PREVIEW
AMON TOBIN
The Warehouse
Wednesday, March 14
With three albums on Ninjatune and a multitude of singles floating about the ether of left field, Amon Tobin has spent the better part of 10 years honing his blend of ambient drum ’n’ bass and left-field stylings.
Formerly a DJ and producer under the moniker Cujo, this Brazilian transplant to England sets a style that, like so many other Ninjatune artists, carries with it the weight of quality, recently reaching an apex on last year’s stellar SuperModified. Also, like many of his labelmates, his sound defies rote description, but is best likened to surreal soundscapes that use various derivations of beat for a bed to the mood that each single lays down.
"I just want to carry on corrupting the samples...." says Tobin. "Basically everything is built on something else. My music is structured around that idea – I don’t specifically set out to make this particular track sound like an Amon Tobin track."
When I say that I hear elements of Mingus and Morricone on his latest disc he chortles and responds, "Well, somebody is always gonna hear something in there, but I can see that. It (the music) has cinematic overtones. I’m glad somebody can hear that, but I really didn’t seek to produce that type of sound."
In a musical culture that necessitates description in order to achieve commercial viability, artists like Tobin are an oddity. While they are not producing dancefloor friendly fare, they are often ghettoized in a generic electronic category simply out of ease, even though they probably share as much in common with Stockhausen or other avant electronic composers of the last few decades as they do with DJs like Gilles Peterson.
This is due primarily to the fact that experimentation within the genre almost defines the nature of the music. Production of this music rarely takes into account its potential on the dancefloor.
"Well, I’m not making trance, if that’s what you mean," he says. "I’ve no interest in being that kind of producer – its not where I’m at. I don’t say ‘Well, this track will work well for a dancefloor.’"
Despite this, much of Tobin’s work does stretch into a realm of dance music that is largely overlooked and is often seen to have only head-nodding potential, leading one to think that his music may lend itself better to soft seat venues.
"I like the idea that in a club, people are free to get up and into it,... pick up a girl, get a beer – even though I play something that hits people differently...."
While intelligent left field does not always go hand in hand with dance music, Tobin falls comfortably into both realms. His approach reaches further than the party rockin’ schtick of many a biggie DJ – but it isn’t exclusively insufferable for the feet.
"I have a tendency to play really hard tracks and then something really quiet – I don’t really mess around in the middle... there’s a particular drum ’n’ bass track that I always carry with me simply because it’s so hard. I love to play it out – it’s definitely got a danceable edge to it."
Tobin, who initially entered the fray as a producer and developed his DJ skills after the fact, now plays to huge houses. But he says his first gig in Liverpool, England, where he played to 300 people, was an unsettling event due to the fact that he followed Ollie from Herbaliser, a seasoned DJ in his own right.
"It was my first time playing in front of people, and I wasn’t familiar with the approach to a dancefloor. From then... I knew I had to get my skills up to play this music the way I want..."
Eight years later Tobin is taking his skilful, supercharged, jazz-fueled set around the world – including his stop at The Warehouse on March 14. |
