OUT SOUNDS FROM WAY OUT
Nov 1, 2002 12:00 PM, By Ken Micallef
Raised like a nomad traveling between the musically fertile nations of Brazil and England, Amon Tobin soaked in the sights and the sounds of panglobal cultures. Perhaps that inspired the adult Tobin, whose puzzle-piece sampling epics crisscross classical, jazz, hip-hop, breaks and spacey cartoon noises.
Using primarily a sampler, a multi-effects unit and a computer (currently an Akai S6000, a TC Electronic FireworX and a Mac G4), Tobin has recorded Bricolage (Ninja Tune, 1997), Permutation (Ninja Tune, 1998) and Supermodified (Ninja Tune, 2000), each album trumping the previous for sheer sonic scope. Unlike electronic music with a one-dimensional, linear slant, Tobin's records are enormous-sounding affairs in which orchestral instruments, gelatinous bass and morphing rhythms stretch river deep and mountain high.
“I want to make very big sounds, but I also want them to have real presence,” says Tobin from his Montreal home. “Sometimes, the detail can get a bit overwhelming, but the production style is about using the stereo field to the maximum effect. I try to place sounds all over the stereo field, and I adjust frequencies to try to give the feeling of layered sound.”
Out From Out Where (2002), Tobin's fourth Ninja Tune release, is a lush montage of sounds. Tobin puts it all down to frequencies and how to move them. “I'll have a horn line and a guitar line,” he explains, “and I might make the horn line really shrill so that there is no bass frequency in it whatsoever, and then the guitar line will eat up the middle frequency. I separate everything so it sits in its own space. Ultimately, it is all about trying to get the most out of the range of frequencies. Also, a lot of electronic music sounds are very dry, but I am using source material that is more colorful. There is a resonance that gives a sound a more layered, textured feel than you get with an electronically generated sound.”
Between the symphonic escapades, Tobin includes “Verbal,” a swirling, booming bass track with choppy, rapid-fire rapping. “That was really laborious,” says Tobin. “I took all of the words and spliced and isolated all the syllables in each word and then rearranged them to make not different words, but different sounds. I triggered them like I would drums; instead of having kicks and snares, I had little individual syllables. I programmed them like I would a drumbeat — all done in the Akai S6000 — and I separated the syllables onto different keys on a Roland keyboard and triggered them via the sequencer. I did lots of pitch harmonizing with formant filtering, like taking the vowels out. [TC Electronic] FireworX lets you apply filters that relate to the vowels in each word. You can make them more sharp and staccato. I also made little chords with some of them so that it sounded like a chorus. It is all from the same source, with different processors. You can really hear it on the a cappella version on the vinyl. It is funny considering that there isn't a complete word in the entire rhyme!”
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