The Fuck Adult Swim Award for Turning Potentially Universal Art into Background Music for Bong Rips

Bonobo
Black Sands
(Ninja Tune; 2010)

I don’t have a problem with weed and video games in the same sense I don’t have a problem with religion—I’m willing to partake in all three, but their addictive traits make me wary of getting in too deep. I like social drugs, constructive free time, and sleeping in on Sundays. Adult Swim, for all of its great shows (Tim & Eric: respect) and smuggling of transgressive art onto basic cable, also manages to drive down the rent on every band it rents a room from thanks to people like me recoiling at the parent’s-basement connotations. DOOM made it out unscathed because we already knew him, because his M.O. is already pretty cartoon-y. But then there’s Bonobo’s latest album, Black Sands, which hasn’t even got mentioned by a number of major outlets. I’ll admit it’s perfect for playing Call of Duty to while getting ripped on dank, but it’s also a sprawlingly symphonic electronic album with enough beats and lulls for a weekend’s worth of parties and hangovers, too. It’s much easier for bands to work into gaming playlists from the outside than vice versa, so why don’t you let the rest of the world get in on it first?