Amon Tobin: ISAM

AMON TOBIN: ISAM (2011)

1) Journeyman; 2) Piece Of Paper; 3) Goto 10; 4) Surge; 5) Lost & Found; 6) Wooden Toy; 7) Mass & Spring; 8) Calculate; 9) Kitty Cat; 10) Bedtime Stories; 11) Night Swim; 12) Dropped From The Sky.

«Off the deep end» is, of course, a very relative notion — many people will find even the most «accessible» albums in Tobin's backpack to be bizarre and frightening mind-bending concoctions — but, on the artist's own scale, I would say that ISAM is clearly the breaking point, at which even some of the man's staunchest fans will be presented with a take-it-or-leave-it dilemma.

Even Foley Room was, with certain reservations, a musically-oriented record. Its followup, al­though it formally continues to build upon that foundation, makes a firm transition into the sonically-oriented field. Most of the tracks still have some sort of rhythmic basis, but essentially they are collages, stuck together from a variety of field recordings, tiny musical beats, and elec­tronic treatments. Cujo himself called this a «sound sculpture» — who are we to contradict him?

Unfortunately, the sculpture is mostly undescribable. A detailed listing of all the sounds that con­stitute a track like 'Journeyman', accompanied by an evaluation of all the transition effects, would take hours, if not days, to put together — and the payoff? my guess it would simply look dumb. All that remains in the reviewer's power is simply to state that yes, it is an electronically based rhythmic sound collage, and, once you have taken the time to listen to it, you may or may not ag­ree with the reviewer's position: it is curious, but emotionally vague, like so many other experi­mental sound collages going all the way back to the days of 'Revolution #9'.

On the positive side, there are some interesting links between «song» titles and the «music», particularly on the second half of the album. 'Bedtime Stories', for instance, starts out with kiddie chimes that usually prepare the listener for some soothing Christmas experience, but then turns into a heavy bass / deep fuzz / treated vocal extravaganza — the sort of «bedtime story» that will, perhaps, be narrated by Mother Robot to her kids once humanity is finally wiped out by artifical intelligence. 'Night Swim', dominated by slightly dissonant harp strumming and Milky-Way-ish synthesizer swirls, likewise, creates an atmosphere that is associable with the title.

There are a few vocal tracks here, too, on which it seems that Tobin may be taking some cues from the Animal Collective (only, as befits the gentleman, his songs are always darker): 'Kitty Cat', for instance, which, at a certain point, threatens to go upbeat Brit-pop on us, with a bouncy music-hall rhythm, while still retaining its kaleidoscopic electronic skin and warped psychedelic voices; or 'Wooden Toy', which actually sounds like a possible outtake from one of Animal Col­lective's earlier albums. However, these concise, somewhat song-like creations, are more of an exception than the rule here.

As questionable as it may sound, I would still go ahead and say this: the more «experimental» this guy keeps getting, the less «innovative» and «interesting» his art actually becomes. By 2011, the world has already had its multi-ton share of sonic collages of all sorts, shapes, and flavors. So what exactly is it that could make ISAM into a new musical sensation? Just the fact that this is, let's say, «Amon Tobin mixed with Autechre»? The adventurous spirit is admirable, but we are long, long past the time when it was simply sufficient for the spirit to be adventurous in order to gain critical respect and a cult following. As far as my ears and brain neurons are concerned, ISAM has neither meaning nor direct emotional impact. On the other hand, it still has a certain aura of «coolness», and it was a sort of abstract «fun» to listen to it for the first time. But I still hope, very much so, that one of these days Mr. Cujo will decide to go back to «simplistic» music-making. Otherwise, he will simply drown in the same old sea corner whose «deep end» has alrea­dy attracted so many other talented people.

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Amon Tobin: Foley Room

AMON TOBIN: FOLEY ROOM (2007)

1) Bloodstone; 2) Esther's; 3) Keep Your Distance; 4) The Killer's Vanilla; 5) Kitchen Sink; 6) Horsefish; 7) Foley Room; 8) Big Furry Head; 9) Ever Falling; 10) Always; 11) Straight Psyche; 12) At The End Of The Day.

And now for something not completely, but significantly different. Dispensing with the practice of sampling old vinyl (and not a moment too soon), Tobin shifts his attention to «field recor­dings». While Foley Room is by no means revolutionary in that regard — electronic artists had been venturing into the streets to capture live sounds of lively life for quite a long time — it may be the first, or among the first, albums to make a religion out of the principle. Just about every track includes «real-life» sound samples, used either for the rhythmic basis itself or as special ef­fects-«flourishes» (sometimes as both).

Includes, yes, but is not confined to them. I have seen some complaints as to how, with Foley Room, Tobin crossed over into the world of the avantagarde and all but betrayed his original pur­pose of existence. This is not really just. Even at this stage of his career, Tobin is not strictly an «avantgarde» music maker, because Foley Room does not exactly rebel against the commonly observed principles of melody and harmony; at the very least, not against those principles that the guy used to follow on his earlier records.

After all, in a symbolic gesture, the very first track here does not sample motorbikes or kitchen sinks: it samples the Kronos Quartet, whom Tobin actually recorded live in his «foley room». I understand that «commonly observed principles of melody and harmony» are expected to go to hell when we deal with someone as reckless as the Kronos Quartet, but, in actuality, 'Bloodstone' is a fairly normal composition: a little ominous, a little terrifying, with all of its Schnittke influen­ces firmly in place, but completely accessible.

The same goes for most of the other tracks. Naturally, there are no «memorable melodies»: the ef­fect is purely atmospheric. And that effect, more often than not, is rather dry. The patterns that Tobin constructs in between his field recordings and the overlays of percussion and synthesizers have more to do with complex mathematics than intuitive spirit work. But we would be fooling ourselves if we started to argue about how A.T. used to be such an overwhelming spiritual mes­siah of the electronic world in the past, and how he has so unpleasantly shifted to soulless experi­mental textures — like, «jungle-jazz» is so cathartic, and «jungle-kitchen sink» is so technical. It really does not work that way.

Because the overall effect of Foley Room is not that far removed from the effect of Tobin's pre­vious efforts. This is still the same old dark, otherworldly music, coming from some post-apoca­lyptic world in which green grass has been completely replaced by robo-factories and wannabe Darth Va­ders stand in lines for the soup kitchen. This world has its brighter spots (e. g. on 'Horse­fish', constructed along a pretty harp melody played by Sarah Page; 'Always', the «poppiest» track on here, including several disjointed guitar parts drawn from folk-rock, post-punk, and what-not, along with psychedelic female vocals), but, as it always goes, they are in a minority, merely offering brief respite from the harshness of this brand of virtual life.

It is just that this harshness, when all the field recordings are thrown in, becomes overtly «experi­mental». 'Big Furry Head', for instance, sounds very similar to some of his earlier «sickening shuffles», but, instead of going «wow, this is really heavy, makes my stomach churn», the lis­te­ner is supposed to go «wow, he stuck the sounds of a roaring tiger on here, how cool is that?» (and most of the critics did go that way). Not that it really means anything, or that anybody could actually explain what is so particularly exciting about a sampled tiger roar. But it's an experiment. It could work — and then again, it could not work. You are supposed to find that out for yourself.

I respect experiment, especially when the experiment in question involves performing lots of hard work (and on Foley Room, with its miriads of samples interconnected in miriads of ways, Tobin seems to have done more hard work than ever before), and, on a sheerly intellectual level, the al­bum is a mega-achievement, worth all the thumbs up that it can get. Unfortunately, on an emoti­onal level, it, at best, gives that «same old same old» feeling, and, at worst, whispers that the feel­ing used to be stronger and sharper in the past.

Thus, technically, the experiment succeeds; but it looks like we are still a long way from reaching that stage when «sounds of the street» will be­come so naturally integrated in music-making that we'd start thinking of all the earlier music as hopelessly outdated. And I am all for replacing gui­tars, violins, and pianos with kitchen sinks and tiger roars — provided they can assume all of the functions of guitars, violins, and pianos, without losing their own. Until then, albums like Foley Room will always be «interesting», never «cathartic».

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Amon Tobin: Chaos Theory

AMON TOBIN: CHAOS THEORY (2005)

1) The Lighthouse; 2) Ruthless; 3) Theme From Battery; 4) Kokubo Sosho Stealth; 5) El Cargo; 6) Displaced; 7) Ruthless (Reprise); 8) Kokubo Sosho Battle (adapted from Cougar Merkin); 9) Hokkaido; 10) The Clean Up.

Sometimes I wish I could say something good about this record — or, at least, something useful — but then the very next moment I wish I didn't wish that. Basically, this is just a soundtrack to a «stealth» video game (Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory), and, as such, already a rather, er, suspicious entry in the artist's discography. However, lest the review turn into an angry rant about the abysmal effect of the Xbox on our generation, I must honestly state that Chaos Theory does work on its own as a «fully autonomous» electronic album, and that there is no obligatory need to waste hours / days / weeks of your precious life on generic virtual reality in order to fully assess its musical merits.

Which, honestly, do not seem at all comparable to me with the merits of Tobin's classic stuff. This is ten tracks worth of rather routine grooving, weaving the same sci-fi-meets-industrial at­mosphere that Out From Out Where gave us three years before, but with a slight drop down in creativity. On an individual level, each track is crafted with Tobin's trademark professionalism, and almost everything is multi-part, either in «build-up» mode or going through several distinct rhythmic sections. Collectively, though, it's all a big bore.

'Kokubo Sosho Stealth' has some moody bits ranging on true eeriness, and is the only piece on here that could, perhaps, count as «electronic simulation of fusion» (Miles Davis might have ap­preciated the percussion). 'El Cargo', with its astral guitar riff and choral vocals, has an impres­sive beginning, but halfway through is overwhelmed by the obligatory percussion onslaught. And that's about all my brain is capable of coming up with in terms of individual track assessment: pa­thetic, but we could just blame the Xbox on that. Thumbs down, and the moral of this story is — if you are commissioned to write a video game soundtrack, just get the damn money, do not in­sist on having it included in your official discography.

Amon Tobin: Recorded Live

AMON TOBIN: RECORDED LIVE (2004)

1) Intro; 2) Chronic Tronic / Dark Lady (DJ Food); 3) Twister (Tipper); 4) Verbal; 5) Remix By AFX (AFX); 6) Got Numb (Mob Nation); 7) Pressure Cooker (Cherrystones); 8) Soul Soul Soul (As One); 9) Science Fu Part 1 (Danny Breaks); 10) Marine Machines; 11) You's A Jaco Pastorious Looking Motherfucker; 12) Schmalla (Facs & Scythe); 13) Couger Merkin; 14) Higher Rates (Silent Witness & Break); 15) Cuba (Original) (T Power); 16) Moon Palace (Icarus); 17) Reactionary (Controller 7); 18) Nakatali (Topogigio); 19) Yasawas / Night Life / Fear; 20) Es­cape / Deep Impact (Future Prophecies); 21) Spanner In The Worx (Exile); 22) Allergic (Deep Roots); 23) Com­ple­te­ly Real (Suspicious Circumstance); 24) Total Recall (Silent Witness & Break); 25) Sittin Here (Dizzee Rascal); 26) Proper Hoodidge; 27) Four Ton Mantis / Hey Blondie; 28) Venus In Furs (The Velvet Underground).

I will try to be brief on this one. The full name is actually Solid Steel Presents: Amon Tobin Re­­corded Live, and those who are not already «in» with the electronic people will need to know that «Solid Steel» refers to a set of DJ mixes assembled and released by a bunch of guys from the Ninja Tune label (formerly beginning as a radio show, then invading the CD market with a series of albums from around 2001 to around 2007). Since Amon Tobin was signed to Ninja Tune him­self, and since DJ mixing was one of his hobbies, it was only a matter of time before he would get a chance to have an album like that all to himself.

This one was indeed recorded «live», with the aid of a nifty piece of software called Final Scratch that is basically a digital emulator of the vinyl turntable (that is to say, you still play vinyl records on a turntable, but all the encoded and decoded signals are digital), somewhere in Melbourne on Tobin's Australian tour in 2003. The hour-long mix itself consists of just a few Tobin originals (mainly from the last two albums) interspersed with much, much, much stuff from all sorts of big and small names in the world of breakbeats and IDM, most of them from various hip sub-scenes in London and other posh British places.

The record might actually do some good if you want to get a decent, representative sample of who is who in that particular corner of today's market: comparison with the originals shows that Tobin does not tamper too much with the mixes. But if you really need to do that, you are proba­bly like myself — an electronic ignoramus, familiar only with the tip of the iceberg — and then you will probably remain unmoved by most of this rucus. If, on the other side, you are a pro in the business, I really have no idea why you would need to own this in your collection when you would be much happier with the originals.

Essentially, the idea of a «live DJ mix» is stupid. It's one thing to be an actual participant in a club environment, and a whole other thing to want to experience that participation on record. What is it, exactly, that makes this «live» experience in any way different from a regular mix? Muffled crowd cheers in between the brief breaks? Elements of inspired improvisation in the use of the Final Scratch software? Innovative mixing practices that require an actual club environ­ment to reach full effect? Whatever.

For that matter, I wouldn't give a major damn even about studio-recorded DJ mixes, unless they really are highly creative re-mixes (as in Aphex Twin's 26 Mixes For Cash, sort of a true classic of the art). Most of these particular tracks are fairly generic and boring, with all of the «covers» feeling pale and wimpy in the presence of such mighty high originals as 'Four Ton Mantis' and 'Marine Machines'. But there is no need to enjoy the originals anywhere other than the respective original LPs. 'Nuff said.

The album's only joke-type surprise comes at the tail end, with a heavily industrialized reworking of the Velvet Underground's 'Venus In Furs'. Unfortunately, the surprise is unimpressive and un­funny. As is this entire album, completely incompatible with whatever values this particular re­viewer thinks of as valuable — thumbs down.

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Amon Tobin: Out From Out Where

AMON TOBIN: OUT FROM OUT WHERE (2002)

1) Back From Space; 2) Verbal; 3) Chronic Tronic; 4) Searchers; 5) Hey Blondie; 6) Rosies; 7) Cosmo Retro Intro Outro; 8) Triple Science; 9) El Wraith; 10) Proper Hoodidge; 11) Mighty Micro People.

For his next release, Tobin rather drastically cut down on all the «retro» influences. You still get them, but you have to look for them, and if you didn't know about this guy as the jazz-jungle mix whiz of his generation, you probably wouldn't even know where to begin looking. This must be the reason why some people claim that Out From Out Where works better as a tightly focused, single-purpose, ultra-coherent record. Maybe it does, but to me, that's hardly good news.

The energy and occasional ferocity of Supermodified is still here: the programmed beats conti­nue to impress as a musical equivalent of 32 kinds of Chinese torture involving bamboo sticks, iron bars, and a vast array of other long hard objects. (Check out the innocently titled 'Rosies' for an «Anti-Utopian Industrial Factory, Advanced Level 3» kind of feeling). But the diversity is all but gone. The few «live» samples that are still distinguishable are straightforwardly treated as no­thing but samples, subjugated to the jungle rhythms and additional electronic loops; and the whole record is his most mechanized, industrialized bunch of compositions so far.

«Notable» points would include the «novelty» number 'Verbal (Featuring MC Decimal R.)', an odd (possibly ironic) take on hip-hop, in which a chipmunkified «electronic DJ» raps incom­pre­hen­­sibly over acoustic guitar, industrial beats, and stoned pseudo-Eastern backing vocals; 'Triple Science', an attempt to beat Aphex Twin at Star Force by shooting fifty instead of five enemies per second (warning: never play this loud in headphones unless you're the «you haven't lived un­til you have tried out everything» type); and the grand epic number 'Searchers', which, at times, sounds like The Moody Blues gone completely electronic — intergalactic star travel with string-imitating synth tones that sometimes swoop up into the sky like they used to do it way back when, with the aid of a Mellotron.

Out of the «non-notable» points, 'Hey Blondie' is sort of OK, an electronic equivalent of a gloo­my blues dirge, sometimes breaking out in minor key piano sonata convulsions; 'Proper Hoodi­dge' is the younger, slightly more inane brother of 'Marine Machines', whose main hook is a repe­titive whale-style moan; and 'Mighty Micro People' closes off the entire experience with a whiny guitar sample, to emphasize the hopelessness of it all. In fact, a thorough lack of optimism and complete cheerlessness are the record's major characteristics. Not that Tobin was ever known for making happy music, but on here he may be crossing the line from «creepy» to «depressing», and not just because the compositions are getting worse.

It isn't a «thumbs» down as such, but I would say it's definitely a «step» down. Hardcore fans will not notice it, though, because whoever has been granted the ability to happily lose oneself in the generic world of repetitive samples and trickily programmed percussion, will find plenty of stuff to enjoy. Me, I can only really appreciate this stuff when I smell special, and it grieves me to have found such a strong decline of «special» on Out From Out Where from Supermodified.

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