Amon Tobin

So you take a dark junglist vibe, a heap of cool jazz, a pinch of throbbing techno, a bucket of sleaze, a smidgen of Latino sass and samples of just about everything that moves, and what do you have?

(I was going to go for jazzmunching cocktickler but that's hard to form a mental picture of that wouldn't actually be quite scary. Gimpsexy soundspinner also came to mind.)

In the good old days, writing a song was simple. You sat down with guitar or piano and found a chord progression or riff that sounded nice, either to fit words you already had, or just something that you jammed and went "yeah". Even electronic music would largely work the same way.

Then they invented samplers.

I suppose samplemeisters like Amon Tobin could make records in a similar way, working through samples until they find something that works, then finding something else that works with it. Music's music, mostly, after all. But I like to think that he works from the concept backwards, because his music sounds so fully realised, so beautifully constructed, particularly when compared with others in the same genre, who are rather less seamless (Mr Scruff), less inventive (DJ Shadow) or plain not as good (Kid Koala; genius turntablist yes, good songwriter, no).

Earlier Tobin is heavy on the jazz. The template, if you like, is a shuffling uptempo dnb drum line, overlaid with cool jazz and vibes, with the occasional spoken sample. The wow factor is supplied by Tobin's excellent compositional sense. The songs just work so well. As his career progresses, you'll hear more techno in the mix, particularly on Out from out where and the Chaos theory game music, with Supermodified something of a changeover album -- still swingy and bouncey but shifting more to techno, with straighter beats and an almost Chemical Brothers feel on tracks like Four ton mantis. Tobin is a lot darker and harder edged than you'd generally find in jazzy breakbeat stuff, and although his working methods place him squarely in the Ninja Tunes camp, he's closer to Mu-Ziq or Wagon Christ in feel.

What makes Tobin difficult to describe or analyse is his uniqueness. He really doesn't sound like anyone else. You'd instantly recognise him once familiar with his work. His songs can be heavily layered, with sounds that have been electronically tortured into precise shapes fitting together in ways that build complex, cinematic soundscapes but retain a funkiness that made Tobin probably more hipshakeable than most IDMbots, although less so as he's progressed, with the revisionist jazziness giving way to futurism. The foley room, his most recent album, is less jazzy postjungle and more dark electronica. I think that that reflects how music has moved in the years he's been active, and it's symptomatic of how Tobin has stayed connected to what's going on in dance music, in a way that other IDM innovators, such as Aphex or Luke Vibert, haven't. Not that he isn't a one-off. Even when -- take Proper hoodidge for an example -- Tobin writes straight-up big beat, it's not your Fatboy Slim or even Wagon Christ, but a collision of huge beats, sounds and snatches of melody that make a deeply satisfying edifice of menace.

posted by Dr Zen @ 11:24 am