Without question one of the most intense and exhilarating things to drop into the office mailbox so far this year. This is the "twisted brain-wrong of a one-man-mind-mental." And who better to describe the outpourings of Amon Tobin than dangerous television maestro Chris Morris, Tobin's collaborator on 'Bad Sex' and the man with whom the musician shares a chaotic and uniquely disturbing creativity.
Quite how 'Supermodified' can be described in generic terms is certainly tricky. Thank God. It's dark but without employing the dull monotone formulas that have dragged drum and bass down. Funky, without ever approaching 'easy' rhythms. The sound is spawned from a variety of organic sources compressed into the crunching machinery of his studio and ejected in painfully sharp rhythmic shards.
Tobin's mind is where the tearing sub-bass of drum and bass producers like Ed Rush meets the rhythmic charge of batucada and the structural chaos of abstract jazz. The jazz is less prominent on 'Supermodified' than on any of the previous excursions but nonetheless continues to inform the music, Tobin pushing the ever-evolving music into its most contemporary manifestation yet. In his own words: "I fully intend to make records in the future that are more 'jazz'. Just as soon as the epidemic of pretend jazz bands and lame drum 'n' jazzites subsides.." Amen.
So, from the dirty groove of 'Get Your Snack On' and the crashing percussive horrors of 'Golfer vrs Boxer' to the twisted lounge jazz of 'Keepin'It Steel', this is urgently brilliant 21st Century music.
by James Poletti