The magnetism of ’s work is his own comprehension of the word ‘transcendence’. From ‘’ to ‘’, the English producer and DJ, formally known as Simon Green, has sequenced orchestral ambient waves and jazz-like romantic harmonies into a place of solace for those with abstract tendencies. It’s why he’s still a true original in the electronic space and why his latest for Ninja Tune, titled ‘Distance in Static’, wanders past 25 years of accolades to make contemporary exploratory again. Similar to FKJ’s ‘Tyber’ and Chrome Sparks’ ‘Ball Of Light’, it challenges expressionism with reinvention and spliced riddims that take sound a step further. 

“I have always sort of looked at what’s between the genres, you know?” Green confides from his house in Tokyo, Japan, a spot he’s kept on a “local tip” for almost six months now. “There were hip-hop records early on that had one very ethereal instrumental beat on it that was outside the conventions of the genre and it’s the same for a drum ‘n’ bass track doing something completely different. Or even just people experimenting, like a house producer making a downtempo song or whatever. I’ve always been interested in those moments.”

At the centre of ‘Distance In Static’ is a disposition to rework his meticulous instrumentation with melodic bursts of intimacy, scale, and soul. It features collaborators Nicole Miglis, Nilüfer Yanya, Arooj Aftab, Joy Crookes, Aanya Martin, and Kanako Yamamoto, and befittingly, it’s a genre-less exploration of rhythm that stitches together disparate moods while eyeing the dancefloor. ‘’, ‘’, and ‘’ lean into Green’s OUTLIER flows that covet BPMs and ‘Bloom’, but works like ‘’ and ‘’ fall into a mellower headspace, framing crystalline worlds with looped strings, modular sound waves, and emotions buoyed by trance. It’s a heady listen but similar to ‘Fragments’, it’s a distillation of textures that sink the heart with tranquility.

With tours set for and the UK and Europe that feature visuals by , we linked with Green to discuss his new album, how his start in Brighton influenced his duality and a love for ‘experimental shit’, and why Bonobo will always be a multi-dimensional project.

In the book ‘Escapism’, Chinese-American geographer Yi-Fu Tuan states that at a deeper level, immersing oneself in a larger entity is a compelling human need. When it comes to art and its mediums, why do you think music remains such a reflective place to be?

I guess being different is maybe not embraced as much until there’s some kind of affinity with it, right? I feel like with a lot of stuff, until you understand something it just feels really alien. That’s where the connection is with music. It’s a communication; an understanding of another human. If you feel the same nostalgic references and if you can express the same thing, like sometimes in music, it’s just like this is the right thing for the right time. 

This is the piece of music I needed in my life at this point and I think that comes from a sort of non-verbal communication of somebody having the same set of references and the same ideas and being in the same mood as you, but without really being able to verbalise it. That’s really what makes music the “great connector” in a way. 

When did you first realise music could be utilised as a form of escapism?

There’s a point with music where, early on, there’s a feeling. I don’t know if everyone will be able to relate because only creators might understand this, but when you’ve made something that you feel is genuinely worth something, then you’ve kind of managed to achieve something. It’s this crazy kind of euphoria of realising that you’ve made something you love and created something you love, and there’s nothing like that feeling. 

That first happened for me in college as that’s when I started messing around with music. There were a couple of songs that I made which ended up on my first record, and I was just like, “I’ve not felt this before. This is kind of a new thing”. It became a place I can go where I feel like I have something to say in that space. There’s a very specific range in the musical world that no one is saying this thing and I think I’ve got something to say in it. And that was definitely a feeling of escapism for me in a way. But since then, it’s always been a way for me to get out of the real world and sort of indulge in a different, more cathartic space.

It’s interesting that you mention college as that’s where it started for me, whether it was listening to albums in full in someone’s car or hearing Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ being played on an endless loop at a house party hosted by art students.

When I was in Brighton, we were in an art school and no one was really getting much work done but it was kind of this safety net to creatively explore things without consequence, so everyone I knew was experimenting. Brighton, at the time, was a very fertile place in the ‘90s; there were tons of record stores, parties, small clubs and artists doing quite experimental shit. There were some really good record labels out of Brighton, so it felt like a place that gave you permission to be creative. 

You could buy some secondhand gear and a bunch of thrift store records and that was enough. People were making records that were blowing up and while it wasn’t the goal, I felt like I could contribute something quite early on. It was this idea of being able to have something on vinyl or be a part of this different community; it wasn’t really DJs, but there were a lot of hip-hop and scratch DJs and a lot of visual artists. Everything was sort of open, and you could just do whatever you liked without any sort of parameters. 

We were all in these weird little collectives and had these trip-hop jams where we had someone with a drum kit and a bass guitar and a pair of turntables, and that was a band. There were these different formats and ways to explore music back then. 

As some time has passed since your last LP, when did you first start recording ideas for ‘Distance In Static’?

In terms of sessions, I just sort of accumulate music. I work on my laptop a lot of the time so I can’t really say when it first began because it wasn’t like, “I’m going to sit down and make a new record”. It was more like, “I’m going to continue making music and at some point, there’s going to be something that looks like an album”. But early on, I had come out of a period of DJing and I was making a lot of music potentially for DJing because that was where my head was at. I was touring and ‘Me And You’ became one of those first tracks. I essentially made that on my kitchen table on the laptop in Ableton and I was just kind of collecting ideas and sketches and beats.

Then songs like ‘Talk To Me’ were actually written on tour shortly after as I had this recording of Nicole [Miglis] and I, where we were in a backstage corridor in Vienna that was very reverberant and we recorded this little note which I ended up sampling and using. All of this stuff sits on hard drives with these little sketches and eventually something will kind of form — like a shape will take place. There wasn’t any sort of real beginning to the process for ‘Distance…’ or any sort of map to it. It’s just making music and seeing what happens, really.

I didn’t know what this record was going to be when I started it. There was a period where I was like, “Am I going to do something that’s a bit radically different?”. Is it just going to be a purely instrumental electronic record? Or is it going to be a full on downtempo trip-hop record? Then I thought that it might be time to express some breadth and I’ll maybe do that next. This felt like the time to have that ultimate Bonobo record or whatever you want to call it, you know? It’s a multi-genre expression of a few different things. 

What was it like putting together the new album in Los Angeles, Tokyo, and London? And what led you to finishing a large part of it at Neil Young’s Broken Arrow Ranch?

It’s actually really hard making a record. There have been so many times where I’m like, “I don’t know how to do this”. Or like, “I can’t believe I’ve done this seven times before” because it feels like a huge mountain sometimes — like, “there’s no way I’m going to get this record finished this year”. There’s this period where you end up focusing and working everyday, and then you kind of get into this space where you’re just finishing stuff. Like you know how to finish music all of a sudden when you had forgotten how to do it in the first place. Because there was a period for two years where I had 40 songs but none of them were finished. Nothing was finished. It occurred to me that I hadn’t finished a piece of music in almost three years. 

It was bothering me because it’s like, “What’s happening? I need to finish stuff. I need songs to exist”. The plan to release the record was coming up and I didn’t have anything finished and that period of time I spent in Neil Young’s studio is where I was able to start finishing stuff. Like I was getting through two to three songs a day: finishing ideas and rearranging things for the next day. All of these little green checks were appearing after all of these demos were just sort of sitting there half-finished. So that time became a really intense but focused period. 

Have you ever found it difficult to resist being complacent?

I have always thought I procrastinate too much. I think other people may see that differently and maybe that’s good, but I will definitely avoid the work as well. I’ve been known to do this thing where if I have an idea and I like it and I don’t touch it, then I’m not going to be able to fuck it up. Sometimes you can work on stuff that has potential and actually kill it by mistake. So I usually avoid going back to things even though ultimately, you just have to do it. 

Sometimes ideas do die and sometimes ideas come out of nowhere; that’s just the process of working and the process of creating. You’re not going to make a record by avoiding it. It’ll just happen when it happens.

What would you say is the biggest realisation you had about yourself during that period of self-isolation at Broken Arrow Ranch?

I was dangerously enjoying the isolation, honestly [laughs]. Being out there, it was very remote as there weren’t any people around for miles in any direction. I was like, “I could get used to this”, as it’s quite alluring to disconnect from the city and disconnect from the noise and become an old recluse in the woods [laughs]. It’s quite enticing to me. It was definitely an interesting period for me; to have that pure creativity with everything you need, be a bit more self-sufficient and disconnect from everything for a little while. It’s a good way to live. 

In what ways is ‘Distance in Static’ a product of experimentation?

In a lot of ways and pretty heavily. I feel like everything that I do is a product of experimentation. I’ll find sound sources, whether that’s samples or things that I’ve played, or a collage where I’ll find noise and music and start digging into them and flipping them and seeing how I can recontextualise stuff. Everything starts from that process.

Is it safe to say the album explores a desire for connection and trying to find some clarity in the distorted memories that once defined us? Or is there more to it than that?

That’s pretty accurate, actually. The themes throughout the album are lost connections and a yearning for relationships that are not compatible. There’s this sense of nostalgia as well. I think the word “distance” refers to time as well as actual physical distance. I don’t like to dwell in nostalgia, but there is an aspect of that in this record, a sense that time has passed — even in what I’m doing. I turn 50 this year and I’ve been doing this for like 26 years, and I’m in this quite reflective part of my life. This record reflects that state of mind.  

Similar to the mid-2000s and early 2010s, is electronic music having another moment?

It’s always having these little moments, right? We’ve seen a big shift, especially with this huge mainstream house and techno movement happening now with all of these enormous DJs. I think ten years ago, this music felt underground and now you go to any festival in the UK or the US and it’s “the mainstream” now. It’s been interesting to see parts of that underground sound now becoming this huge mainstream thing while there’s also stuff bubbling underground.

I always look to the UK for dance and electronic music. There are always new kinds of things developing; new communities where different kinds of immigrant communities become older and other influences seep in. That kind of thing turns into a constant conversation, where music from different places starts to grow in other ones and two cultures merge. Electronic music is still the place where you see that the most. 

Did you ever think your work would be so referential to the younger generation?

I’m always surprised when people say that. Like I’ve met up-and-coming DJs and producers and they’ll go, “Oh yeah, I grew up listening to your shit” and it really surprises me because I always assumed they’re just on some other stuff and not mine [laughs]. It’s nice to feel like I contributed something even if it’s not a direct influence. It’s also interesting to see producers finding music we were either playing or making 25 years ago.

It all kind of comes back in a different way. Like the sort of records we were playing and the ones we weren’t playing — especially records that were sort of mainstream — and now they’re being rediscovered by younger alternative DJs. It’s this retrospective cycle including some of my old stuff, I guess. My first EP was out in 1999, so I can of claim releases in the ‘90s which is pretty cool. 

As you alluded to it previously, is it true that ‘Distance in Static’ might be your last album in the traditional sense?

I think so. I think so but I also don’t know. The thing is I’ve always been on this cycle somewhere of making a record, promoting a record, touring a record, and then it’s time to make another one because that’s kind of what I do, right? It’s this wheel, this cycle. But I think maybe what I want to do now is to just get off the wheel for a little bit and not have a plan. Every time you work on music or release a record, it’s always “What’s next?”. 

I just don’t want to have a plan for a while and engage with the process on my own terms for a little bit so when I do something, I’m going to do it. That might not necessarily be a whole new Bonobo record with a campaign and a tour. It might just be me making something as an experiment or doing something different that feels a little bit like a side quest, you know what I mean? 

Because of your contribution to Shinichirō Watanabe’s ‘Lazarus’, do you have an interest in composing scores for film, video games or even visual art installations? 

Yeah, definitely [laughs]. Scoring is a different discipline and I was lucky with ‘Lazarus’ because of the way the director works as he just wanted me to contribute a ton of music so he could kind of place the show around it. I have friends who actually do scores for real films and that’s a very different kind of way of working. But I do think pairing up with the right person, the right director, and the right project is definitely something cool. Like working with a visual artist on something completely different is cool to me. Even if it’s a site specific piece, where it exists in a space and you have to go to that space to experience the thing. That kind of visual art is really interesting.  

Whether it’s as a composer or a club-focused DJ, when did you realise that you wanted to use this chapter of your career to reinforce your duality as a creative? 

I don’t think that was a realisation; it’s just something that I’ve been trying to do the whole time. To me, it feels natural to be a few things at once but from other people’s perspectives it’s harder to see and it can be really surprising to others when I’m doing the DJ side of stuff. Like when people come to the shows and it’s 3:00 a.m. in the club and I’m playing harder music and there are people there that are really confused as to why I’m not playing songs like ‘State The Same’ or ‘Terrapin’ [laughs]. 

Really, I’m just trying to do these sorts of things in a way that makes more sense to everyone. I love DJing and I also love performing live and there are all these different sides to the shapes, and I just hope people can come along with me and understand that a little bit more and see for themselves that I don’t just make one-dimensional things. “Oh, he just makes downtempo”; no, I don’t. I do a lot more than that and there are a lot of other aspects to what I’m creating.

‘Distance in Static’ is out now.