Recorded Live: Solid Steel Presents
Label: Ninja Tune
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Recorded Live: Solid Steel Presents
Joining the likes of labelmates Hexstatic, The Herbalizer and DJ Food, Amon Tobin has become the author of the fourth chapter in Ninja Tune’s Solid Steel releases with this live album recorded in Melbourne, Australia. Some critics may claim that drum & bass is dead, but Tobin demonstrates that there’s still a great deal of unexplored territory in the genre, once you move past the looped cutups of “Funky Drummer” and subwoofer-damaging infrasonic bass lines of contemporary “jungle” music. Filled with thick, lush textures and outer-space reverbs, this album moves through soundscapes rapidly enough to fit almost 30 cuts into an hour. Most of the tracks will be familiar to those who have followed Tobin’s previous releases, and those few tracks from other artists (such as Danny Breaks and Suspicious Circumstances) fit in well with his jazzy, sci-fi repertoire. Assembled with special software and hardware called “Final Scratch,” this album gives a glimpse into the future of electronica, both in its content and its construction. A superb mix with both style and substance, this album works wonderfully for road-trip driving or head-trip introspection.
This article appears in Aug 11-17, 2004.