'Back From Space' is an apposite title for the inaugural track of a new Amon Tobin album.
After all, this is a producer whose unique musical headspace seems to lie somewhere between a Tolkienesque 'Other World' inhabited by mischievous elves and grumpy goblins, and a swirling Arthur C Clarke universe where moody Martians and star-filled galaxies provide active inspiration.
Armed with this sublimely original vision, Tobin has been wowing us with breakbeat-fuelled fantasy music for a few years now, mostly through the Ninja imprint. 'Out Of Nowhere' is his fourth album and continues and expands on his excursions into eerily-lit ether-worlds, pulling together the cosmically nice and the sonically nasty with a demented, devil-may-care-glee. Rhythm has always been intrinsic to Tobin's work and it's certainly central to this album.
There's a thrillingly serrated edge to his home-made beats - and most of his sounds for that matter - which lend a sense of hard-core influenced urgency to his music. Even the vocals on tracks like 'Verbal' (featuring MC Decimal R) and 'Triple Science' are clipped into addictively rhythmic patter and tapped out across stunningly diverse backdrops.
Within Tobin's razor sharp compositions, surprise is everything. One minute you're fearing for your life as you travel through deep, brooding canyons full of soundtrack noir and gritty dancefloor menace; the next you're being gently lifted onto transcendent plateaus via string-laden harmonies and captivating guitar strums.
While every track bears it's author's indelible signature, we are swung through romance and ruffage, revelry and reverie, breakbeat and blissbeat, often within the same track.
Like listening to DJ Shadow after vast amounts of Angel Dust, 'Out Of Nowhere' is a sonic Hall Of Mirrors that bulges and bristles with restless inventiveness and illustrates an impressive attention to detail. Back from space Tobin may be, but he's still very much in the clouds.
