The music of Bibio is a lesson in dichotomies, it is the musical response to the idea that opposites do in fact attract and that together they can become more amazing than their individualities allow. While it took time for Bibio to grow into this destiny of fusing opposites, one listen to the album Ambivalence Avenue will assure you that it was worth the wait.
Bibio is Stephen Wilkinson, a British music producer who has been recording under the name since 2005. His close study of “sonic arts” during his time at university is evident in the progression of his musical identity from stuttering acoustic guitar melodies and nature sounds to the marriage of genres seen on Ambivalence Avenue. Some label the music as a hybrid of electronica and dance music fused with more traditional folk, but there are also elements of hip-hop, psychedelic funk and R&B within the mixture.
Influenced by artists such as Boards of Canada, J Dilla and Madlib, his sound evolved from the antique and natural feel of previous albums to a preciseness that can be heard in the arrangement of drippy chimes with deep bass and choppy electronic sounds combined with a hip-hop groove. Somewhere in these strange concoctions of sound there is still room for muted yet sunny sounding ballads and reflective folk strums of the guitar. There is an abundance of texture and variety throughout this album resulting in the all but lost idea that an album can be placed on track one and not touched until the last ambient wave of sound has run its course.
If you like: Boards of Canada, Four Tet, Memory Tapes, The xx, Here We Go Magic
Check out: Bibio (start with Ambivalence Avenue, continue with The Apple and the Tooth, graduate to Vignetting the Compost and other albums)
Feeling brave: Dirty Projectors, Flying Lotus, J Dilla, Madlib, Atlas SoundAI level: Advanced