Amon Tobin Permutation CD

Amon Tobin stands at a rhythmic crossroads only his bi-continental background can explain. His head-nod is infected with hip-hop beats, his mind reels with jungle's accelerated breaks, and he strides to a sampledelic bebop swing; yet Tobin's musical soul is also saturated with the sounds of his Brazilian heritage. The most perfect moments on PERMUTATION, his second full-length album, happen in the fusion of modern rhythms and styles with the Carnival drums of the Bahia region or with the Bossa Nova pop sounds that have been Rio's musical calling cards since the early '60s.

Like DJ Shadow, with whom he shares a creative methodology if not source material, Tobin sculpts pieces out of found sources and the beats he attaches to them. Unlike Shadow, Tobin's beats pledge allegiance to no single rhythmic style. The quieter tracks move peacefully on striding basslines and abstract horn jams or drift by as ambient-lounge bossas. And when Tobin unleashes the breakbeat flurries of his more junglist tendencies, he draws upon the powers of the dozens-strong samba drum brigades of his homeland, fusing them with dark jungle's shrill sound effects and bebop's piano/bass phrases and tempos. Together, they make up a soundtrack to a rhythmically diverse, global-minded future.Rolling Stone (6/9-23/98, p.136) - 3.5 (out of 5) - "...a breakbeat workout cybernetically constructed out of jazz drumming samples, phasing effects and backward masking..."
CMJ (1/11/99, p.5) - "...With his dense, cinematic collages of jazzy drums, film scores, samba grooves and instrumental phrases, the Brazillian-born Tobin has become quite and accomplished composer....the brains and style to become the true hi-fi soundtrack to the 21st Century."