Amon Tobin

Amon Tobin earns broad recognition as an innovative electronic musician for recordings that apply techniques more typical of cinematic sound design than standard music production, as well as for his enveloping live performances that fuse sound with visuals. Early works such as the 1997 album Bricolage relied heavily on samples drawn from vintage jazz and blues discs, slicing percussion into agitated breakbeats combined with warped brass and dark basslines. Although Tobin's sample-based output of the 1990s often suggested drum'n'bass or trip-hop, later releases including Supermodified in 2000 made his approach increasingly difficult to classify. Sophisticated sound-design practices and film-like arrangements brought scoring commissions for video games such as the 2005 title Chaos Theory: Splinter Cell 3 and for independent films including Taxidermia in 2006. In 2009 he launched the Two Fingers project, originally a collaboration with Doubleclick, to investigate bass-driven styles like dubstep and grime. The 2011 solo album ISAM employed advanced synthesis processing and supplied the foundation for a pioneering live show built around video-mapping methods. His 2019 full-length Fear in a Handful of Dust represented a further evolution, removing drums entirely and drawing instead from electro-acoustic and contemporary composition rather than dance music.

Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1972, Tobin moved with his family through several countries in Europe and North Africa before they settled in Brighton, England, during his teenage years. He started producing sample-based music in his bedroom using his personal vinyl collection. While studying editorial photography at a university in Brighton, he submitted a demo to the London label Ninebar, which signed him as Cujo in 1995. The Curfew EP appeared that year, followed by three additional EPs and the 1996 album Adventures in Foam. Its unconventional, jazz-infused interpretation of drum'n'bass and trip-hop drew attention across the U.K. electronic scene, resulting in Cujo tracks appearing on dozens of compilations; an unauthorized U.S. edition of Adventures in Foam with a changed track list and artwork was issued by Shadow Records. Tobin soon signed with Ninja Tune under his own name, releasing the four-track Creatures EP at the end of 1996. The critically acclaimed full-length Bricolage followed in 1997, succeeded by the EPs Mission, Chomp Samba, and Piranha Breaks. Permutation, more overtly jazz-oriented and featuring the Eraserhead-sampling track “Like Regular Chickens,” appeared in 1998. His fourth album, Supermodified, came out in 2000 and was quickly followed by the 4 Ton Mantis EP containing remixes by Roots Manuva and Bonobo.

Tobin moved to Montreal, home of Ninja Tune’s North American headquarters, in 2002. That year he released Out from Out Where, his first album recorded mainly in a professional studio and his most intricate work to date. The Verbal EP appeared around the same time, while the separate Verbal Remixes & Collaborations, featuring Kid Koala, Kid606, Prefuse 73, and others, arrived in 2003. Solid Steel Presents Amon Tobin: Recorded Live, a DJ set for Ninja Tune’s Solid Steel radio program, was issued in 2004, with track listings varying between territories due to licensing restrictions. Also that year the limited 12-inch single “Angel of Theft,” a metal-influenced breakcore track credited to the pseudonym Player with a logo paying tribute to Slayer, was released on blood-red vinyl. His soundtrack to the video game Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory appeared in early 2005, several months before the game itself. The album was created with an extensive cast of musicians rather than samples, marking a major departure from earlier work. Foley Room in 2007 was assembled from field recordings captured by Tobin with an omnidirectional microphone, along with contributions from musicians including the Kronos Quartet and harpist Sarah Pagé.

While Tobin’s solo material grew increasingly experimental and cinematic, he formed the duo Two Fingers with British producer Doubleclick and issued more accessible music shaped by hip-hop and dubstep. The self-titled Two Fingers album appeared on Big Dada in 2009, featuring guest vocalists such as British grime MC Sway, Jamaican dancehall singer Ce'cile, and Timbaland-associated American rapper Ms. Jade. An instrumental version of the album was also released. In 2011 Tobin issued ISAM, a self-described sound sculpture, for which he developed a highly advanced audiovisual live performance. ISAM Live was released on CD and DVD in 2012 and included in the limited Amon Tobin Boxset, which also contained numerous other live recordings, scores, remixes, and rarities. Stunt Rhythms, Two Fingers’ second album and the first recorded solely by Tobin after Doubleclick’s departure, appeared in 2012. Two Fingers’ Six Rhythms EP was released by Noisia’s Division label in 2015, while Tobin’s Dark Jovian EP appeared on Ninja Tune the same year. Fear in a Handful of Dust, his first proper album in eight years, was issued on his own Nomark label in 2019.