eMusic Review 0
Brazilian ex-pat soundtracker and beatmaker Amon Tobin has always been particularly fixated on the sampling aspect of contemporary electronic music. However, for his latest, perhaps greatest album, Foley Room, he's cast his net out still further, into ambient and field recording. Tobin's hardly the first person to do so, of course, yet Foley Room is unique in its blend of “found” sounds, whose original identity is often obscured beyond recognition, acoustic instruments and all the state-of-the-art cutlery of 21st-century electronica. Harps, strings, drones, ghostly, ancient Wurlitzers, even the sound of chickpeas being strewn across drumskins all help make up the fabric here. Tobin has harvested the infinite variety of the old world to create something utterly new.
Opener “Bloodstone” features the Kronos Quartet, a group who have always sought out every possible interface between the “classical” and the modern. Here, they create an unsettling, unsteady weave, with a mixture of preplanned, processed and improvised playing, whose emphasis is adjusted according to the distance of the mikes. “Esther S” is ethereal, ectoplasmic even, with its unearthly, revving motions — Tobin himself describes it as “modern day surf music.” He's at unusual pains to describe the methods and origins of his work… read more »
