Amon Tobin is blinded by the multimedia light in his latest effort ISAM and its stunning live show. (Photo courtesy Nathan Seabrook.)
Electronic musician Amon Tobin launches a formidable one-two punch with his new full-length work, ISAM, and a visually ambitious tour that pairs the record’s sonically challenging music with shape-shifting 3-D animation.
“The idea was to integrate myself, quite literally, into an audio and visual presentation of the album,” the Brazilian-born Tobin told Wired.com in an e-mail interview.
As previewed in the gallery above and the in-depth video below, the live show will find Tobin performing from within an arty geometric hive. Ensconced within the 25-by-14-by-8-foot central cube, Tobin will use real-time projection mapping, generative imagery and audio-reactive elements to produce a brain-teasing electronic music performance with little in the way of precedent.
“The show isn’t about being a big flashy production,” said Tobin of the visual component, which was created by V Squared Labs and Leviathan. “It’s not giant walls of LEDs constantly flashing meaningless visual content at you until you puke. It’s completely unique and actually quite bizarre.”
LISTEN: “Lost & Found” by Amon Tobin
Just as bizarre is Control Over Nature, a collaboration between Tobin and artist Tessa Farmer on exhibit at London’s Crypt Gallery through Sunday. (The exhibit crosses the pond in the fall.)
Control Over Nature matches ISAM’s lush, inorganic soundscapes with Farmer’s sculptures of flies, microbot fairies and decomposing natural life. Photographed by Pelle Crepin, the images in Control Over Nature will be featured in limited-edition packaging for ISAM. (For a look at the imagery, see the gallery above. For a taste of the music, check out “Lost & Found,” at left, or Wired.com’s exclusive download of Two Fingers’ remix of ISAM’s “Surge,” below.)
Tobin’s tour started Wednesday in Montreal, extends through Europe throughout the summer and reaches U.S. shores this fall. We pick Tobin’s brain on digitalism’s divide, DJ culture, scoring film and more in the interview below.
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