Supermodified

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
Supermodified is the stunning fourth album from Amon Tobin. Hard-edged tracks like "Four Ton Mantis" and "Saboteur" are juxtaposed against melodic downbeat excursions like "Slowly", "Marine Machines" and "Natureland". "Deo" fuses a Brazilian guitar sample with razor sharp break-beats that sound like Egberto Gismonti jamming with Squarepusher. "Precursor" (a collaboration with Montreal beatboxer Quadraceptor) merges off-the-wall scat rhythms with jazzy guitar riffs. "Golfer Vs Boxer" sounds like the bastard child of Innerzone Orchestra's "Bug In The Bassbin". Supermodified is an album where generic conventions get turned on their heads, as Latin, drum 'n' bass, bossa nova and jazzy instrumentation collide with genetically modified oscillations and polyrhythms: break-beats have been sculpted from spitting and farting; bass sounds have materialised from motorbikes and tubas. This all adds weight to the fact that Amon Tobin is a truly experimental artist who has mutated caustic beats with sumptuous melodies to produce a hauntingly seductive album. --Terna Heuston-Jibo

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Description
This disc is so textured, it practically suggests the soundof sludge. Dense samples are layered one on top of another,creating a thick, intriguing environment. The grooves are relentless, sometimes underpinned with a heavy bass drone. Attimes, like on the terrific "Rhino Jockey", wonderful tidalwaves of sound come pounding out of the speakers. And even though some of record sounds like Ellington and Gershwin going to hell on a holiday with Alec Empire, there are plenty of more laid back and jazz-flavoured moments. There's even the eccentric Quadraceptor doing his kooky human beatbox on "Precursor".
But these are just the beginnings of this discs' many pleasures, which will reveal themselves upon repeated listens.

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About the Artist
A dark, perverse call of 'Eureka' echoes around Amon's lab/studio as something new takes shape. Like an alternate universe in a Philip K. Dick novel, Amon's musical spaces are based on the familiar, but one must wonder as one journeys through it, what is real- and whether the world will ever look the same again.

Cutting up source material into tiny bits, Amon has elevated the sampler from tool to instrument, creating worlds of sound from stacks of vinyl and a multitude of genres, from jazz to Bollywood, from Brazilian rhythms to hip hop.  And while the music is a feast of samples, everything found is new again, as it's warped, filtered, reversed and distorted as some fantastic breakbeat monster.

Amon first recorded as Cujo for Ninebar Records, culminating in his debut album, "Adventures In Foam". Ninja heard an early 12" and began speaking to him - the result was 1997's classic, "Bricolage". Described as being like "stuffing Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey and Mingus into a compression chamber..." (Rough Guide To Drum & Bass), the album was an international success. It was followed up by the darker but no less rhythmically stunning "Permutation". People began comparing Amon to Ennio Morricone, artists as diverse as David Byrne and Cannibal Corpse went out of their way to praise him and Tobin found himself playing sold out shows at the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Knitting Factory in New York and the Coachella Festival. In fact, so successful was Amon in North America that "Permutation" was the best selling album of '98 for the renowned Other Music store in NYC, outselling the likes of Bjork, Massive Attack and Air.

Following the massive success of "Permutation" Amon dropped "Supermodified", which was in some ways a departure, in others a development of everything that had gone before. The record is an experiment in sound - bass sounds made from motorbikes and tubas, breaks made from spitting and farting. The warped creativity continued was undoubtedly enhanced by Tobin's choice of collaborators. Chris Morris (of Brass Eye and Blue Jam fame) appears on "Bad Sex" ("Now chuck the spade at the child...") released on the "Slowly" 10" (April 2000), while Precursor features Montreal cyber-beatboxer Quadraceptor double-timing it like his tongue's on fire.

All of which brings us to "Out From Out Where".  Darker, more complex, even more rhythmically driving and intense than ever before, this huge record has cemented Tobin's reputation as one of the most innovative and important names in electronic music today.  Taking a compositional approach, Tobin delivers massive widescreen lush production, flips hip hop on its head with the barely decipherable 'Verbal', gives sci-fi a new soundtrack with 'Back from Space' and screws with our understanding of what is possible.

"Out From Out Where" differs from its predecessors in that they were made using only found sound (most of them generated by Amon himself) while here he steps back to some slightly more traditional sources (displaying in particular, a love of guitar licks). But when Tobin takes a sample source, he is never happy until he has smashed and messed with it until it sounds like something straight from his head. And not just anywhere in his head, but that dingy, cobwebbed corner where no one should go…  

In fact, this has to be the most straight-up nasty and dangerous album that Tobin has yet made - music with the power to lull you into a false sense of security, and dropping seriously subversive hints that all is not as it seems, and possibly, never ever was. Collaborating with notables such as Steinski and Kid Koala in the months since the album, Amon has shown his ability to mesh his sound with musical sources outside of those he creates and recreates in his own studio.  This can only keep us guessing where he will lead us to next.

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-08-12 rating:
Featuring 'Quadraceptor' (!)
Laterally, 'Supermodified' is a mood piece, sound-scapes etc, but as a concept, I'm afraid it's off the rails. It doesn't draw the line, it's in over it's head - I get a disturbing feeling that it's something to be scared of.
The road Amon Tobin is walking, isn't gonna lead anywhere good.
'Supermodified' is extremely corrupt. Full of decadent ideas and whims all crammed up against each other like lemmings. It conjures up areas of mystery and sultry dynamics, readily striking maddening chords in reviewers, like yours truly, who vociferously decry 'rock' in all it's insidious forms, but hypocritically embrace it's very fundamentals at every opportunity.
'Supermodified' has as it's granddaddy, 23 Skidoo's epic 'Seven Songs' from way-back. It has the same granite intensity, the same uncompromising fluidity.
I know nothing about Amon Tobin, I'm non-plussed about his hap-hazard title, and I'm immediately suspicious of anything 'Featuring Quadraceptor' (what IS that!?) but you get the feeling he shouldn't be confined, plonking away in dank, dungeon-esque studio's. He should be out in the sunshine, floating over field and dale, invoking mind-imagery in a classical music sense. Film work surely beckons.
'Supermodified' is the angular, spiky world of 'electronic brush-strokes' to cosh a cliché, but it's surprisingly diverse, deceptively melodic and, after a good few spins, genuinely haunting.
Deconstructivist jollity aside, I was riveted by 'Supermodified' and I wouldn't mind more. I just wish I could be sure it was safe.

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review by: d.j.a. date: 2008-04-25 rating:
Moresome!
Amon Tobin is a class act... period!

Search out all his work, including Cujo, and you will never be disappointed whenever you play him in all your years to come.

Genius... the guy is an artistic genius.

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review by: date: 2005-10-27 rating:
You NEED this!!!
This guy is seriously cool, and incredibly talented.

As has been said numerous times already, Amon Tobin's music cannot be easily pigeon-holed into a particular genre. As a guide, just realise that Tobin is the biggest selling Ninja Tune artist. Given that, you will know to expect top-quality beats.

Part Drum & Bass, part breakbeat, part hip-hop beats, and always catchy, Supermodified has a bit of everything. This album, more than any of his others (except "Chaos Theory") really creates that oft described "cinematic" atmosphere. You can't listen to 'Four Ton Mantis' and it's steady build to crescendo without imaging it being the title track to some hi-tech thriller movie. The experience is recreated in many of the other tracks, such as 'Rhino Jockey'.

'Deo' is another standout track. Try listening to this slow-tempo number without waiting in anticipation for the chime-esque effect that occurs every so often during it. It's just brilliant.

'Slowly' again shows that Tobin can slow things down from his often break-neck speed beats. Cool jazz and some fresh beats has never sounded so good.

In conclusion: Perfect, absolutely perfect. Chill-out to it, get psyched-up by it, do anything with it on. It's just brilliant.

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review by: date: 2005-06-05 rating:
Take it "Slowly"..............
Oh boy! "slowly" that is such a gorgeous track.
Mr Tobin you were inspired when you recorded this.


review by: date: 2002-03-27 rating:
Unrhythmical and devoid of any melody
How this has received so many 5 star reviews is beyond me. This CD is devoid of any real rhythm or groove to make your head rock. Yes there are many various styles used but it doesn't add to the final product instead it sounds like a mish mash of a sampling machine and sound effects.

Most tracks immediately turn me off and despite wanting to get into this it will not be one of those CD's that I return to in a few weeks, months or years as it is going into the bin. All I can say is that if you do choose to buy this then it will be money poorly spent...

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