(07.03.07) “When a robot can conceive of multiple robots and therefore multiple possibilities in addition to itself and its singular possibility, then it will have become self-aware and know all that we know.” –Elvin Walker, from If I Could Talk (Science-Farm, December 21, 2012)
A review of Amon Tobin‘s performance on (May 25th, 2007) opening day of my three-day weekend at Mezzanine in San Francisco, where my heart lies (no I should say, “lives!”). Cab begets Mission begets 4th begets alley begets Mezzanine which, in turn, begets a struggle with the staff. Who are you? Isn’t my name on the list? I smoke. Earlier, Autobono (1/2 of The Luxury Tax) and I labored apartment-mover-style for their sins and we will not now be deterred by these employees. We’ve come to see Amon Tobin! Amon Tobin, who introduced me to found sound! Amon Tobin, who’s website sings and dances! Amon Tobin, in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea journey across America in tears to the door of… well …Mezzanine. Mezzanine, where the girls are young and horny and the lemon drops cost $9.
INSIDE ::
Autobono creeps and crowds through gently writhing bodies. And a DJ (DJ CENTIPEDE? DJ CITIZEN TEN? BROWN MAJIC? …hard to say) who looks French somehow plays a rapper rapping about Rick James over a downtempo beat and it’s gentle, pleasing, soothing, sexy. A calm before the storm. Quiet, damp, bassy, swirling, which morphs into a not-as-funny-as-Beck Beck-sounding-tune/beat/break/then beat wailing words about the soul, and from my vantage point atop an iron perch (more about this later) I conclude that this is not Amon Tobin. Because who knows what these electronic musicians really look like, anyway? With their kooky monikers (although, Amon Adonai Santos de Araujo Tobin really is his name). These guys don’t splash about in the tabloids (all I reads Lil’ Abner). I mean, if Angelina Jolie were playing, I’d fucking know it was her.
Autobono and I continue to perch on our catwalk while the DJ showers us with a magnificent collage of live jazz, funk, and soul samples. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been listening to the more sentimental (less glitch)IDMers these days, but lately I’ve been hearing more and more extended samples which celebrate the long, mournful trumpet line, the complete drum solo break, the meandering stand-up bass. The DJ/audio-collagists are more loyal to these soulful samples (you know, like, music) than to beats and blips, and it’s good. Other DJ’s may say, “I can’t play the long, beautiful, mournful trumpet line because my annoying and music-less 808 beep/blip is just about to start!” While tonight’s warrior poets say, “Let the trumpet sing, let the acoustic drummer brush, let the angels cry. Then let the beep/blip justify itself within this context, let it move slowly in and morph with the other instruments. Intonation, not sequence of events!” they cry, “Let all the angels sing together and create something large, amorphous, chaotic. Something far greater than even the biggest brain could program.” This is the style here. And I like it. A lot. It makes me feel turned on with transcendence, freedom, mystery. Autobono yells, “I thought no one was doing this anymore!” And we climb down the ladder to the drinks and bodies below.
MEZZANINE ::
Mezzanine is rough and tumble, credibly raw, yet classy, huge, comfortable, distinct. Red wall lights accent a grand and expensive assortment of theater-style color gels and beams. Beaming you, then beaming me, beaming scotch to my hands, beaming giggling girls, beaming Autobono, beaming a gnawing desire for meth into my tummy. These post-industrial bars do that to me. And the bathrooms are beautiful! Soft cascades cushion my dry and work-worn hands. Seriously, a clean, well appointed bathroom makes all the difference at a club. This is a comfortable venue: plenty of velvety squares for everyone to sit on. An upstairs bar. Well-staffed, well-loved.
BACK TO THE IRON PEDESTAL AS AMON TOBIN BEGINS TO AN EAGER AUDIENCE ::
Someone bangs on the platform from below and I think with excitement that maybe the crowd is growing rowdier and more riotous! But I realize that we’ve just spilled beer on the cringing dullards below. They cry up their dissent. A tinkling lyre opens the show. Then live drums and blues guitar jump into the now slightly simmering pot of soup. Amon plays not a sample or a loop, but an entire song (recorded with acoustic instruments) which somewhere in the middle bends and speeds-up/slows-down and a new strangeness is introduced and this is where you hear the DJ speaking. Then huge Russian (no, maybe German?) choirs sing chord-chant dirges. Amon looks deep into audience-eyes and I realize that his secret is a combination of audiofile -approved blips and beeps, art-o-file-approved post-structural order-from-chaos-style sound-collage, and hot-girl-approved dark-eyed smoldering Brazilian sexy man-ness. I realize this as Russian choir/chord-chant morphs into slap-happy bass explosions and glitch-irony but then trip-hop. This gleefully boils and bounces around me until Amon borrows a minor chord from one of many swirling tunes, and the sound-collage’s width and intensity grows and grows. The boiling magma inside this Tarkovsky-esque volcano rolls, seethes, marches along and then erupts into jungle-tronic insane vibrations frolicking in surreal dream-double-time-breakbeat -land. The many tunes leap and dance together. No rhyme and reason yet so much rhyme and reason. And girls fill out the melody line with beautiful hooting chants.
Amon’s website these days these days is a virtual found sound field expedition where you navigate through ocean/space first-person-shooter-style finding noises to consider. It’s about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.
Amon Tobin’s Foley Room is out now on Ninja Tune. [Purchase
