Amon Adonai Santos de Araujo Tobin was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He acquired the surname Tobin from his Irish stepfather. After travelling back and forth between Brazil and Portugal, he eventually relocated to England at an early age, where hip hop, jungle, blues and jazz caught his interest. He released four EPs and an album, Adventures in Foam, under Cujo moniker which he borrowed from a Stephen King novel, before he signed with Ninja Tune in late 1996. He has since released six critically acclaimed albums under his own name. He is well known for his song "Saboteur", which was featured as the main theme for the 2003 movie The Italian Job, along with the opening credits theme 'Slowly' in éS Footwear's 2000 skateboarding epic Menikmati.
After a three-year hiatus from releasing any major original work, he was contracted by video game company Ubisoft to compose the soundtrack for Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, released in 2005.
Tobin is perhaps best known for his creative use of sampling. He uses everything from old recordings to motorcycles (Foley Room) and even the acoustics of buildings (Out From Out Where) and stretches and skews them often beyond recognition. Resonances, delays, reverbs and a wide variety of sound effects also contribute to transform what was once familiar into something grotesque and unnatural. Psychedelic ambiences are frequently blended with retro-jazz beats, creating a barrier of apparently incoherent sound layers. This uniqueness and complexity make the task of categorizing his music a difficult one. Each of his albums introduces new polyrhythms and soundscapes.
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Tags: Amon Tobin Saboteur
