Amon Tobin: Out From Out Where

At his best, Amon Tobin provides a serviceable answer to those who wonder what drum 'n' bass might sound like had it continued expanding beyond its heady mid-'90s surge. On 2000's Supermodified, the Brazilian-born DJ/producer evoked the genre's fateful implosion without succumbing to it, smearing choppy beat clips and worldly diversions into a forward-looking style that borrowed jungle's approach while deserting the formula that bottomed out in jazzy tatters and breakneck speed wrecks. Fleeing his own formula with equal force, Tobin offers up an even bolder future-music manifesto with Out From Out Where, which discards all vestiges of his organic leanings in favor of a fractious mechanistic maze. Starting with the ominous fugues and scraping skid sounds of "Back From Space," the album leers back at tech-step, the horror-infused style that swept drum 'n' bass deep into the dark side. Ferociously dense tracks like "Chronic Tronic" and "Searchers" blow a lot of depth into their difficult airs, matching bristly beat exchanges with claustrophobic constraints and cinematic orchestration. On "Verbal," Tobin takes a studious approach to the gameful cut-up technique that makes and breaks artists like Kid 606. But for all its diligent progressivism, Out From Out Where collapses under its own weight, sounding every bit as stubborn and hermetic as Autechre's infamous Confield. The album's vacuum-sealed atmosphere smokes out the funk that gave Supermodified its redemptive wiggle, and the labyrinthine beat patterns wind a circuitous path to nowhere in particular. Out From Out Where preserves Tobin's impressive claim to singularity, but it also signals a direction best left in isolation.