exotic shore; it's Derwentwater in the north of England, which tells you a fair bit about Black Sands. Simon Green's fourth album as Bonobo takes familiar materials and makes them feel transporting.

Green plays a remarkable amount of it himself: piano, upright and electric bass, guitars, mandolin, Fender Rhodes, harmonium, harp, xylophone and a music box. Mike Simmonds' violins, Mike Lesirge's flute and clarinet and a small horn section fill in the colours. "Kiara" glides on looping strings, "Kong" struts with a hip hop swing, and Andreya Triana's soulful voice anchors "Eyesdown," "The Keeper" and "Stay the Same." The title track closes with a slow, cinematic swell, so it's no surprise the 2015 French film The Measure of a Man borrowed it as its title song. Saxophonist Tom Chant and drummers Graham Fox and Jack Baker add live grit to the closing stretch.

"All in Forms" landed in a Hollywood thriller, and the record has stayed a fixture of late-night listening and good restaurant playlists ever since. Very few albums can claim both a starring role in a video game and a waiter's approval.

Also at Kops: more Bonobo on vinyl · browse Electronic

Tracklist

Listen

On Ninja Tune (cat# ZEN140), the 2010 album.