[Intro] the big AMON TOBIN thread

[Sebasty]

Hey! 🙂

Read the latest posts for new content!

As I see Amon is releasing a whole lot of music under his own name as well as some brand new projects, I decided to create a topic dedicated to his music. Updated whenever I remember to... : )

Basic introduction:

Amon Tobin is a renowned electronic music artist and producer. His earlier releases were sample-based jazzy beats with outstanding drums, and in later albums he has gone into sound manipulation (Foley Room, Chaos Theory) as well as synthesizing sounds (ISAM and following). Click to read more:

Spoiler

He was born in Brazil, but his musical career began in England where he got initially signed up in Ninebar as Cujo and later with is own name in Ninja Tune. He now runs his own label called Nomark, that's where the new music will be released under.

He has also done movie scores (Taxidermia is most notable) and game soundtracks (Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory, inFAMOUS). The latter ones' on Spotify.

This is him:

Amon Tobin in his studio

His list of major releases so far:

Spoiler

Adventures in Foam (1996, as Cujo)
Bricolage (1997)
Permutation (1998)

Supermodified (2000)
Out From Out Where (2002)

Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory ( 2005)

Foley Room (2007)
Two Fingers (2009, as Two Fingers; there's also Instrumentals)

ISAM (2011)
Stunt Rhythms (2012, as Two Fingers)

Fear in a Handful of Dust (2019)
Long Stories (2019)
Time to Run (2019, as Only Child Tyrant)

Fight! Fight! Fight! (2020, as Two Fingers)
The World as We Know It (2020, as Figueroa)
West Coast Love Stories (2021, as Stone Giants)
How Do You Live (upcoming...)

To begin off, Spotify has created a "This Is ___" playlist for Amon Tobin and it's a pretty nice mixture of his songs. The artist also has a full chronological discography playlist (oldest to newest):
spotify:user:spotify:playlist:37i9dQZF1DZ06evO1WZ17Z spotify:user:tricil:playlist:0yNiVxxg6RBO7ng2MyUZiX

I'll return soon with more stuff 🙂

Happy exploring!

[Jpgchief]

So cool @Sebasty always a pleasure reading you, and also waiting for the upcoming album a must listen this Friday definitely.

Cheers!!!

[Sebasty]

NEW AMON TOBIN ALBUM IS OUT! 🥳🎉🎉🎉

It's called "Fear in a Handful of Dust" and it contains 10 tracks, running for roughly 40 minutes.

Here it is:

spotify:album:4NgC9zznEu2PiENNZGGATl

Some facts:

Spoiler

* The album art is done by Andy Kehoe. Name of the artpiece is "Measure of Difference".

* Amon has loosen up the music making process a little by letting in happy accidents and other imperfections in contrast to ISAM in which he was obsessed with perfection.

* Listen to the album on mobile - each track has a video!

* The album is done fully analog.

* The album has 3 singles:

spotify:track:7ltD8Tp0wKA34z8ExG0YJI:small released in February

spotify:track:0h1uTViXuOkwtuoR3Ud3nd:small released in March

spotify:track:4TDLsoJGQfAqm5QsI1Xrt3:small released in April 1st and is accompanied by a music video (experiment by Christian Moeller) on how people often build a facade of happiness and false confidence.
Here is the link to the music video on Youtube.

Velvet Owl is so incredibly beautiful! /tears streaming/

Enjoy!

[Sebasty]

A post about one of his old releases - Foley Room.

This album marks Amon's departure of sample-based music, even though it does contain samples. It has 12 songs and runs about 50 minutes. Click to read more:

Spoiler

Made after Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory OST, Amon got inspired by the workflow of foley artists and decided to record various sounds by both going out in various locations as well as meeting and working together with various artists, such as Kronos Quartet and Sarah Pagé.

The CD release (well, I have that) also comes with a DVD documenting the process of recording different sounds and how it all came about.

The album is made mostly of this wealth of recorded material manipulated and carefully reconstructed, resulting in sound less jazzy than the previous releases, and more muscular, vivid and haunting. Powerful crushing beats, intricate structures of meticulously layered sounds, melodies as gentle as butterflies of mist.

One song off the album, Esther's has a splendid music video directed by Charles de Meyer. It's mildly unsettling and it's about a woman, a man who admires her and a little unusual device in his pocket.

Here's the album:

spotify:album:6o7OzvIJJMkhgB1QtEB1fj

Very small lovely fun fact:

Spoiler

At the end of the DVD there is an additional video - Amon Tobin on DJ'ing, a clip of him taking the piss with a smirk on the rather standardized manners and moves of DJ's.
"Is it harder for a DJ than for a plumber or someone?" - "Everything is harder for a DJ. You know, I'm in pain constantly, inside it's turmoil."

[Sebasty]

A post about another of his older releases: ISAM

ISAM's his 8th studio album released in spring 2011. The album contains 12 tracks, running for 50 minutes. Click to read more:

Spoiler

In this album he has taken on recording mundane objects and sounds such as creaky chairs and lightbulbs clinked together, which he then analysed and synthesized, creating new playable instruments.

This album is a rich and intricate listening, departure from Earth, and it also contains some powerful crushing beats. The vocals heard in the album are Amon's voice synthesized and modified to sound like a young woman (Wooden Toy) or an old lady with a bit of an American twang (Kitty Cat), or an aid to create atmosphere in the songs.

The album was brought live with a 3-dimensional stage set of cubes with projection mapping. Check out this video for what it looked like:

(god I hope this works)

And here is the album itself:

spotify:album:6JiPQzrQs9VTk0cRW9kyS2

Some little facts:

Spoiler

1. Album name stands for "Invented Sounds Applied to Music".

...Although I might call it "Interesting Sounds Amon Made", whilst swooning over Dropped from the Sky. 🙂
2. The album art is one of Tessa Farmer's sculptures. She created a sculpture for each of ISAM tracks which were then exhibited in London and NYC. Amon said she was doing similar things to what Amon was doing in his album - reordering things around him.

3. The live set was a solution to a problem rather than 'how to make the biggest spectacle.' ISAM was not suitable for neither DJing nor actual musicians, so Amon had to find a new way to bring it on stage.

4. His studio interview with Beatport revealed one of his tools - Haken Continuum fingerboard, a soft-surfaced continuous controller which allows for awesome ways to control sound.

5. Album was released in 3 physical formats - CD, vinyl and a book. The second two came with one bonus track too:

Vinyl: One Last Look (oops, not on Spotify, but click here to hear it - Amon's site and it does autoplay.)
Book: spotify:track:7jsMMqxy1tt0rH5FzYcZTQ:small

One of my most favourite albums, and the live visuals just straight blew my mind off on a scale I've never experienced before. Probably wouldn't have made it out alive if I actually went to see the thing live. :')

Enjoy!

[Sebasty]

Hey 🙂

Small updates on Amon Tobin's musical front.

New sweet single by Two Fingers, Amon's project for beat-driven bass-heavy music!

spotify:track:0AlSyUm3aFnYoi3Amj3Gi8:small

A new Two Fingers album is coming soon, too. 🙂

New single for Only Child Tyrant, another Amon project, will be released soon. This one features electric guitar and awesome beats, you can hear a sample here.

The OCT album should be out in August, though not completely sure.

I also managed to grab one of the limited Fear In a Handful of Dust records from AT store. Turns out they got sold out in less than a day, just in a couple of hours. Unf...

Ending the post with this little reminder:

... "Play safe and protect those ears, kids!"

🙂

[Sebasty]

Another update, short this time.

Amon Tobin announced a new project called Only Child Tyrant. Inspired by listening to his uncle's record collection of rock music and "stealing" his brother's 90's mixtapes, it's a project where all of that meets his beats.

The project has its first single out, called Monkey Box:

spotify:track:5rTS9zsVS4WDkQpppGVjj2:small

The project has an album coming up in July - "Time to Run".

Until next time 🙂

[Sebasty]

Hey again,

it's New Release post!

Amon Tobin released another new tune as Two Fingers:

spotify:track:0zQg5jL8HHMrN4ZBXSd6Lx:small

A quote from the man himself:

---

been making a series of new beats based on modern production tech against the rather unique acoustic percussion sounds you can get out of buchla. the sounds are so seductive it makes you want to leave space around them and focus on the swing

---

So here's hope there will be more of such immersive tunes coming!

[Sebasty]

Hey again!

This Friday is seeing the release of a Two Fingers x Ivy Lab collab named "Orange"!

spotify:track:2cZ2RGgOERGIk6r1OGnU8q:small

(it will become available as night falls in your region)

It's insane bass supreme. :')
Really happy to hear that (it's available on Youtube now), definitely looking forward to getting it tomorrow!

[Sebasty]

New album from ONLY CHILD TYRANT is out!

Sometimes it's time to stand.
Sometimes it's time..

Time to run!

Hear it here:

spotify:album:3QyY5dG3aX4V97gBAdgCIC

Only Child Tyrant is the punked up kid brother of Two Fingers, dark psychedelic punk rock full of energy!

---

"I've often made my favourite things when I wasn't overthinking things. This record came about over a period of time between things I may well have been overthinking. It's fun to program drums that sound live and fake at the same time, to make synths sound like guitars and have guitars played by robots. My enjoyment of these processes became a complete sound with its own personality, one that needed its own name. I hope you'll like it as much or at least nearly as much as I did making it."

---

- Amon Tobin

Artwork on the album by Katherine Brannock.

The vocal guest Figueroa is another project of Amon and will see his own debut soon.

Enjoy and let me know what you think of it 🙂

[Sebasty]

I'm back again with some very exciting news (and a smahing headache... umfh). 🙂

Amon Tobin has announced a second album this year, called Long Stories! It will be out in October 25th.

A little bit on what this album is about by the man himself:

---

long stories and fear in a handful of dust were made in parallel. fear is like a stretched line with extreme softness at one end and pointed angles at the other. stories pushes in through the center and is mainly concerned with balance. so harmony and melody basically.

a good portion of the record was made with just one instrument, the ugly misshapen gray plastic omnichord that somehow only makes sounds that sound like magic. these get processed through a slew of creamy analogue machines. so it's like magic folded into chocolate. like something margot robbie might eat.

---

The fun thing is that the album art for this one was actually included hidden in the vinyl record sleeve of Fear in a Handful of Dust. I... should have seen that coming? :'D

Now, with that announcement he released a single this Friday called "One Shy Morning".
My first impression of it was "Soundtrack of something utterly beautiful". I adore the melody. The percussion has detail that capture me.
I mean, holy god how can something be this beautiful?!

Here it is:

spotify:track:5qCu4qgbfF0781HAYBNd2z:small

Album art by Andy Kehoe.

Amon also announced something for fans, called Nomark Club. For a one-time entrance fee the fans can get every release dropped til 26 Sept 2020 through Bandcamp.
I... obviously managed to join. How could I not? 🙂

There is more to come very soon... and I'll return again once I can talk about that!

[Sebasty]

I want to show you a video of someone playing an Omnichord. Amon was right, it is a fairly bad-looking device, but with sounds that drip of magic and sweet childhood nostalgy.

Considering that was used for the major part of Long Stories.. I fear it might end me with sheer beauty. :'D I can't wait!

[Sebasty]

Hello guys that read my Amon Tobin happiness 🙂

Another single off Long Stories has been released! It's called "Full Panther" and is a lovely tune.

Shimmery vibrating haunting soundscapes that slowly wrap the listener as they expand, nostalgic-sounding chord progressions (of the ugly gray Omnichord) and that almost audible percussion that lifts you up from the velvety depths.

Have a listen:

spotify:track:7q4kf5pGKXWT3HShalid99:small

Have a lovely day and I'll speak again soon 🙂

[Sebasty]

The day has arrived and Long Stories is finally available for listening!

(I got 2 emails from Bandcamp telling me that the album is released)

Darken your room, prepare a delicious cup of coffee, tea, cognac or something else of your preference, sit back and enjoy:

spotify:album:0kC59LuttfKletFf38YAX4

If you wish to read about the album, scroll a little upwards by about 2 posts. 🙂

[Sebasty]

Two Fingers and Ivy Lab released a second single today (1.Nov) called 'Hotline'!

Solid continuation from 'Orange' with war-drum beats and lots and lots of grimy menacing sounds!

Hear it here:

spotify:track:1mWOiP8EhJJexf0h8bAbi0:small 

[Sebasty]

Today, somewhat silently and using a moonlit Velvet Owl sighting as a sort of a promo:

That's my rooftop!

Amon Tobin released "LED Moon Rhythm", a new Two Fingers single with truly fat beats!

(they remind me of the sounds electric engines do when the voltage isn't quite right) :')

Hear it here:

spotify:track:4pJPNyZSIhGnwqllbcaGcW:small 

[Sebasty]

A little storytime post: how Amon began with making music.

Amon's family didn't have any musical background and he was coached into chemistry instead of music at school because no-one took that inkling of his seriously. But his interest remained. He grew up in the 80s when cassettes were most available. He and his friends grew fond of hiphop as they got handed cassettes of mostly hiphop. They were all little b-boys who had nothing to do with anything, but still attached themselves to this music. He got really into cassettes.

One summer he decided to get a cassette deck (to his memory it was a Toshiba twin cassette deck called MiniSystem), collecting money for it by washing cars.

And so he got it (the Holy Grail!). He started making tape edits on Top40 track lists recorded off radio stations, make his own version of it by removing parts he disliked and then distribute it at school.

He was about 12 on this photo:

As he grew more involved, he started modifying tracks by removing parts he disliked, editing other parts to his liking and changing order or parts. He would also make use of his father's english pronounciation learning cassettes (his dad was an English teacher), borrowing slices off them and incorporating these in his work.

Once finished, he sold the reworked songs to his schoolmates.

He grew very deft using the deck making these edits, before samplers he got into rearranging music.  Once he found out about samplers, it felt like an extension to the cassette deck, this time he could start making proper edits.

At some point later Amon's main interest was putting together samples from various sources to see how it goes. He really loved the fact he could use music he was interested in and make something relevant to himself out of them without having to be culturally linked to anything. He wanted to be a bluesman at some point before figuring out it would be ridiculous for him.

He had a friend to whom Amon sometimes played his works and he suggested sending some demos to some labels. They bought some music(?) magazine, at the backside of which were ads for various music labels. The one that accepted him was a little independent label called 9bar that asked him to come over and record something.

That was when his first full-length release was born - Adventures in Foam. Constructed by his curosity on finding samples from various sources and carefully reorganising them to create something of his own.

You can listen to that release right here:

spotify:album:3ivNH4XtxJxqnXc0fob675:small 

Tiny fun fact to those willing to search - Amon's boxset contains a few tracks labelled as teenage experiments. They are the 7 little tracks sitting at the end of 4th CD of the boxset.

[Sebasty]

i forgot about this thread.

New TWO FINGERS album titled Fight! Fight! Fight! released this Friday (15th May) - 11 tracks full of wild beats, including three collabs with Ivy Lab, G Jones and Little Snake each! 🎉🎶

g r a s s

Listen to the album here:

spotify:album:4PAXUJHrxzSqPqt3tmCc34 

Also, this single with Ivy Lab saw daylight earlier this year:

spotify:track:6VVmcFbVikUe5Qke4wDhMz:small 

With the vocal samples reminding me of this extremely demanding pet pigeon my mother has. 😀

[Sebasty]

There is a new mysterious project coming up:

spotify:artist:3AEmdNd6qoMMKCkoIEdYrp 

First featured on the Only Child Tyrant project, this project is soon going to see a release (or a few) of its own.

Other news: Amon Tobin talked on an episode of the Vinyl Guide which you can listen to here:

spotify:episode:0ayXyRxqr0H734gJ0o7Pli:small 

He chatted on topics such as his label Nomark, working with Bandcamp on releasing vinyl and his journey of using samples in his early days of making music, among other things.

[Sebasty]

A 'new album release on Spotify, but it's actually a 2017 release' post!

It's a score made for the Syndey Opera House event called Vivid Live, where imagery and visual spectacles accompanied by similarly stunning audio get projected on the building's Sails.

This one was called "Audio Creatures" and the imagery was created by Ash Bollard.
It looked like this:

Reddit

Amon created the entire score with his Buchla.

I would describe it as.. a whole lot of sound design, submerged, everything you see emits sound.

spotify:album:3cUBB7GMnH5PDOZLsyXvc2 

very small birds say Figueroa might start emerging in July. I am excited!!!!