Indie Event Details
Bonobo
- Show time
- Saturday, November 14, 2026 at 8:00 PM PST
- Doors
- Saturday, November 14, 2026 at 7:00 PM PST
- Address
- 1807 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland, CA 94612
- Listed price
- Not provided by the source.
- Admission age
- All Ages
- Listing checked
- Oct 12, 2026
Distance in Static Live North American Tour Sofia Kourtesis Distance in Static Live North American Tour Bonobo Sofia Kourtesis Saturday, November 14, 2026 Doors: 7:00 pm | Show: 8:00 pm Buy Tickets This event is all ages. For an additional fee, you can opt in to upgrade your experience to include access to the exclusive Telegraph Room before, during and after the show! Please note all Telegraph Room upgrades are subject to availability. Join us at The Den one hour before doors for food & drinks! All doors & show times subject to change. Add this event to your calendar: Bonobo “Oh yeah, I guess I did do some of that stuff,” says Simon Green, as he reflects on his 25-year-plus career as the man behind the music of Bonobo. It’s a typically self-effacing response from an artist who has spent that time forging a path as one of the defining voices in electronic music. A path that along the way has seen him release two Top-10 Albums (2017’s ‘Migration’ and 2022’s ‘Fragments, which both landed at #5 on the UK chart), plus numerous Gold and Silver certified singles, sell over 900,000 records, rack up billions of streams, collaborate with the likes of Erykah Badu and Damon Albarn, and be both BRIT and GRAMMY-nominated – the latter seven times, with five in the dance/electronic categories, a record number of nominations shared with The Chemical Brothers, Skrillex and Madonna. His renowned live show – built around a full live-band, guest vocalists and immersive visuals – has also set the blueprint for how and where an electronic musician can translate their records into the live arena. He has performed to millions of people across the globe, with sold-out shows at prestigious venues like the Sydney Opera House, Alexandra Palace and Red Rocks Amphitheatre – in many cases as one of the first electronic artists to do so – and the world’s biggest festival stages including Glastonbury, Coachella, Sonar and Fuji Rock. His last tour also included both a co-headline of London’s Field Day (alongside Aphex Twin), and a historic sold-out 5-night residency at the Royal Albert Hall, which was the longest consecutive run there by a solo artist, and the longest ever by an electronic musician. Alongside this, Green’s OUTLIER events and DJ sets have continued to place him at the centre of contemporary dance music culture, connecting with generations of club-going audiences in warehouses, festivals and underground venues alike. He has curated lineups in recent years that featured the likes of Barry Can’t Swim, Sofia Kourtesis, salute, Kelly Lee Owens, Mall Grab, DJ Tennis, SG Lewis, Carlita, Elkka, HAAi, John Talabot, Paula Tape and many more, with his 15,000-capacity OUTLIER showcase at Drumsheds in London becoming the fastest-selling event of the season, and a sold-out “homecoming” OUTLIER show at the 10,000 capacity On The Beach (Brighton). “I want to reinforce this idea that you can be more than one thing,” Green explains. It’s that duality – of live artist and DJ, introspective composer and club-focussed selector – that sits at the heart of latest album ‘Distance in Static’, a record that is full of depth, detail and emotion; both beautiful and banging; quintessentially Bonobo, yet pushing beyond the contours of what a Bonobo album has traditionally been. Across the record he collaborates with a typically striking cast of artists including Arooj Aftab, Joy Crookes, Nilüfer Yanya, Ichiko Aoba, Nicole Miglis and Aanya Martin. Lyrics appear in English, Urdu and Japanese, while historic Iranian samples and guzheng recordings sit alongside Green’s own meticulously processed instrumentation, woven together across recording sessions spanning LA, Tokyo, London and beyond. A large portion of the record was created at Neil Young’s legendary Broken Arrow Ranch studio in Woodside, California – an environment Green describes as deeply immersive and creatively transformative. “It’s quite a mental place,” he recalls. “There’s this picture of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young all jamming there with their shirts off in their 20s, and it’s like you see the picture and then you look over and there’s the place and there’s the studio and there’s the tape machine. There’s something quite magical about it creatively.” Hidden among woods and rivers, the sessions became almost monastic in nature: “I didn’t leave that place for two weeks straight. I didn’t go into town. I didn’t shave. It was just very, very focussed. I was just making soup and coffee and working. Building a little fire in the cabin. Hiking around in the woods in the morning. Hanging out by the river. It was social isolation as well, not really speaking to anyone. It was very meditative.” A pivotal track to emerge from these Ranch sessions was the enchanting “Fire on the Water”, featuring Arooj Aftab, who travelled down from her NYC base to record what became a breakthrough moment during the album’s creation. Evolving, almost accidentally, from a rough acoustic guitar loop recorded while Green was testing studio inputs one morning. On hearing it, Aftab responded immediately, layering vocals in Urdu – the lyrics inspired by poetry from a close friend – to produce one of the record’s standout moments. “When that song happened, that’s when I could first see an album coming into shape,” says Green. “We were both like, ‘Oh, this is really special’.” Elsewhere, tracks like “Drift” and “Me and You” perfectly encapsulate the album’s club-focussed leanings, with both quickly emerging as firm fan favorites in Green’s recent DJ sets. The latter, a “kitchen table banger” built originally on his laptop shortly after returning home from touring, was borne from a desire to create something driven almost entirely by rhythm, inspired by the kind of percussive sounds he’d been hearing in the club. “It was very joyful and it sort of popped out quite quickly in a couple of days,” he explains. “I’ve been playing it out ever since.” Other standout collaborations on the record include the soulful intimacy of “Always on Your Side” with Joy Crookes; the lo-fi instrumentation of “Youths Fountain” featuring Nilüfer Yanya – notable as a track that also features every musician involved in the forthcoming live show; and “Talk to Me” featuring Nicole Miglis (Hundred Waters), marking the first time Green has collaborated with a vocalist twice on his records, and featuring a backstage recording of the pair harmonising during vocal warmups on the ‘Fragments’ tour. Elsewhere the album takes in delicate ballad “Equinoctial”, featuring renowned Japanese artist Ichiko Aoba, and “Can’t You See” featuring London-based vocalist Aanya Martin. There are moments of emotional weight amongst the album’s most club-driven tracks, too, with “Uncasually” named after the online handle of a close friend of Green who passed away last year, honouring her through the kind of ecstatic dancefloor release she would have loved most. The title of the record – ‘Distance in Static’ – is perhaps also an appropriate indicator for where Green finds himself now, evoking images of fuzzy transmissions and transient frequencies; fragments of memory and meaning echoing back through more than two decades at the forefront of electronic music. He sees the traces of his own work reflected in a younger generation rediscovering 90s trip-hop, downtempo and leftfield electronic music through a contemporary lens. “I think the front end of what I’ve done has now become something that’s referential to younger people,” he says. “I liked the idea of listening for a distant signal — trying to find something in the noise,” he continues, and there’s a sense throughout the record of searching for transcendence: music suspended somewhere between intimacy and scale, the familiar and the unknown. The album’s visual world, created alongside celebrated designer Trevor Jackson, reflects this shift too. Moving away from the landscape-inspired aesthetics of earlier Bonobo records, ‘Distance in Static’ instead draws on microscopic photography by renowned photomicrographer John I. Koivula, creating crystalline alien worlds that feel simultaneously natural and otherworldly. Those themes will also run through the brand new live show, designed in collaboration with Pierre Claue – renowned for his work with Air, Gesaffelstein, Phoenix, and Caroline Polachek – to deliver another evolution in the Bonobo live experience. Buried within the ‘Distance in Static’ universe, there is also a sense that this record – and particularly the accompanying live tour – marks something quite monumental, too. It’s a moment of transition, a celebration of Bonobo’s 25 years, but also, perhaps his last record in the traditional sense: complete with expansive guest features and a multi-year full live-band world tour. “It’s probably the last go-around the track in this format,” he admits. And on the future? “I don’t know what that will look like just yet, but It’s really about me redefining how to be a musician from here.” Whatever comes next, one thing is for sure: ‘Distance in Static’ is arguably Green’s finest record to date; as ambitious and forward thinking as ever, and a reminder, if ever one was needed, of why Bonobo has remained such an influence on so many, for so long. Sofia Kourtesis There’s a surprising relationship at the centre of Sofia Kourtesis’ debut album Madres . An album in large part dedicated to her mother, there’s also another person, one without whom this album would never have been made. Peter Vajkoczy. Vajkoczy is a neurosurgeon, one of the very best neurosurgeons in the world in fact, and Madres is dedicated to him. The story of how a world-renowned neurosurgeon came to appear in the liner notes of this record is one of tenacity, miracles, all-consuming love and ultimately, of hope. When she began work on her debut, Kourtesis was seemingly unstoppable. A string of rapturously received EPs and singles made her one of the fastest rising stars in the electronic world and beyond. She has already graced the cover of Mixmag , released a brilliantly energetic and moving Resident Advisor ‘RA Session’, appeared on ‘ End of Year ’ lists from the likes of The New York Times , Pitchfork , DJ Mag and Spotify (#6 Best Electronic Song ) and played instant sell-out early shows at L ondon ’s Lafayette and Manchester ’s YES as well as standout performances at Glastonbury , Green Man , Wide Awake and Primavera and tours supporting Caribou and Bicep . In amongst touring and working though Sofia was rushing home to Peru at any opportunity to be with her mother, who some months after the passing of her father – the subject of Kourtesis’ breakout single ‘La Perla’ – had been diagnosed with cancer and was deterioratingly rapidly. “Doctors were all the time calling me to say goodbye to her, for months” she recalls. Refusing to lose hope, Sofia had spoken to every doctor she could get hold of and all of them told her chances were low, operation was too risky. Having read about Vajkoczy but knowing he was in incredibly high demand; in desperation she posted a music snippet (that would go on to be title-track and previous single ‘Madres’) on social media. “If anyone can put me in touch with Peter Vajkoczy, I’ll dedicate this song to him. I just need two minutes to talk to him”, she wrote. Vajkoczy heard it and, remarkably, reached out, “can you be here tomorrow?”, he replied. He agreed to operate, it would take hours and was incredibly risky, but he would try. The operation was a success and Sofia’s mother’s life is extended further than anyone could have possibly hoped. With her mother now well and living nearby in Berlin, Kourtesis had her life back. Madres is the product of that life. It contains shades of the struggle of those years and her own mental health journey, as well as shuddering to a to a halt midway through for ‘Moving House’, a rumination on a breakup. Overall though, Madres is joyful, awash with warm light and brimming with “hope and the value that big love can create miracles”. It’s also filled with the minutiae of life that Kourtesis didn’t have time or energy for; going out with friends, dating, dancing, eating, living. The playful, summer-evening warmth of ‘Si Te Portas Bonito’ for example is a track about, “the mood of going out, being flirty and meeting a girl that I like, or a boy that I like, experimenting with my queerness”, while ‘Habla Con Ella’’s twinkling shuffle grasps the feeling of those conversations you have while out with friends, “talks that you need, just talking to feel better, you know?”. Madres wasn’t recorded in any one place. Part of what has always made Kourtesis’ music unique is the melding of her Berlin home and her South American upbringing, two cultures that really couldn’t be further apart. Ideas are often had on the fly while traveling around or between her dual homes. The bright, breezy technicolour of Peru combines with the clubbier, more driven elements of her life in Berlin. As she puts it, “my heart is very Latin American, but my motor is German”. The embracing of those two worlds hasn’t always been easy though. Sofia moved to Berlin as a teenager to escape. “I had to leave Peru because I was feeling very bullied because of my queerness”, she says. Having been kicked out of school for kissing a girl, she was sent to the priest and finally to conversion therapy. Despite support from her family, she faced rejection in her community and fled to Germany, “to feel more liberated and more free, able to be more creative. Because when you are very mentally fragile, you’re not able to create”. Once in Berlin she was free to do just that. Newfound freedom of expression came out through music but also allowed her to embrace her role as an activist both in Germany and when back home in Peru. Taking inspiration from the activism of both her parents (her father was a pro-bono lawyer during the Fujimori presidency period in Peru, and ‘Cecilia’ is based around her mother’s lifelong work protecting South America’s indigenous tribes), Sofia is a staunch protester and campaigner for gender equality, protection of queer people and access to safe abortions in Peru. Her music career taking off is therefore tinged with guilt, as touring means less time for this kind of work, “I feel that I am not doing enough”, she says. Her solution is to incorporate her politics into her music career as much as she can. She hadn’t spoken about the real reason she left Peru before but now she now hopes her music and words – she is instantly inspiring in conversation – will resonate with others, her experience sadly, infuriatingly, still commonplace. ‘Estación Esperanza’ for example opens with recordings of a Peruvian protest against homophobia. It also features a rare guest spot from Manu Chao, someone who Kourtesis immensely respects for the way he weaves politics into everything he does. As someone who rarely collaborates Chao was moved by a (long) letter Kourtesis wrote him about her family, her politics, her worldview, and what she wanted to achieve. A decidedly stronger, more determined person than when she left, Kourtesis now has a great relationship with her home-country. Peruvian culture is present in every inch of her music, her artwork, and her image. For ‘El Carmen’, she travelled to meet the Ballumbrosio family who helped to pioneer Afro-Peruvian percussion through instruments like the cajón. “This song is about our Afro-Peruvian community and how beautiful it is”, Kourtesis says, “how rich elements of music, of food, of culture, of happiness and smiling is in the community of El Carmen. The dancing of El Carmen, the sound, the smell, the colours, the happy people, it is about loving.” Back in Germany, another important space with a dedicated track is Berlin’s Funkhaus. Working and performing there for years, in those shaky early days arriving in Germany from Peru, Kourtesis found a community. “It’s a space I really needed, and I wanted to include that”, she says of the track ‘Funkhaus’, “I love to play very fast and hard when I’m there.” That community appears throughout the record. Kourtesis decided to rely less on the sample heavy approach of her early work and instead recreate the samples on early draMs of the album into organic sounds and field recordings. Apart from the sounds she had recorded herself in Peru, she draMed in her Funkhaus companions alongside co-producer David Krasemann to recreate the rest. This relinquishing of a little control for the first time breathed energy and personal relationships into every aspect of the record. Vajkoczy was remarkably present through all of this. An avid music fan himself, once the surgery was complete, he and Kourtesis remained in touch. Vajkoczy became something of a sounding board for the album as Sofia sent him tracks throughout the process. The whirling, ecstatic ‘How Music Makes You Feel Better’ was made quickly following a revelation Kourtesis shared with Vajkoczy about the healing power of music after the surgery. “I was in the airport and I said to Vajkoczy, look! Look how music makes you feel better. I was singing him the song on WhatsApp, and my singing was very bad. So I asked one of my Funkhaus colleagues Chantal Saroldi if she could sing because I couldn’t hit the sound”. Vajkoczy had no notes. Ultimately Vajkoczy was pulled into Kourtesis’ world, it’s something that often happens with her, so infectious is her energy. “Three months after the surgery, we went to Berghain together, I took him for his first time”, Kourtesis says, “He loved it. I was like, you showed me your life, I’ll show you my life now. The way he moved and danced; it was like a dream. And then I said, now I can make the album because music, it’s making me feel better again.” Upcoming Events Audrey Hobert Tue Oct 13 Brit Floyd Wed Oct 14 Boy Harsher Thu Oct 15