Search results: amon tobin

Review: Genius of noise manipulation and uncompromising musical auteur Amon Tobin is set to release "Foley Room", his most conceptually satisfying and beautiful album to date. After finishing work on his soundtrack to the video game "Splinter Cell", Tobin decided it was time to re-think his compositional processes. Having made several albums from reconstructed vinyl sources it was time to look at what else could be pulled apart and reconfigured. Amon had been told about the work of foley artists and this served as an inspiration. A foley room is where the sound effects are recorded for films. Foley artists use their imagination and ingenuity to make the right noise for the situation they are presented with. With this in mind, Amon and a team of assistants headed out into the streets with high sensitivity microphones and recorded found sounds, from tigers roaring to cats eating rats, from wasps to falling chickpeas, kitchen utensils to motorbikes to water dripping from a tap. Added to this were the sounds of musicians like The Kronos Quartet, Stefan Schneider and Sarah Page. Tobin travelled from foley rooms in Montreal to San Francisco to Seattle and back as he collected them (the CD and double LP release will be accompanied by a short DVD, "Foley Room: Found Footage", documenting the recording process). He then took this wealth of source material and twisted it round into the haunting, muscular music you can hear throughout this remarkable album. If a theme runs through "Foley Room" it is what Amon describes as "the pairing of sounds that share a sonic quality despite being otherwise unrelated". And beyond this, of course, his belief that source material is just that - a source, something to be processed, warped and manipulated until it runs beyond itself. This isn't an avant garde or deliberately obtuse record, rather a way for Tobin to freshen up his approach to music whilst tipping his cap to the musique-concrete and found sound pioneers of the past. The results are immediately apparent. There seems to be a new aural depth to the sound of the record, a living looseness despite the almost forensic way in which the music has been pieced together. In many ways it's as musical and melodic as anything he has produced. And, as ever with Tobin, there are moments of spectral oddness as well as those of sheer exhilaration. Most of all, though, there is a consistency of vision as you are dragged backward through moods and sensations, which encourages you to see the record not as a collection of 'tracks' but as a whole piece. Unique and compelling, "Foley Room" is set to stand out even amongst the consistently high quality of Tobin's other output.

Review: It's not often a record label gets to celebrate 20 years of business so congratulations to Ninja Tune and a extra golf clap for doing so in such style. Across these two double CDs the label has delivered a veritable feast of electronic delights with a heavy emphasis on digging in the Ninja archives for unreleased material. Of the 62 tracks featured only 13 have previously been available. We'll let you have a minute to let that sink in. It's a pretty thankless task to try and attempt to pick a handful of highlights from such rich pickings, but if the prospect of a Todd Edwards remix of Spank Rock, Rooty Tooty getting an overhaul from Micachu or Vadim's seminal "Terrorist" being picked apart by Gaslamp Killer don't pique your fancy then there might be something wrong with your hearing mate. Special mention is reserved for the deluxe gatefold packaging and equally awe inspiring artwork from DJ Food's Strictly Kev that all this brilliant music is housed in.

Review: RECOMMENDED
Amon Tobin and Ninja Tune is always going to be a combination that produces very impressive results, and in the case of Out From Out Where that's nothing short of an understatement. Taking a break from its new techno direction, this is more along the lines of what the label used to be more focused on, delivering a wild ride through various iterations of electronic noise, touching on hip hop, disco, drum & bass, Arabesque and so much more besides.

Opening on the very rave-y dnb driver 'Back From Space', it's not long before the intensity eases, giving way to the darker, 115BPM breakbeats of 'Verbal' take hold. And by that point you're hooked. Cue a relentless stream of incredibly deep, atmospheric and effective tracks that call to mind the likes of Kruder & Dorfmeister, Coldcut and other luminaries of varied synthesised stuff.

Review: "Bloodstone" begins life as a disturbing waltz, before the dirtiest, most foul-smelling and obnoxious vortex of a beat stomps all over that and the whole builds to a constantly deferred orchestral finale apparently built from tune ups. The strings in this piece are provided by the world famous Kronos Quartet, recorded in San Francisco with Amon.

Review: The Two Fingers project has taken on quite a few manifestations since it first emerged back in 2009 as a collaboration between the ace Brazilian producer Amon Tobin and Canadian Joe 'Double-click' Chapman. Their self-titled debut for Big Dada saw the pair on button pushing duties for UK rapper Sway, but despite Chapman's subsequent departure, Tobin continued to work solo under the name with the 2012 LP Stunt Rhythms for Ninja Tune's hip-hop centred sister label the last Two Fingers release of note. Until now that is, with Noisia's Division Recordings label responsible for issuing this superb six track 12" Six Rhythms. Frenetic stadium rocking beat manipulation is the order of the day here, sort of like Dorian Concept after an overdose of yum yums.

Review: In the 12 years since he unfurled acclaimed debut album Clarence Park, one-man electronica factory Chris Clark has produced a vast body of work. He's been particularly busy on the remix front, completing a huge array of reworks. It's this work that makes up the vast majority of Feast/Beast, a remix retrospective (which, curiously, also includes some notable reworks of his material) split into two distinct halves. The first disc, Feast, focuses on the more melodic, other-worldly end of his output, delivering wide-eyed remixes of Amon Tobin, Kuedo and, most beautiful of all, Silverman. Beast, the second disc, moves into darker, tougher territory, joining the dots between techno, bass music, vintage hardcore and wonk-hop thanks to notable versions of Massive Attack, Maximo Park and Depeche Mode.

Review: Genius of noise manipulation and uncompromising musical auteur Amon Tobin is set to release "Foley Room", his most conceptually satisfying and beautiful album to date. After finishing work on his soundtrack to the video game "Splinter Cell", Tobin decided it was time to re-think his compositional processes. Having made several albums from reconstructed vinyl sources it was time to look at what else could be pulled apart and reconfigured. Amon had been told about the work of foley artists and this served as an inspiration. A foley room is where the sound effects are recorded for films. Foley artists use their imagination and ingenuity to make the right noise for the situation they are presented with. With this in mind, Amon and a team of assistants headed out into the streets with high sensitivity microphones and recorded found sounds, from tigers roaring to cats eating rats, from wasps to falling chickpeas, kitchen utensils to motorbikes to water dripping from a tap. Added to this were the sounds of musicians like The Kronos Quartet, Stefan Schneider and Sarah Page. Tobin travelled from foley rooms in Montreal to San Francisco to Seattle and back as he collected them (the CD and double LP release will be accompanied by a short DVD, "Foley Room: Found Footage", documenting the recording process). He then took this wealth of source material and twisted it round into the haunting, muscular music you can hear throughout this remarkable album. If a theme runs through "Foley Room" it is what Amon describes as "the pairing of sounds that share a sonic quality despite being otherwise unrelated". And beyond this, of course, his belief that source material is just that - a source, something to be processed, warped and manipulated until it runs beyond itself. This isn't an avant garde or deliberately obtuse record, rather a way for Tobin to freshen up his approach to music whilst tipping his cap to the musique-concrete and found sound pioneers of the past. The results are immediately apparent. There seems to be a new aural depth to the sound of the record, a living looseness despite the almost forensic way in which the music has been pieced together. In many ways it's as musical and melodic as anything he has produced. And, as ever with Tobin, there are moments of spectral oddness as well as those of sheer exhilaration. Most of all, though, there is a consistency of vision as you are dragged backward through moods and sensations, which encourages you to see the record not as a collection of 'tracks' but as a whole piece. Unique and compelling, "Foley Room" is set to stand out even amongst the consistently high quality of Tobin's other output.