February 09, 2004

Bonoboland

Posted by Henry

Eugene Volokh opines that The Bonobos would be a good name for an intellectual art-rock band. Already been done. Simon Green, one of the better artists on Ninja Tune, has been recording as Bonobo for several years. If you like the weird electronic music hits experimental jazz thang, he’s very much worth checking out. He’s also playing DJ sets in a number of North American cities this spring, together with the incomparable Amon Tobin, whose Supermodified, Permutations and Bricolage albums are about the best and strangest drum’n’bass/experimental that I’ve heard in the last five years.

Posted on February 9, 2004 05:46 PM UTC
Comments

I agree, and actually most of Ninja Tune’s output is fantastic… They have a new 2D best-of out (at last!) if you want to discover the artists.
By the way, one of my favorite French artists, “M”, did a song about the good-natured Bonobos that were overtaken by a more aggressive, nasty kind of monkey (us!):

Je t’aime bonobo
Musique: Andrée Chedid, M “Je dis aime”

J’étais Bonoboo
Clama le Bonoboo
Pas peu fier en somme
De suivre la filière
Pas peu fier en somme
De suivre la filière
Dont tu naquis
Petit homme
Par étrange bizarrerie
de mère nature
De maman Lucy

{Refrain:}
O mes cousins
Masculins, féminins
O mes benjamins
Qui s’prétendent humains
Parfois j’me demande
Soupire le Bonoboo
Si ça valait la peine
De s’donner la peine
Pour que votre race guerrière
Incendiaire, carnassière
Occupe toute la scène?

C’est ainsi que vaincu
Sans une once de venin
Sombrant dans sa tanière
Disparut bonoboo

Tandis que plus malin
L’homme passe partout
s’emparant de la terre
S’inventa un destin.

Posted by Matthew · February 10, 2004 10:21 AM

It is surely a great pity that none of those attempts to teach the great apes to speak came to very much, because I’d dearly love to see an act fronted by a pygmy chimp called Bonobo Vox.

Posted by Mrs Tilton · February 10, 2004 01:55 PM

It’s not just the females…. there’s also a tendancy for adolescent male bonobos to indulge in ‘penis fencing’ (hanging face-to-face from the same branch and, um, ‘fencing’).

Posted by bigfoot · February 13, 2004 04:39 PM
Followups

→ Between facts and norms.
Excerpt: Henry at Crooked Timber opens up the much-under-discussed topic of naming intellectual art-rock bands. I seem to remember suggesting to someone once that there really should be a German techno/synth/rock band called Habermas. Sounding like a cross betw...Read more at The Road to Surfdom
→ Between facts and norms.
Excerpt: Henry at Crooked Timber opens up the much under-discussed topic of naming intellectual art-rock bands. I seem to remember suggesting to someone once that there really should be a German techno/synth/rock band called Habermas. Sounding like a cross betw...Read more at The Road to Surfdom

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.