Bonobo: The North Borders Tour – Live

Bonobo’s 2013 album The North Borders solidified British producer Simon Green as one of the most enduring artists in the downtempo world. Besides that, it was one of the best electronic albums of the year. The North Borders was so accomplished, in fact, that Green found it appropriate to record the subsequent tour for a live album follow up, The North Borders Tour – Live.

Live records are a rarity for electronic artists. Bonobo don’t face the same problems as DJs or most producers in this respect because they perform live as a full band, recreating the rich, nuanced sonics of Green’s music through live instrumentation, ostensibly to give the songs a dynamism craved for by audiences who want to hear more than the studio album blasted through club speakers. Indeed, certain performances flourish, like the extended saxophone solo on “Ketto”, and brass accents on the lovely “Emkay” keep the music fresh and alive. As that live performance ethos became a greater part of the Bonobo experience, Green naturally saw fit to preserve the live show with an album, perhaps to give fans who couldn’t make it out to the concerts a way to enjoy the spectacle. Through consistent crowd applause — and it is strange to hear such enthusiastic cheering for a flute solo in a chill out track, for instance — it becomes clear that a Bonobo tour is not something to be missed by the fan or uninitiated alike.

Sadly, the logic of a Bonobo live album is inconsistent with the ethos of the live performance. The studio version of The North Borders (and all Bonobo albums) is no doubt the ideal audio version, and indeed, the album is pristinely produced and perhaps the closest to sonic perfection as Green could have made it. By adapting the live show to the same format, Green loses that quintessential quality of the studio album, and he actually contradicts the original intention behind the live instrumentation of the concert experience: to provide an engaging, singular perspective on the music unlike that of the fixed nature of the studio album.

Note “Stay the Same” or “Heaven for the Sinner”, in which Bonobo is joined on stage by singers Szjerdene and Andreya Triana respectively. The band fail to coalesce with the vocalists, creating disconnected performances that come much too early in the album, poisoning the record before a good impression could be made. The audience still cheers loudly, implying that they have a far better (and more complete) account of the performances — no doubt more emotional and energetic than the dour audio recording lets on — but these qualities are lost without visuals, and the live album suffers greatly as a result.

In translating the performances to the CD format, Green creates a version of the music that is degraded, by definition, from its “natural” form (the studio disc) and one that fails to capture the full value of a Bonobo concert by nature of giving an “abridged” account (audio without video). Luckily, The North Borders Tour – Live. is available as a DVD, a superior product and a purer glimpse at the Bonobo live experience. Still, a live album should be able to carry the weight of the performance on the audio alone, and at this, The North Borders Tour – Live. fails.

Of course, the music itself is not bad. The band performs well for the most part and fans who have never made it out to a Bonobo show will certainly be interested to hear how the songs are translated into a live performance. But simply put, it’s not the ideal way to listen to the music. The North Borders Tour – Live. is more suited to be a bonus disc on a deluxe edition of The North Borders studio album than to be a stand alone record, one that offers less than the value of its studio counterpart and far less than the full concert video offers. Even superfans will rarely find themselves favoring the live versions of certain tracks over studio versions, and they will likely push this record aside after only a couple of listens — although they would naturally favor the DVD. Still, for the curious fan it’s a compelling listen, and for those who happened to make it out to the North Borders Tour, it’s sure to be a pleasant memento. As a live album, however, it fails to distance itself from pristine studio-quality versions of the Bonobo catalog, and it sounds inferior in comparison.