'ISAM' - Full album with track-by-track commentary from Amon Tobin by Amon Tobin

What is “ISAM”? A transmission from a distant planet? A gateway into an alternate reality? A codename for a new psychotropic? A freshly discovered planet? A secret swinger’s network? A liberation theology? A soundtrack to the ultimate snuff movie? Nonsense? The only sense in town?

Re-drawing and blurring the lines between psychedelia and sci-fi, between art and entertainment, between sound design and melody, Amon Tobin has created the finest, most intense work of his very considerable career, an extension and refinement of everything he has achieved thus far, a crowning achievement in the process that he describes as “re-ordering the things around me.”

Tobin’s earliest work, in his own words, “took bits of existing music from old records and tried to find new contexts for them.” This led to albums like “Bricolage” and “Supermodified” (the clues being in the titles). Gradually, though, the samples “got smaller and smaller and more processed until they became less about context or reference and more like a physical reincarnation of sounds.” This led to the next stage in Tobin’s development, his last album, “Foley Room,” where he followed a Cage-ian tack and “looked at all sounds as potentially musical,” ending up using his own field recordings of lions, wolves, bees, factories and so on. With “ISAM” Amon started with field recordings but then synthesised the sounds and built them into actual playable instruments. With these instruments he then created the album. The vocals are Amon Tobin's for the first time, synthesised and gender modified. “It’s by far the most exciting development in my personal quest for some control over nature,” Tobin explains. “Anything from a grain of found sound to my own voice can be transformed into something new.”

The result.......
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Bartek Chaciński (http://polifonia.blog.polityka.pl/)
"(...) Płyty słabiej jak na AT zrytmizowanej, bo – jak sam autor ocenia – „Jakie połamane rytmy? Hej, mamy rok 2011!”, skoncentrowanej na brzmieniach i nieistniejących, wirtualnych instrumentach, które Brazylijczyk tworzy na bazie sampli i obrabia z mozołem w domu. Z wokalami przetwarzanymi i transponowanymi do tego stopnia, żeby się wydawało, że śpiewają tu różne osoby – podczas gdy oryginalnie głos dawał tylko autor. Z pomysłami bardzo udziwnionymi, nawet jak na scenę elektroniczną, zahaczającymi o sonoryzm. Słowem: Amon Tobin jest ciągle w awangardzie, jeśli chodzi o inżynierię dźwiękową. Z etapu gramofonisty przeszedł płynnie na etap niezwykle sprawnej komputerowej obróbki dźwięku i przygotowywania nowych zestawów brzmień na bazie sampli. Wrażenie robią przede wszystkim sfingowane instrumenty smyczkowe – ani oryginał, ani syntetyk, do jakiego się przyzwyczailiśmy. Mam wrażenie, że to Amon Tobin, a nie Mark Fell (tu piję do wydanej właśnie płyty „Manitutshu”) powinien projektować barwy do nowych syntezatorów (...)"



What is “ISAM”? A transmission from a distant planet? A gateway into an alternate reality? A codename for a new psychotropic? A freshly discovered planet? A secret swinger’s network? A liberation theology? A soundtrack to the ultimate snuff movie? Nonsense? The only sense in town?

Re-drawing and blurring the lines between psychedelia and sci-fi, between art and entertainment, between sound design and melody, Amon Tobin has created the finest, most intense work of his very considerable career, an extension and refinement of everything he has achieved thus far, a crowning achievement in the process that he describes as “re-ordering the things around me.”

Tobin’s earliest work, in his own.......
more