Percussionist, vibraphonist and musical mad scientist Mike Dillon has enjoyed blurring genre boundaries for the better part of two decades now—smashing together punk attitude and chaos with jazz instrumentation alongside Garage A Tois, Les Claypool, Ani DiFranco and so many more. His latest album, Bonobo Bonobo , dropped by surprise in late 2018, and succeeds in further expanding the limits of Dillon’s absurdist songwriting and what it means to be a band. It was recorded with a wide collective of New Orleans musicians, including members of Galactic, Givers and O.A.R. All that said, Bonobo Bonobo will likely prove to be Dillon’s most divisive album yet. This is anything but background music—the album’s 13 tracks find Dillon speeding through churning, funk-punk in “Big Ass Fish” (in which Dillon shouts, winking, “Everyone wants to be as big as a fish, I want to be as big as Primus!”), somber instrumental covers (for those of you who always dreamed of hearing Elliot Smith’s “Strung Out Again” on vibraphone) and abrasive, thrashy tantrums (the head-bobbing “Shit Talker”). Dillon isn’t afraid of taking risks—and that’s certainly to be admired—but that means that Bonobo Bonobo will only match a listener’s very specific, manic mood. Live, it’s easy to imagine these songs translating to a truly wild performance. As a record, it’s a frantic, frenetic and often exhausting listen.