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Amon Tobin Interview
Drum and Bass | Wednesday 7th December 2011 | Annalisa
What was the first musical thing you ever did?
I remember being really small, in a park in Brazil, and there was a random TV crew walking around I think for some kids’ show, and they gave us a bunch of pots and pans - me and my other little friends. And they told us to sort of make music with this stuff. I don’t know why I remember that. It was in the Jardim Botânico which is like a big botanical gardens in the middle of Rio, and I remember furiously smacking these pots and pans together and feeling very proud of myself.
Did it just click after that, that this was what you wanted to do?
That was it, that was my direction from then on. I’d tasted fame...
What things inspire you?
Things maybe that I just don’t know much about and that are mysterious to me. I get quite a lot of motivation I think just from learning things that I know nothing about and, like anyone really, just the unfamiliar I guess.
Adventures In Foam was your first album, back in 1996, and now we’re up to your new album ISAM. How has your sound changed over the years?
I guess it’s kind of moved focus from one place to another, but it’s happened quite gradually and slowly so I’d have to maybe go back and hear some earlier stuff... I guess I’m too close to it all really, but it has obviously changed. It’s just a really slow crawl.
The new album includes a lot of field recordings. What kind of places were you going to and what were you getting the sounds from?
Well, on the last album I did a lot of sort of unusual places and I made quite a lot of effort to get kind of unusual sounds. I went to safari parks and factories and all kind of places like that. And on this record what was interesting was that I found that I kind of shifted again, and the focus wasn’t so much on where the sounds were from or trying to find really amazing sounds to begin with. It was more just trying to make little ordinary things sound spectacular, or trying to make I guess very boring, mundane things sound more interesting.
The new live show looks amazing. What kind of atmosphere were you trying to make with it?
It’s more I guess just a way to kind of make my musical movements and my physical movements on stage be a bit more interesting that watching me doing what I would be doing. Because, really, I’m making electronic music which is fascinating to make, but really boring to watch someone make.You’ve got to think of ways to make what you’re doing something worth coming to see. I try to make myself integrated into something much bigger than me on stage, so that if people come they’re not gonna be watching some nerd twiddling knobs, which is what’s really going on...
What do you want your music to do to people?
I guess what music does to me is it affects me on an emotional level really. I’m certainly not trying to challenge anyone or make them think or use their mind particularly. I really want people to be affected by something a little less specific than that, you know. I mean there are definitely things that I find personally really interesting about music because I make music, and I’ll maybe go past the first few listens to a track I really love, try and analyse it, figure out how it was done, and that’s open to everybody. But primarily I hope that it connects with people in a way that’s a bit more primal than that.
What was it like making the soundtrack for the video game Splinter Cell?
It was between me and Lalo Schifrin if you can believe that, and I was really intimidated. At some point we were talking about working together, even. That would have been amazing, but I ended up doing it. Each track had to have I think four layers of intensity. So, the first layer had to be a kind of investigative, you know, like you’re creeping around, you’re a bit tense, but you’re fine, and then something would happen and you’d get a bit more stressed, and it’d carry on going up until you were really freaked out...
Do you play video games?
You know, I used to play a lot on tour. It was great because there were these big times of dead space going from one city to another and we had a lot of fun in the back of the tour bus playing Halo. I still occasionally dip in and get my arse kicked by some teenager, but I just haven’t had much time recently.
What was your most memorable gig?
I remember one with Kid Koala in South Africa where we played in an ex-prison in Johannesburg, which is great because it was a prison where all these famous prisoners had been kept through the apartheid era and Nelson Mandela had been in there. And the courtyard of the prison had been converted into this space to celebrate the end of apartheid. We had this great show, there was this really great atmosphere and then halfway through the night it started pouring with rain, and everyone was dancing in the rain. It looked like a video from the 80s... Our equipment started shorting out because of all the rain, and this woman appeared like some sort of angelic figure next to me with this enormous umbrella, and I did the rest of the show under it.
Are you going to any festivals this summer?
I’m just doing some shows this summer, and then next year I’ll come out and do some festivals if all goes well. This year we’re just sort of laying the ground work for this show. Fingers crossed that it all kind of comes together, and we’ll see how it goes.
What’s next for you?
There are some collaborations that I really want to do. There’s a guy called Patrick Watson from Montreal, and we’ve been talking about doing a sort of strange kind of electronic piano record for some time. Actually Kid Koala as well, and also Eskmo. We wanted to expand on our Eskmon record which we did last year. So there’s a few people I’d really love to do some music with. But yeah, I’ll probably be doing quite a few shows as well as the year goes by, and at some point if I get to just chill out and sit on the beach or whatever, that’d be great too.
If you could fill a swimming pool with anything, what would it be?
I suppose it has to be jelly, really.
It’d have to have a diving board as well, wouldn’t it?
Yeah, there’s a sort of animated film, I’m trying to remember what the name of it is, something to do with spaghetti and meatballs... There’s a scene in it where they have a sort of jelly palace and the characters are diving around in jelly, and that just looks like a lot of fun.
Can you give us an exclusive?
The girl on the record is me. It’s not really a girl. Yeah, I synthesised my voice to be a girl singing. There you go.
Amon Tobins new album ISAM is out to buy and download now at www.amontobin.com
I remember being really small, in a park in Brazil, and there was a random TV crew walking around I think for some kids’ show, and they gave us a bunch of pots and pans - me and my other little friends. And they told us to sort of make music with this stuff. I don’t know why I remember that. It was in the Jardim Botânico which is like a big botanical gardens in the middle of Rio, and I remember furiously smacking these pots and pans together and feeling very proud of myself.
Did it just click after that, that this was what you wanted to do?
That was it, that was my direction from then on. I’d tasted fame...
What things inspire you?
Things maybe that I just don’t know much about and that are mysterious to me. I get quite a lot of motivation I think just from learning things that I know nothing about and, like anyone really, just the unfamiliar I guess.
Adventures In Foam was your first album, back in 1996, and now we’re up to your new album ISAM. How has your sound changed over the years?
I guess it’s kind of moved focus from one place to another, but it’s happened quite gradually and slowly so I’d have to maybe go back and hear some earlier stuff... I guess I’m too close to it all really, but it has obviously changed. It’s just a really slow crawl.
The new album includes a lot of field recordings. What kind of places were you going to and what were you getting the sounds from?
Well, on the last album I did a lot of sort of unusual places and I made quite a lot of effort to get kind of unusual sounds. I went to safari parks and factories and all kind of places like that. And on this record what was interesting was that I found that I kind of shifted again, and the focus wasn’t so much on where the sounds were from or trying to find really amazing sounds to begin with. It was more just trying to make little ordinary things sound spectacular, or trying to make I guess very boring, mundane things sound more interesting.
The new live show looks amazing. What kind of atmosphere were you trying to make with it?
It’s more I guess just a way to kind of make my musical movements and my physical movements on stage be a bit more interesting that watching me doing what I would be doing. Because, really, I’m making electronic music which is fascinating to make, but really boring to watch someone make.You’ve got to think of ways to make what you’re doing something worth coming to see. I try to make myself integrated into something much bigger than me on stage, so that if people come they’re not gonna be watching some nerd twiddling knobs, which is what’s really going on...
What do you want your music to do to people?
I guess what music does to me is it affects me on an emotional level really. I’m certainly not trying to challenge anyone or make them think or use their mind particularly. I really want people to be affected by something a little less specific than that, you know. I mean there are definitely things that I find personally really interesting about music because I make music, and I’ll maybe go past the first few listens to a track I really love, try and analyse it, figure out how it was done, and that’s open to everybody. But primarily I hope that it connects with people in a way that’s a bit more primal than that.
What was it like making the soundtrack for the video game Splinter Cell?
It was between me and Lalo Schifrin if you can believe that, and I was really intimidated. At some point we were talking about working together, even. That would have been amazing, but I ended up doing it. Each track had to have I think four layers of intensity. So, the first layer had to be a kind of investigative, you know, like you’re creeping around, you’re a bit tense, but you’re fine, and then something would happen and you’d get a bit more stressed, and it’d carry on going up until you were really freaked out...
Do you play video games?
You know, I used to play a lot on tour. It was great because there were these big times of dead space going from one city to another and we had a lot of fun in the back of the tour bus playing Halo. I still occasionally dip in and get my arse kicked by some teenager, but I just haven’t had much time recently.
What was your most memorable gig?
I remember one with Kid Koala in South Africa where we played in an ex-prison in Johannesburg, which is great because it was a prison where all these famous prisoners had been kept through the apartheid era and Nelson Mandela had been in there. And the courtyard of the prison had been converted into this space to celebrate the end of apartheid. We had this great show, there was this really great atmosphere and then halfway through the night it started pouring with rain, and everyone was dancing in the rain. It looked like a video from the 80s... Our equipment started shorting out because of all the rain, and this woman appeared like some sort of angelic figure next to me with this enormous umbrella, and I did the rest of the show under it.
Are you going to any festivals this summer?
I’m just doing some shows this summer, and then next year I’ll come out and do some festivals if all goes well. This year we’re just sort of laying the ground work for this show. Fingers crossed that it all kind of comes together, and we’ll see how it goes.
What’s next for you?
There are some collaborations that I really want to do. There’s a guy called Patrick Watson from Montreal, and we’ve been talking about doing a sort of strange kind of electronic piano record for some time. Actually Kid Koala as well, and also Eskmo. We wanted to expand on our Eskmon record which we did last year. So there’s a few people I’d really love to do some music with. But yeah, I’ll probably be doing quite a few shows as well as the year goes by, and at some point if I get to just chill out and sit on the beach or whatever, that’d be great too.
If you could fill a swimming pool with anything, what would it be?
I suppose it has to be jelly, really.
It’d have to have a diving board as well, wouldn’t it?
Yeah, there’s a sort of animated film, I’m trying to remember what the name of it is, something to do with spaghetti and meatballs... There’s a scene in it where they have a sort of jelly palace and the characters are diving around in jelly, and that just looks like a lot of fun.
Can you give us an exclusive?
The girl on the record is me. It’s not really a girl. Yeah, I synthesised my voice to be a girl singing. There you go.
Amon Tobins new album ISAM is out to buy and download now at www.amontobin.com
