Amon Tobin
Encyclopedia
Amon Adonai Santos de Araújo Tobin (born February 7, 1972), known as Amon Tobin, is a Brazilian musician, composer and producer
of electronic music
. He is described as a virtuoso sound designer and is considered to be one of the most influential electronic music artists in the world . He has released seven major studio albums since 1996 under the London
-based Ninja Tune
record label.
He is noted for his unusual methodology in sound design and music creation. in 2007 he released Foley Room
an album based entirely on the manipulation of field recordings. His latest album, 2011's "ISAM
", included female vocals made from his own voice synthesised . His music has been used in numerous major motion pictures including The Italian Job and 21
. Tobin has created songs for several independent films, including the 2006 Hungarian
film Taxidermia
. A selection of his tracks were also featured in the 2005 anime
, IGPX. He has also dabbled in video game scores. In 2005, he created the musical score to Ubisoft
's critically acclaimed and successful video game Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
as well as Sucker Punch's game Infamous.
, the Netherlands
, London
, Portugal
and Madeira
. Tobin settled in Brighton
, England
as a teenager which remained his permanent residence until 2002. There he began producing electronic music in his bedroom with samplers
and other audio equipment such as an Amstrad Studio 100 4-track, although he was "not really involved in the [music] scene" at that time. While taking an editorial photography
class at a university in Brighton, he responded to a magazine promotion for the London-based Ninebar record label asking artists to send in demos
of their songs. Ninebar signed Tobin to the label in 1996 after hearing his early work, and he traveled between his home in Brighton and the studios in London to produce his first official works. He also spent some time living in Montreal
before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2008.
Under his original moniker Cujo (in Portuguese, the word for whose), he released a series of original compositions on 12-inch vinyl
. Allmusic called them "head-turning" in a review. Many of those tracks were later included on his first full-length album Adventures in Foam
, originally released in 1996 by Ninebar to a limited release of 5,000 copies.
The larger Ninja Tune record label had been growing in the United Kingdom
at the time with help from their successful artists such as DJ Food
, Funki Porcini
, The Herbaliser
, and Coldcut
. DJ Food and Funki Porcini noticed Tobin's work on Adventures in Foam and prompted the label to approach him. Ninja Tune signed Tobin in late 1996, this time under his abbreviated name "Amon Tobin". The official Ninja Tune website has said that Adventures in Foam had been re-released without permission by the US
-based Shadow Records that same year and that this unauthorized version, labeled the "US release", included only 7 of the original songs, different cover art, and that some tracks were titled incorrectly. In 1997 Ninja Tune acquired the proper licenses from Ninebar and re-released the album themselves. This version included the original album in its entirety, and a second disc containing previously unreleased material. As of 2008, copies of Shadow Record's "US version" are still sold by online retailer Amazon.com
. Over the course of its production, Adventures in Foam has been reviewed favorably. Ryan Schreiber of Pitchfork Media
said that its break-beat style "got totally out of hand", but that it "never fails to let the listener know who's in charge." The album was released for a fourth time in 2002, again by Ninja Tune.
, released in 1997, was the culmination of two projects Tobin had started after his debut album earlier that year. His third album Permutation
was released in 1998. In the late 1990s, sample-based music was becoming more popular with a wide range of emerging and developing genres, but Tobin himself was still largely unknown. Tobin's style of music was not seen as definitively belonging to one genre or another. The critics that commented on Bricolage and Permutation gave them positive reviews and they are often mentioned, by later reviewers and interviewers, as classic albums of the time. Pitchfork Media acclaimed the use of jazz
instrument samples, comparing him to famous composers Quincy Jones
and Miles Davis
. In a 1999 review, they awarded Bricolage a very rare 10/10 and said that it was "one of the most inventive records of the decade."
Tobin released his fourth album, Supermodified in 2000. The album is regarded as his most commercial album to date. Critic reviews were generally positive, with Pitchfork rating the album 9.1/10, and Stylus Magazine
saying, "Not many studio-bound electronic musicians could put forward such a vivid and dynamic statement or make it as entertaining and downright funky as Supermodified has managed to do."
, Canada
where he had spent time previously at Ninja Tune's North American Headquarters.. Tobin lived in the industrial area of Old Montreal
to avoid noise complaints from neighbors after dark. There he produced his fifth album Out From Out Where
released that same year. This was his first album created primarily in a professional studio. He later released a single, Verbal, taken from Out From Out Where. Otis Hart of Dusted Magazine said that Tobin's style of producing had come into its own. He acclaimed Tobin's "refined sense of tempo".
In January 2004, Tobin was contracted by video game company Ubisoft Montreal
to compose the soundtrack for the third installment of their critically successful Splinter Cell
series, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
. To facilitate using the music in a video game, where the level of action or plot can change in real-time, each track was broken down by Tobin into four distinct but similar parts based on their level of intensity. The game's developers could then use each section to provide music based on the actions of the player.. Despite not being an official album in Tobin's discography It was considered a ground breaking work in the world of video game sound tracks described as "an entirely new era of media" by Tiny Mix Tapes
The album continued the trend Tobin started with Out From Out Where, as he used more field recordings during production. In addition to being included with the game, Ninja Tune released the score as an individual album in 2005, titled Chaos Theory - Splinter Cell 3 Soundtrack
, several months before the game's release. It was received well, benefiting from a wider audience of reviewers in both the music and gaming industries. Ben Hogwood of MusicOMH.com applauded Tobin's use of melody and texture, adding that he controlled the sounds with the "clarity of a classical orchestrator." He later recorded a Dolby Digital 5.1
surround sound
version of the album with audio engineer Bobby Azinsky in a dedicated Solid State Logic
studio in Los Angeles
.
Tobin's sixth studio album, Foley Room
, was released in 2007. The title alludes to the "foley rooms" used by recording engineers and foley artist
s to record sound effects in the movie industry. On this album, Tobin concluded his transition away from prerecorded source material that started with Out From Out Where. All of the samples used for production were recorded by himself using an omnidirectional microphone. Recorded primarily in Montreal, San Francisco, and Seattle, the samples came from a wide range of sources including motorbikes, tigers, insects, and water falling from a tap. Also contributing to the album were the string quartet
Kronos Quartet
, drummer
Stefan Schneider, and harpist Sarah Pagé. Foley Rooms use of field-recordings was used to help promote the album, including two official pre-release trailers posted to YouTube
. Nate Dorr of PopMatters.com
called it a "smooth, natural progression" from his work on Supermodified. The first single, "Bloodstone", was released to the iTunes Music Store months before the rest of the album. Ninja Tune also published a DVD
titled Foley Room: Found Footage which documented the recording process.
In 2008, Tobin announced he was working on a new video game soundtrack for an "undisclosed PS3 title". This was later revealed to be the PlayStation 3 exclusive game, inFamous
, and in 2010, Tobin announced that he would be working on the music for Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction
. Recent works include "Hey Mr. Tree" as a 'Bonus Joint' to accompany his earlier 'Monthly Joint' collection, a remix of Noisia
's "Machine Gun" released alongside remixes by 16 Bit and Spor, and a collaboration with ESKMO dubbed Eskamon. Eskamon has released a single "Fine Objects". A new AT record has also been officially announced via www.amontobin.com, for which he is "researching and developing new production tools and techniques" and using "a whole new array of gadgetry from the past and the future".
Amon Tobin's sounds and samples are frequently used in the British car-based TV show Top Gear, and his song "Four Ton Mantis" has been used in a few of the more recent Nissan Qashqai
and Juke advertisements.
,, often leaving the original source unrecognizable in its new context. The majority of his early work focused on reordering the break beats
from jazz and blues
music into faster more complex patterns. Guido Farnell of InTheMix.com, wrote about his use of this technique, saying that Tobin has "taken the art to new and dizzying heights." His fifth album Out From Out Where, began the gradual shift away from prerecorded material by incorporating original guitar samples. His techniques began branching into technical sound design
, taking break beats or single instruments, modifying specific frequencies, and producing new sounds. This trend continued through his video game score Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Soundtrack, and by his sixth album, Foley Room, all of the source material was recorded in the field by himself. Speaking about the creativity of sample-based music compared to traditional instruments, he says that "creative input is not determined by your source material but in how you edit and manipulate the sounds."
Tobin experimented with various instruments. He does not come from a music family, nor has he had any formal training in music theory
. About his music in general, Tobin says that he sees it as a "genuine" expression of the time he lives in, as he says that by contrast, blues, jazz, and Brazilian genres were "genuine" expressions of the 1960s. Despite his indirect connection with Brazilian genres, Tobin collaborated with a number of artists on Bebel Gilberto
's 2000 bossa nova album Tanto Tempo
. Tobin's albums are often compared to soundtracks, and he says that movies by David Lynch
have influenced him. In addition, he has stated to like films by the Coen brothers
, Dario Argento
, and Roman Polanski
.
Tobin began performing live shows in clubs with other Ninja Tune artists after releasing his second album, Bricolage. His shows generally contained music that he had produced during his career, mixed with modified songs from drum and bass, hip-hop, or other genres. Because his music was entirely produced in a studio with electronics, Tobin was not interested in adapting his music to suit a Live PA incorporating musicians. He instead used turntables which he felt had more in common with his approach to music production. He is known for building Dolby Digital 7.1 surround sound speaker systems for his performances.
In 2011 Tobin has developed a live show in support of the album ISAM
fitting his criteria for a performance that is both live and purely electronic. He told Wired Magazine “The idea was to integrate myself, quite literally, into an audio and visual presentation of the album,”. It incorporates the use of new video mapping techniques that are projected onto a large cubic structure from which Tobin performs. The show has been met with international acclaim described by Vice Magazine's Creators Project as "revolutionizing the live music experience" .
Tobin has performed individual shows in many countries including tours in Europe, Australia
, Japan, and the United States. His 2003 live performance in Melbourne
, Australia was used for the fourth album in Ninja Tune's Solid Steel
series because Tobin was not available to record a studio mix at the time. Many songs from the original recording were omitted because of copyright issues with the original artists, including the R&B
group Destiny's Child
.
A second Solid Steel album called Foley Room Recorded Live In Brussels
was recorded in Brussels at the Ancienne Belgique
in 2007 and was released for free in November 2008. According to Tobin's official website, "After months of back and forth and despite everyone’s best efforts the mix was in danger of being edited into the ground to accommodate big labels and publishers. Rather than release a compromised version commercially, the decision was made to give it away for free instead."
In addition, his body of work includes 21 extended play
(EP) albums which contain several B-sides
each, a live album for Ninja Tune's Solid Steel series, new material for various compilation albums, and original tracks available as free downloads on his website.
Tobin's music has been used in several major motion pictures including The Italian Job and 21. He has also produced tracks for a number of independent films, such as The Last Minute
, and has created production music
for the BMG Zomba commercial library which is used in various films. In 2006 he scored the soundtrack for the Hungarian
horror film Taxidermia
which was made available on his website. He also produced the score for the 2009 documentary Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space
.
In 2006 he began collaborating on a hip-hop oriented project with drum & bass/jungle producer Doubleclick
and a number of guest vocalists. Under the name Two Fingers
, the pair have released several singles followed by their self-titled debut album in 2009.
In April 2010, a small body of work Tobin composed and produced for the video game Splinter Cell: Conviction was available for streaming on his website.
In January 2011, his artist page was updated on Ninja Tune
's official website, announcing a new album in 2011, called ISAM, as well as a Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory remix album. Later, the official Ping Pong Facebook page suggested that ISAM would be released on May 9, 2011. After being leaked by a journalist with a press copy of the album, ISAM was instead released on April 20, 2011.
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
of electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
. He is described as a virtuoso sound designer and is considered to be one of the most influential electronic music artists in the world . He has released seven major studio albums since 1996 under the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
-based Ninja Tune
Ninja Tune
Ninja Tune is a London-based independent record label started by DJs Matt Black and Jonathan More, better known as Coldcut and managed by Peter Quicke. The label has a strong leaning towards mostly Electronic Music...
record label.
He is noted for his unusual methodology in sound design and music creation. in 2007 he released Foley Room
Foley Room
Foley Room is the sixth studio album by Brazilian artist Amon Tobin. It was released on March 5, 2007 by Ninja Tune.In the past, Tobin had created music through the sampling of old vinyl records. However, Foley Room is a marked departure from his traditional technique...
an album based entirely on the manipulation of field recordings. His latest album, 2011's "ISAM
ISAM (album)
ISAM is the seventh full-length studio album by Brazilian electronic musician Amon Tobin. It was initially slated to be released in both physical and digital media on 23 May 2011, however following the leak of a promotional copy the previous month the digital release was moved forward to 19...
", included female vocals made from his own voice synthesised . His music has been used in numerous major motion pictures including The Italian Job and 21
21 (2008 film)
21 is a 2008 drama film directed by Australian director Robert Luketic and stars Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth, Liza Lapira, Jacob Pitts, and Aaron Yoo. The film is inspired by the true story of the MIT Blackjack Team as told in Bringing Down the House, the...
. Tobin has created songs for several independent films, including the 2006 Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
film Taxidermia
Taxidermia
Taxidermia is a 2006 Hungarian film directed by György Pálfi. The film focuses on three generations of men from Hungary, beginning with a military orderly during the Second World War, moving on to an aspiring speed-eater during the Cold War, and concluding with a taxidermist during modern times...
. A selection of his tracks were also featured in the 2005 anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
, IGPX. He has also dabbled in video game scores. In 2005, he created the musical score to Ubisoft
Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. is a major French video game publisher and developer, with headquarters in Montreuil, France. The company has a worldwide presence with 25 studios in 17 countries and subsidiaries in 26 countries....
's critically acclaimed and successful video game Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is a critically acclaimed action-adventure stealth game, developed and published by Ubisoft. Chaos Theory is the third game in the Splinter Cell series endorsed by writer Tom Clancy....
as well as Sucker Punch's game Infamous.
Early career (1995–1997)
Tobin was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. At the age of 2, he and his family left Brazil to live in MoroccoMorocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
and Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
. Tobin settled in Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
as a teenager which remained his permanent residence until 2002. There he began producing electronic music in his bedroom with samplers
Sampler (musical instrument)
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...
and other audio equipment such as an Amstrad Studio 100 4-track, although he was "not really involved in the [music] scene" at that time. While taking an editorial photography
Photojournalism
Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, but in some cases the term also refers to video used in broadcast journalism...
class at a university in Brighton, he responded to a magazine promotion for the London-based Ninebar record label asking artists to send in demos
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
of their songs. Ninebar signed Tobin to the label in 1996 after hearing his early work, and he traveled between his home in Brighton and the studios in London to produce his first official works. He also spent some time living in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2008.
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
. Allmusic called them "head-turning" in a review. Many of those tracks were later included on his first full-length album Adventures in Foam
Adventures in Foam
Adventures in Foam is the only album by Amon Tobin under the name Cujo. It was first released in September 1996 on the small south London label Ninebar records...
, originally released in 1996 by Ninebar to a limited release of 5,000 copies.
The larger Ninja Tune record label had been growing in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
at the time with help from their successful artists such as DJ Food
DJ Food
Originally produced by Coldcut on the Ninja Tune independent record label, the DJ Food project started in 1990 on the premise of providing metaphorical "food for DJs". DJ Food released the Jazz Brakes series, with Jazz Brakes Volume 3 being the most successful...
, Funki Porcini
Funki Porcini
Funki Porcini is musician and film maker, James Braddell, from England.His music is a combination of Downtempo, Breakbeat and Jazz with elements of Hip hop, Drum and bass, sampling and time-stretched vocals...
, The Herbaliser
The Herbaliser
The Herbaliser is a jazz rap band formed by Jake Wherry and Ollie Teeba London, England during the early 1990s. Although currently signed to !K7 Records, they were one of the best-known acts from the Ninja Tune independent record label...
, and Coldcut
Coldcut
Coldcut are an English dance music duo, comprising Matt Black and Jonathan More. Their signature style is electronic dance music, featuring cut up samples of hip hop, breaks, jazz, spoken word and various other types of music, as well as video and multimedia.-1980s:In 1986, computer programmer Matt...
. DJ Food and Funki Porcini noticed Tobin's work on Adventures in Foam and prompted the label to approach him. Ninja Tune signed Tobin in late 1996, this time under his abbreviated name "Amon Tobin". The official Ninja Tune website has said that Adventures in Foam had been re-released without permission by the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-based Shadow Records that same year and that this unauthorized version, labeled the "US release", included only 7 of the original songs, different cover art, and that some tracks were titled incorrectly. In 1997 Ninja Tune acquired the proper licenses from Ninebar and re-released the album themselves. This version included the original album in its entirety, and a second disc containing previously unreleased material. As of 2008, copies of Shadow Record's "US version" are still sold by online retailer Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
. Over the course of its production, Adventures in Foam has been reviewed favorably. Ryan Schreiber of Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
said that its break-beat style "got totally out of hand", but that it "never fails to let the listener know who's in charge." The album was released for a fourth time in 2002, again by Ninja Tune.
Defining albums (1997–2002)
Over the next several years, Tobin released three albums. BricolageBricolage (album)
Bricolage became the first release for Amon Tobin under his own name and on the label Ninja Tune in 1997. The album was a departure from his previous effort, Adventures in Foam , incorporating a heavier blend of jazz melodies and intense jungle rhythms...
, released in 1997, was the culmination of two projects Tobin had started after his debut album earlier that year. His third album Permutation
Permutation (album)
Permutation is the third album by Amon Tobin and second under his own name. It was released in 1998, just over a year after Bricolage. The album was a success for Tobin and found him playing sold-out shows at the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Knitting Factory in New York and the Coachella Valley...
was released in 1998. In the late 1990s, sample-based music was becoming more popular with a wide range of emerging and developing genres, but Tobin himself was still largely unknown. Tobin's style of music was not seen as definitively belonging to one genre or another. The critics that commented on Bricolage and Permutation gave them positive reviews and they are often mentioned, by later reviewers and interviewers, as classic albums of the time. Pitchfork Media acclaimed the use of jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
instrument samples, comparing him to famous composers Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...
and Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
. In a 1999 review, they awarded Bricolage a very rare 10/10 and said that it was "one of the most inventive records of the decade."
Tobin released his fourth album, Supermodified in 2000. The album is regarded as his most commercial album to date. Critic reviews were generally positive, with Pitchfork rating the album 9.1/10, and Stylus Magazine
Stylus Magazine
Stylus Magazine was an online music and film magazine launched in 2002. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, a number of different podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog....
saying, "Not many studio-bound electronic musicians could put forward such a vivid and dynamic statement or make it as entertaining and downright funky as Supermodified has managed to do."
Montreal (2002–present)
In 2002, Tobin relocated to MontrealMontreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
where he had spent time previously at Ninja Tune's North American Headquarters.. Tobin lived in the industrial area of Old Montreal
Old Montreal
Old Montreal is the oldest area in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, dating back to New France. Located in the borough of Ville-Marie, the area is bordered on the west by McGill St., on the north by Ruelle des Fortifications, on the east by Berri St. and on the south by the Saint Lawrence River...
to avoid noise complaints from neighbors after dark. There he produced his fifth album Out From Out Where
Out from Out Where
Out From Out Where was the fourth release by Amon Tobin on Ninja Tune. Many of the tracks segue together creating an ongoing feel to the album. Video clips were made for "Verbal" and "Proper Hoodidge", directed by Alex Rutterford and Corine Stübi respectively. The CD contains enhanced content of...
released that same year. This was his first album created primarily in a professional studio. He later released a single, Verbal, taken from Out From Out Where. Otis Hart of Dusted Magazine said that Tobin's style of producing had come into its own. He acclaimed Tobin's "refined sense of tempo".
Ubisoft Montreal
Ubisoft Montreal is a Canadian video game developer owned by French publisher Ubisoft.Ubisoft's North American studio is located in Montreal, Quebec...
to compose the soundtrack for the third installment of their critically successful Splinter Cell
Splinter Cell
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell is a series of stealth video games, the first of which was released in 2002, and their tie-in novels. The protagonist, Sam Fisher, is presented as a highly-trained agent of a fictional black-ops sub-division within the NSA, dubbed "Third Echelon"...
series, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is a critically acclaimed action-adventure stealth game, developed and published by Ubisoft. Chaos Theory is the third game in the Splinter Cell series endorsed by writer Tom Clancy....
. To facilitate using the music in a video game, where the level of action or plot can change in real-time, each track was broken down by Tobin into four distinct but similar parts based on their level of intensity. The game's developers could then use each section to provide music based on the actions of the player.. Despite not being an official album in Tobin's discography It was considered a ground breaking work in the world of video game sound tracks described as "an entirely new era of media" by Tiny Mix Tapes
The album continued the trend Tobin started with Out From Out Where, as he used more field recordings during production. In addition to being included with the game, Ninja Tune released the score as an individual album in 2005, titled Chaos Theory - Splinter Cell 3 Soundtrack
Chaos Theory - Splinter Cell 3 Soundtrack
Chaos Theory – Splinter Cell 3 Soundtrack is the fifth album by Brazilian trip hop artist Amon Tobin. It was released on 25 January 2005 by Ninja Tune.- Album information :...
, several months before the game's release. It was received well, benefiting from a wider audience of reviewers in both the music and gaming industries. Ben Hogwood of MusicOMH.com applauded Tobin's use of melody and texture, adding that he controlled the sounds with the "clarity of a classical orchestrator." He later recorded a Dolby Digital 5.1
Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital is the name for audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. It was originally called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1994. Except for Dolby TrueHD, the audio compression is lossy. The first use of Dolby Digital was to provide digital sound in cinemas from 35mm film prints...
surround sound
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...
version of the album with audio engineer Bobby Azinsky in a dedicated Solid State Logic
Solid State Logic
Solid State Logic is a manufacturer of high-end mixing consoles and recording studio hardware headquartered in Begbroke, Oxfordshire, UK.- Company information :...
studio in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.
Tobin's sixth studio album, Foley Room
Foley Room
Foley Room is the sixth studio album by Brazilian artist Amon Tobin. It was released on March 5, 2007 by Ninja Tune.In the past, Tobin had created music through the sampling of old vinyl records. However, Foley Room is a marked departure from his traditional technique...
, was released in 2007. The title alludes to the "foley rooms" used by recording engineers and foley artist
Foley artist
Foley is the reproduction of everyday sounds for use in filmmaking. These reproduced sounds can be anything from the swishing of clothing and footsteps to squeaky doors and breaking glass. The best foley art is so well integrated into a film that it goes unnoticed by the audience. It helps to...
s to record sound effects in the movie industry. On this album, Tobin concluded his transition away from prerecorded source material that started with Out From Out Where. All of the samples used for production were recorded by himself using an omnidirectional microphone. Recorded primarily in Montreal, San Francisco, and Seattle, the samples came from a wide range of sources including motorbikes, tigers, insects, and water falling from a tap. Also contributing to the album were the string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973 in Seattle, Washington. Since 1978, the quartet has been based in San Francisco, California. The longest-running combination of performers had Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola, and Joan...
, drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...
Stefan Schneider, and harpist Sarah Pagé. Foley Rooms use of field-recordings was used to help promote the album, including two official pre-release trailers posted to YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
. Nate Dorr of PopMatters.com
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
called it a "smooth, natural progression" from his work on Supermodified. The first single, "Bloodstone", was released to the iTunes Music Store months before the rest of the album. Ninja Tune also published a DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
titled Foley Room: Found Footage which documented the recording process.
In 2008, Tobin announced he was working on a new video game soundtrack for an "undisclosed PS3 title". This was later revealed to be the PlayStation 3 exclusive game, inFamous
InFamous
Infamous, stylized as inFAMOUS or inFamous, is an open world video game for the PlayStation 3 video game console. It was developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Computer Entertainment...
, and in 2010, Tobin announced that he would be working on the music for Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction is an action-adventure stealth game, developed by Ubisoft Montreal. Key members of the Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas team, such as creative director Maxime Béland, also worked on the game...
. Recent works include "Hey Mr. Tree" as a 'Bonus Joint' to accompany his earlier 'Monthly Joint' collection, a remix of Noisia
Noisia
Noisia, stylized as NOISIΛ , is a Dutch Electronic music trio consisting of members Nik Roos, Martijn van Sonderen and Thijs de Vlieger from Groningen, The Netherlands. They now produce a wide variety of music including drum and bass, dubstep, breakbeat and house music...
's "Machine Gun" released alongside remixes by 16 Bit and Spor, and a collaboration with ESKMO dubbed Eskamon. Eskamon has released a single "Fine Objects". A new AT record has also been officially announced via www.amontobin.com, for which he is "researching and developing new production tools and techniques" and using "a whole new array of gadgetry from the past and the future".
Amon Tobin's sounds and samples are frequently used in the British car-based TV show Top Gear, and his song "Four Ton Mantis" has been used in a few of the more recent Nissan Qashqai
Nissan Qashqai
The Nissan Qashqai, known as the Nissan Dualis in Japan and Australia, is a compact crossover SUV produced by the Japanese car manufacturer Nissan since 2007...
and Juke advertisements.
Musical style and influences
Tobin is best known for his use of audio manipulation techniques, where any given source material is transformed to produce a new sound. His use of this technique has changed over the course of his career. On his original singles under Ninebar and his first three albums, Tobin acquired all of the sound sources to produce music from his personal collection of vinyl records. He manipulates the sounds with a combination of audio hardware and software such as CubaseSteinberg Cubase
Cubase is a music software product developed by Steinberg for music recording, arranging and editing as part of a Digital Audio Workstation. It is one of the oldest DAWs to still enjoy widespread use...
,, often leaving the original source unrecognizable in its new context. The majority of his early work focused on reordering the break beats
Break (music)
In popular music, a break is an instrumental or percussion section or interlude during a song derived from or related to stop-time – being a "break" from the main parts of the song or piece....
from jazz and blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
music into faster more complex patterns. Guido Farnell of InTheMix.com, wrote about his use of this technique, saying that Tobin has "taken the art to new and dizzying heights." His fifth album Out From Out Where, began the gradual shift away from prerecorded material by incorporating original guitar samples. His techniques began branching into technical sound design
Sound design
Sound design is the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating or generating audio elements. It is employed in a variety of disciplines including filmmaking, television production, theatre, sound recording and reproduction, live performance, sound art, post-production and video game software...
, taking break beats or single instruments, modifying specific frequencies, and producing new sounds. This trend continued through his video game score Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Soundtrack, and by his sixth album, Foley Room, all of the source material was recorded in the field by himself. Speaking about the creativity of sample-based music compared to traditional instruments, he says that "creative input is not determined by your source material but in how you edit and manipulate the sounds."
Tobin experimented with various instruments. He does not come from a music family, nor has he had any formal training in music theory
Music theory
Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...
. About his music in general, Tobin says that he sees it as a "genuine" expression of the time he lives in, as he says that by contrast, blues, jazz, and Brazilian genres were "genuine" expressions of the 1960s. Despite his indirect connection with Brazilian genres, Tobin collaborated with a number of artists on Bebel Gilberto
Bebel Gilberto
Bebel Gilberto is a Brazilian popular singer often associated with bossa nova. She is the daughter of João Gilberto and singer Miúcha. Her uncle is singer/composer Chico Buarque...
's 2000 bossa nova album Tanto Tempo
Tanto Tempo
-Track listing:# "Samba da Benção" - 4:47# "August Day Song" - 4:37# "Tanto Tempo" - 3:01# "Sem Contenção" - 3:10# "Mais Feliz" - 4:17# "Alguém" - 4:04# "So Nice " - 3:32# "Lonely" - 2:24# "Bananeira" - 3:26# "Samba e Amor" - 3:28...
. Tobin's albums are often compared to soundtracks, and he says that movies by David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
have influenced him. In addition, he has stated to like films by the Coen brothers
Coen Brothers
Joel David Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen known together professionally as the Coen brothers, are American filmmakers...
, Dario Argento
Dario Argento
Dario Argento is an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his work in the horror film genre, particularly in the subgenre known as giallo, and for his influence on modern horror and slasher movies....
, and Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski is a French-Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few "truly international filmmakers."...
.
Live performances
In 2011 Tobin has developed a live show in support of the album ISAM
ISAM
ISAM stands for Indexed Sequential Access Method, a method for indexing data for fast retrieval. ISAM was originally developed by IBM for mainframe computers...
fitting his criteria for a performance that is both live and purely electronic. He told Wired Magazine “The idea was to integrate myself, quite literally, into an audio and visual presentation of the album,”. It incorporates the use of new video mapping techniques that are projected onto a large cubic structure from which Tobin performs. The show has been met with international acclaim described by Vice Magazine's Creators Project as "revolutionizing the live music experience" .
Tobin has performed individual shows in many countries including tours in Europe, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Japan, and the United States. His 2003 live performance in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Australia was used for the fourth album in Ninja Tune's Solid Steel
Solid Steel
Solid Steel is the name of a series of DJ mix albums issued on Ninja Tune independent record label in the UK.Solid Steel also has a radio station webcast and related live concerts which further showcase the DJing talents of such artists....
series because Tobin was not available to record a studio mix at the time. Many songs from the original recording were omitted because of copyright issues with the original artists, including the R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
group Destiny's Child
Destiny's Child
Destiny's Child was an American R&B girl group whose final line-up comprised lead singer Beyoncé Knowles alongside Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams. Formed in 1997 in Houston, Texas, Destiny's Child members began their musical endeavors in their pre-teens under the name Girl's Tyme...
.
A second Solid Steel album called Foley Room Recorded Live In Brussels
Foley Room Recorded Live In Brussels
Foley Room Recorded Live In Brussels was the second Solid Steel album by Amon Tobin, recorded in Brussels at the Ancienne Belgique in 2007 and released as a free download in November 2008...
was recorded in Brussels at the Ancienne Belgique
Ancienne Belgique
The Ancienne Belgique is a concert hall for contemporary music in Brussels, Belgium. Located in the historic heart of Brussels, it is one the leading concert venues in Belgium, hosting a wide variety of international and local acts.-The venue:...
in 2007 and was released for free in November 2008. According to Tobin's official website, "After months of back and forth and despite everyone’s best efforts the mix was in danger of being edited into the ground to accommodate big labels and publishers. Rather than release a compromised version commercially, the decision was made to give it away for free instead."
Discography
Tobin has released seven major studio albums:- 1996: Adventures in FoamAdventures in FoamAdventures in Foam is the only album by Amon Tobin under the name Cujo. It was first released in September 1996 on the small south London label Ninebar records...
- 1997: BricolageBricolage (album)Bricolage became the first release for Amon Tobin under his own name and on the label Ninja Tune in 1997. The album was a departure from his previous effort, Adventures in Foam , incorporating a heavier blend of jazz melodies and intense jungle rhythms...
- 1998: PermutationPermutation (album)Permutation is the third album by Amon Tobin and second under his own name. It was released in 1998, just over a year after Bricolage. The album was a success for Tobin and found him playing sold-out shows at the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Knitting Factory in New York and the Coachella Valley...
- 2000: Supermodified
- 2002: Out From Out WhereOut from Out WhereOut From Out Where was the fourth release by Amon Tobin on Ninja Tune. Many of the tracks segue together creating an ongoing feel to the album. Video clips were made for "Verbal" and "Proper Hoodidge", directed by Alex Rutterford and Corine Stübi respectively. The CD contains enhanced content of...
- 2005: Chaos Theory – Splinter Cell 3 Soundtrack
- 2007: Foley RoomFoley RoomFoley Room is the sixth studio album by Brazilian artist Amon Tobin. It was released on March 5, 2007 by Ninja Tune.In the past, Tobin had created music through the sampling of old vinyl records. However, Foley Room is a marked departure from his traditional technique...
- 2010: Monthly Joints series (digital only)
- 2011: ISAMISAM (album)ISAM is the seventh full-length studio album by Brazilian electronic musician Amon Tobin. It was initially slated to be released in both physical and digital media on 23 May 2011, however following the leak of a promotional copy the previous month the digital release was moved forward to 19...
In addition, his body of work includes 21 extended play
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
(EP) albums which contain several B-sides
B-Sides
B-Sides is an iTunes-exclusive album from the Coventry Trio The Enemy, consisting of ten songs that were B-sides to the single releases from their debut album We'll Live and Die in These Towns.-Track list:#Fear Killed the Youth of Our Nation...
each, a live album for Ninja Tune's Solid Steel series, new material for various compilation albums, and original tracks available as free downloads on his website.
Tobin's music has been used in several major motion pictures including The Italian Job and 21. He has also produced tracks for a number of independent films, such as The Last Minute
The Last Minute
The Last Minute, is a British urban gothic film, written and directed by Stephen Norrington, darkly lampooning success, failure, and the show business....
, and has created production music
Production music
Production music is the name given to recorded music produced and owned by production music libraries and licensed to customers for use in film, television, radio and other media.-Introduction:...
for the BMG Zomba commercial library which is used in various films. In 2006 he scored the soundtrack for the Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
horror film Taxidermia
Taxidermia
Taxidermia is a 2006 Hungarian film directed by György Pálfi. The film focuses on three generations of men from Hungary, beginning with a military orderly during the Second World War, moving on to an aspiring speed-eater during the Cold War, and concluding with a taxidermist during modern times...
which was made available on his website. He also produced the score for the 2009 documentary Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space
Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space
Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space is a documentary film by Denis Delestrac with a music score by Amon Tobin. The film deals with the issue of space weapons and their politics, featuring interviews with several key United States military personal, academics such as Noam Chomsky and...
.
In 2006 he began collaborating on a hip-hop oriented project with drum & bass/jungle producer Doubleclick
Doubleclick (artist)
Doubleclick is a musician and producer based in the United Kingdom.Joe Chapman released Once More with Feeling EP on Brighton-based label, Fly Casual, in 2000. He also collaborated with fellow artist, Amon Tobin, on Verbal Remixes & Collaborations in 2003...
and a number of guest vocalists. Under the name Two Fingers
Two Fingers
Two Fingers is an international musical collaboration between electronic musicians Amon Tobin and Doubleclick. The duo released an eponymous album in 2009 on Paper Bag Records in North America and Big Dada in the United Kingdom....
, the pair have released several singles followed by their self-titled debut album in 2009.
In April 2010, a small body of work Tobin composed and produced for the video game Splinter Cell: Conviction was available for streaming on his website.
In January 2011, his artist page was updated on Ninja Tune
Ninja Tune
Ninja Tune is a London-based independent record label started by DJs Matt Black and Jonathan More, better known as Coldcut and managed by Peter Quicke. The label has a strong leaning towards mostly Electronic Music...
's official website, announcing a new album in 2011, called ISAM, as well as a Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory remix album. Later, the official Ping Pong Facebook page suggested that ISAM would be released on May 9, 2011. After being leaked by a journalist with a press copy of the album, ISAM was instead released on April 20, 2011.
External links
- Official Amon Tobin Website
- Official Two Fingers Website
- Official Amon Tobin page at Ninja Tune website
- Amon Tobin career retrospective article at PopMattersPopMattersPopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
- Video on the Infamous Soundtrack