The 6th studio album from Simon Green, aka Bonobo, is without any doubt his best effort yet. The Ninja Tune release, out this Friday, is meant to be heard from front to back – and many times over — to discover all the musical motifs he’s threaded throughout the songs.

“Migration” was crafted “in transit” as he moved from New York to his new home in Los Angeles and as he toured behind his last release “North Borders”.

He’s lived here two years now and, like a true Angeleno, arrived at the studio in the nick of time due to traffic (and revealed he’s a daily MBE listener!)

He shared his new track “No Reason” featuring Nick Murphy (aka Chet Faker) as well as a KCRW exclusive — a deeper album track, called “Grains”.

Off air, we talked about how there are “Easter eggs” throughout the album that reveal themselves on repeat listens. He said, like a movie score, there are musical motifs that reappear like “branches” throughout the album.

(Hint: the two songs he’s released so far — “Kerala” and “Break Apart [ft. Rhye]” – are linked musically, but are far apart on the album tracklisting.)

He also worked with North African musicians on “Bambro Koyo Ganda”, which features traditional Moroccan ceremonial music and he described as “one for the dancefloor.”

Even with all the special guests, he says 99% of the album was crafted by him working alone “in a room in the dead of night with some headphones.”

MBE Host Jason Bentley mentioned the lingering strings at the very end of the album and Simon says it was meant to “fade into the mist” for the last three minutes of the record.

Despite being made in fragments across the world, the collage of sounds on “Migration” has an incredible flow and intimacy. It’s perfect for these rain days we’ve been having in LA.

Check out the tracklist below.

Migration Tracklist:

1. Migration

2. Break Apart (feat. Rhye)

3. Outlier

4. Grains

5. Second Sun

6. Surface (feat. Nicole Miglis)

7. Bambro Koyo Ganda (feat. Innov Gnawa)

8. Kerala

9. Ontario

10. No Reason (feat. Nick Murphy)

11. 7th Sevens

12. Figures

**Bonobo photos by Larry Hirshowitz