AMON TOBIN Announces New LP & Record Label With “On A Hilltop Sat The Moon”

As one of the few select artists who first convinced me to give a shit about electronic music and recognize it’s capabilities, Amon Tobin is a personal favorite of mine that is deeply connected to helping break down once held preconceptions for me, and laying a foundation for so much music that I continue to embrace to this day.  Prior to discovering artists like him and Squarepusher, the majority of electronic music that I had been exposed to came from candy ravers blasting sugary dance music at me and constantly trying to drag me into the rave scene of the 90s.  Tobin demonstrated that there was depth to explore through that medium, that sonic landscapes could be constructed that explored doomy and jazzier textures than I was finding elsewhere.  Beyond that, he was, pretty much, the first artist that I discovered that I had in common with the woman that I’ve been with for the last 13 years and, now, have a child with.  My son is now 7 years old and Tobin hasn’t released a new full-length during his lifetime.  I’m not sure how many people are still checking for him at this point in his career, and over such a lapse in time, but I definitely have been, so the fact that he not only has a new effort on the horizon, but that it will be coming out on his very own label, is something that I’m pretty excited about.

The Brazilian-born producer, initially released trip-hop-influenced material under the pseudonym of CUJO, while living in Brighton, UK in the mid-90s.  His first LP under his own name arrived in 1997, after signing to Ninja Tune.  Since then, he has consistently pushed his sound forward, experimenting with his approach, technique, and palette in ways that have likely lost particular fans along the way.  When his last album, ISAM, dropped 8 years ago, I’m sure that plenty of folks — both fans and critics alike — viewed it as a lower point in his catalog.  I, on the other hand, viewed it much differently.  It’s easy to pull an isolated moment, era, or release from someone’s career, only to hold that up against another and explain which you personally believe is “better.”  That being said, one could argue that’s because the majority of artists simply have moments and little more — they release little packages from time to time and build around them.  Amon Tobin is more of a visionary, with each new project arriving like the latest expansion in what is the ever changing project of a singular career.  It’s true that he always seeks to offer something new and different, but it’s always from a place of exploration, growth, and understanding of what, not only he can achieve, but what is possible in general.

In trying to figure out a sufficient way to explain the evolution of his career, I realized that I already covered it, to an extent, in a previous post surrounding the release of ISAM.

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In the early days, Amon constructed groundbreaking works like Bricolage (1997) and Permutations(1998), which were jazzy, downtempo, drum n bass-heavy releases with vinyl samples full of shambolic jazz kits and breakbeats.  Tobin‘s choice of titles are always telling and, by the time that albums like Supermodified (2000) and Out From Outwhere (2002) were released, the samples were becoming so altered  (“modified”) and were becoming so unrecognizable that it was sounding a lot more like the artist was siphoning his material directly from the outer limits of the cosmos, rather than mining it from anything terrestrial; let alone, dusty old jazz records.  From there came remixes, compilations, a “soundtrack” to the highly successful Tom Clancy video game, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (marking a shift into the use of self-created samples), and another soundtrack for a Hungarian film about competitive “speed eating” and taxidermy (the album cover art is of a shack-dwelling man shooting flames from his dick).  The next proper follow up for the Ninja Tune golden boy, however, wouldn’t arrive until 2007‘s FOLEY ROOM.  Being a full 5 years since his last “real” studio album, I wasn’t even aware that it was on it’s way until I accidentally stumbled across it.  It was immediately engaging and I listened to it at least a half dozen times before learning that Tobin had approached the project with the intention of utilizing nothing but field recordings, in the tradition of the foley artists that create sound effects for film.  The CD came with a bonus DVD documenting Amon as he collected the samples from sources like roaring caged lions, electric toothbrushes on banjos, and buzzing swarms of hornets in a balloon made of foil.  These effects were masterfully stacked, mixed, and blended, achieving much more than mere novelty, but actually exposing the musical potential for such things as motorcycle engines and splashing water.  Realizing that there was a missing element, Tobin eventually recruited the talents of the legendary Kronos Quartet to fill out the sound by supplying the eerily haunted string arrangements, breathing into the songs with a wispy undertone of beautifully hypnotic doom.  Now, with his obsession to constantly move forward and continue to explore new avenues in sound, the electronic innovator has continued to alter his creation process and push his sampling/production methods even further with the release of the multi-media ISAM project earlier this year.

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From what I witnessed, ISAM felt like a largely overlooked release, but, if anything, that might have come from how forward thinking and ambitious the project was, rather than because it was lackluster or fell short on any particular mark.  Sonically, it was different from previous efforts — it took the dark atmospheric qualities of even Foley Room, to a new level, and abandoned typically song structure more than ever — but it was the approach to the whole project, overall, that was particularly fascinating.  Utilizing a hi-tech fingerboard/midi-controller known as a “Haken Continuum,” Tobin constructed the entire album from self-created samples, which he then mutated through the device.  Rather than seeking out obscure source material, and/or field recordings, the producer often worked from such common everyday noises as a creaking chair, the ding from a light bulb, or anything else that was within his reach.  These sounds were then heavily processed through filters and layers to craft incredibly unique samples, making them into something extraordinary, warped and pitch-shifted as they were played/manipulated through the fingerboard.  Everything was constructed from the ground up to create the tracks.  He planted the seeds, harvested the sounds, and cooked up a high caliber multi-course banquet from his yields.

But, if that wasn’t enough, Amon worked to construct a live show that was as surreal and enveloping as the soundscapes that it was intended to support.  A standard DJ setup wasn’t going to be enough this time, so he reached out to some bigshots in the the field of groundbreaking mind-altering live performance technology and put together a setup that involved a massive cubic structure that included a little cockpit within it for him to perform from.  The structure was completely white, operating like a blank canvas for 3-dimensional projection mapping that would allow it to seem as if the entire thin was doing everything from moving, twisting, and crumbling apart, to simply appearing as if it were a spaceship hurtling through the cosmos with the producer at the helm.  Interacting in real time, the visuals were triggered live, which allowed ISAM LIVE to truly earn its name, since Tobin was able to work on the fly and adjust as needed, rather than being 100 percent locked into anything beforehand.  Here’s a bit more of a breakdown on ISAM LIVE via the press release.

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A truly visual onslaught – abstract narrative, subtle and bombastic – using projection mapping, generative/audio reactive real time and pre-rendered elements combined with custom software to control the show. The visual elements have been synched to ISAM to make a large scale next level HD experience. The show features a stunning 25′ x 14′ x 8′ multi-dimensional/ shape shifting 3-D art installation surrounding Tobin and enveloping him and the audience in a beyond 3-D experience.   Amon conceptualized the show as a projection mapped “visual score” to the music from ISAM. He performs the music as a navigator of a large craft through a surreal visual narrative. The spectacular mapped content follows the framework of the narrative carefully storyboarded between Amon and Vello Virkhaus then realized through internationally published, award winning V Squared Labs in collaboration with Leviathan. A collaborative feat between the minds madmen, scientists and visionaries.

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This was 8 years ago.  Not much has come out on the solo front for the man, since then, aside from an incredibly bizarre EP released on Record Store Day 2015.  Inspired by science fiction/space exploration scores by legends like John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith, Dark Jovian was released physically as two white 180gm vinyl discs housed in a bespoked white rubber wheel, which was all encased in a larger, transparent plastic box.  The vinyl itself was etched with designs, the whole presentation seeking to resemble something along the lines of the golden Voyager records that NASA launched into space back in 1977 to share information about our history as a race and society with whatever celestial beings and generations may come across it in the future.  A beautiful package/assemblage, it, unfortunately, proved somewhat impractical.  My own copy has never been opened, remaining on display on my record shelf with me afraid to ever mess with it from fear that I’ll either break it or never be able to squeeze it back into the rubber that holds it together.

Another 4 years has passed and we’re excited to discover that Tobin has a brand new album coming out this April 26th.  Titled Fear In A Handful Of Dust, digital pre-orders are available now, with a limited edition vinyl pressing being slated for later in spring or summer.  The LP will mark the first release for Amon‘s new label NOMARK.  This info caught us from left-field, but that’s to be expected.  At no time was there a belief that, since we hadn’t heard much from him, aside from select collaborative projects, that he had ever hung it up for good.  Unlike so many others, if Amon has been quiet for an extended period of time, the odds are that he’s simply working on something and perfecting it until he’s ready to unleash it onto the world.  It’s true that we still know very little at the moment about if there’s some greater concept behind this upcoming effort, but I do expect great things — albeit, things that might not appeal to everyone.  The fact that he’s opted to use a painting by Andy Kehoe, who we have long respected, is great to see.  More info is almost guaranteed to roll out leading up to the release, but for now, he has also released the first single, the shimmering ethereal joint, “On A HIlltop Sat The Moon,” which also serves as the lead off track for the new album.  Check it out below followed by the full Fear In A Handful Of Dust track list.

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 TRACK LIST
1.On a Hilltop Sat the Moon
2. Vipers Follow You
3. Freeformed
4. Pale Forms Run By
5. Heart of the Sun
6. Velvet Owl
7. Fooling Allright
8. Milk Millionaire
9. Three Different Hat Sizes
10. Dark as Dogs