Bonobo

I often have an idea and it starts splintering off into a whole lot of directions; I'm interested in exploring every single one of them.

I often use a return channel to get some shape out of the bass. It's a good way to split the frequencies of the bass so that the sub bass is clean and in mono and the higher end of the bass sound can be filtered off - have it on an audio channel and that's where you can use effects.

I record a lot of stuff on my phone when I'm out and about and regularly use the recordings in my tracks.

Offsetting the sample position every time the sample hits will create more random movement in short samples.

I'm always trying to find new things that I haven't done before.

I definitely come from that background of the more subtle shifts, the long build... rather than the quick short-attention span dynamic.

I make music that I consider to be very personal. I think the main aspect is to make it as human as possible.

The way I make music is often to kind of treat instrumentation like I would a sample.

Albums are a journey, and I even find that as a DJ, with less than two hours, I can barely communicate anything. So I like to play long sets.

There was a time I was around those fan boats that go across swamps, and the fans had a really rich, multi-textural sound. So I used that as a waveform for a bass line on the title track for 'Migration.'

My records are not informed by whether the music is going to work live. I just kind of make the music I want to make and worry about how to deconstruct it for a band after.

I think it's good to sort of push people's expectations a little bit. I've always been doing that.

The process of making music is very therapeutic; it's late at night and I'm wearing headphones a lot of the time, so it becomes a way of zoning out and engaging with my thoughts. It's a solitary environment and process.

PaulStretch is a really out-there, standalone audio stretching engine. So with 'Second Sun,' I took a portion of what I was working on and took it into PaulStretch and then bring it back into the track to sit low in the mix as a drone version of itself. It gives the track a good base and a haunting texture to it.

I never used to be able to work on the road, I was always strictly in the studio. But not everything's gotten smaller - I have Ableton on the laptop now and a sample library, which means I can use that downtime to pour it into the music.

Whenever l've travelled l've found myself affected in conflicted ways. Sometimes the new experiences inspire a path of self discovery, but at other points those situations can highlight insecurities and bring about feelings of displacement.

Some people like music to be far more immediate and make you dance straight away. But I like to engage with it on a different level and for it to have that human element where it moves you in an emotive way.

I didn't really think my music was good enough to be heard by anyone. I had some friends who were releasing records who were older than me, and within that group, I was always the younger, patronized friend who was making tunes as well, which everyone thought was cute.

My taste is developing constantly, and it goes in whatever direction it wants to go in - the music follows.

I think you haven't tried enough sometimes unless you're suffering a bit.

In the very beginning, I kind of had this hip-hop, cut-and-paste approach to music. The first record, especially, was from looking at people like DJ Shadow and A Tribe Called Quest, and I think a phase that a lot of people go through when they start sampling is to go out and stamp on twigs and try to record that kind of stuff.

I like messing around with sounds.

I think nostalgia is kind of dangerous in music.

You can't live in the times that you live in and be exposed to all the new music that's happening, ignore it all, and carry on doing the same stuff as you were ten years ago.

You have to engage with the current palette of the world, and what that sounds like.

I was a musician first, the whole DJ-ing came after.

I've noticed one in five ideas never amount to anything.

I always have trouble recording drums and double bass.

There's a progressive arc in the sound of 'Black Sands' creation. The title track was the first piece in place. Then the other live-sounding tracks like 'Animals' and 'El Toro.'

All my records feel like a diary of the time and headspace they were made in and 'Black Sands' documents this in real time for me. A transition of falling in love with beatmaking again. An appreciation of a place and time and an anticipation for what was going to happen next.

Computers can be taught that certain tune or certain chords changes will sound pleasant together, but I don't think it's going to reach a point where a machine will generate ideas and styles.

For me, the energy when I'm DJ'ing should be about the dance floor and not about the person performing.

As a club DJ, it's more about the room and the whole immersive experience of the club. In a live show, the focus is on the stage. It's more of a performance, more of a spectacle.

I've never been one of those musicians to differentiate between acoustic and electronic sounds. I just see it all as sound sources to be used. This translates into my live shows as well.

Fifty percent of what I've worked on is never going to get heard, but I think the important thing is just working.

Sometimes it's a discipline to try and not sound like myself.

I got to Brighton in the late 90s and discovered samplers. Suddenly, I could be my own band with a guitar and sampler, getting my drums in charity shop records. It was better than bashing around in someone's basement, trying to compromise ideas.

I was in bands, like everyone else, when I was 16, 17; I was a little skater listening to Dead Kennedy's and Steel Pole Bath Tub. It was through early 90s Hip Hop that I found my way to Soul and Funk, and then out the other side into beats.

There's this kind of dialogue between African music and dance music, especially Moroccan stuff, because it's kind of ceremonial and has built-in repetition.

As a DJ you spend a lot of time on your own, in airports, away from friends, away from your home. That can have a big impact.

Yeah, it's a kind of weird thing because I don't define myself as an electronic musician. It's certainly a part of it, and you know I have a band as well, and we go on a tour bus like other bands.

The ability to have that mobility of music right now, where you can be in an airport with a sample library, it means that you can channel that mind-space you're in when you're overly tired and in an unfamiliar place.

It's one of those things that always astounds me, when I make a record and it connects with people.

New York is great in your twenties.

When you're traveling, it's easy to ignore your situation. But once the dust settles, it catches up with you.

When I was 16 I was in a neo hardcore band called Finger Charge. I played the drums with my shirt off.

My parents and two sisters were great musicians but my family's approach to music was always way more academic than mine. They were virtuoso players. But they were all impressed that I could sit down at a piano and find a melody. We had a different approach, we had mutual envy.

People don't necessarily know who I am. Some people think Bonobo is a band.

I don't make personality-driven music. Personality stagnates, people become tired of it. When it is purely about the music, that is what gives it longevity.

The only criteria I have with every new album is to keep moving on from what I've done before.