Amon Tobin made his name with the most distinctive sampladelic electronica in the business, and kept at it for longer than most, but eventually began trading in samples of jazz vinyl for field recordings and bands he’s captained.
ISAM is his second straight invisible soundtrack, after 2007’s Foley Room, and as before, it shows Tobin fascinated with the science of sound.
Short on beats but long on atmosphere, ISAM plays out like the soundtrack to some bizarre nature documentary: it continually pauses, goes off in another direction, halts again, then sits unmoving for a time, as though Tobin had been musically ghosting the movements of a tiny insect traveling along a leaf.
That's not to say the production is naturalistic; in keeping with his usual style, the beats are massive and speaker-shuddering, but they rarely coalesce into a specific pattern.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that Tobin succeeds despite this challenging rubric; ever since he began dabbling in video-game soundtracks, he's showed an intriguing resilience at making excellent music no matter what challenges he places in his way.
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JourneymanAmon Tobin | Amon Tobin | Play | 06:38 | 15 MB | 42 MB |
| 2 | Piece of PaperAmon Tobin | Amon Tobin | Play | 02:40 | 6 MB | 18 MB |
| 3 | Goto 10Amon Tobin | Amon Tobin | Play | 04:20 | 9 MB | 32 MB |
| 4 | SurgeAmon Tobin | Amon Tobin | Play | 02:05 | 4 MB | 13 MB |
| 5 | Lost & FoundAmon Tobin | Amon Tobin | Play | 04:54 | 11 MB | 27 MB |
| 6 | Wooden ToyAmon Tobin | Amon Tobin | Play | 02:25 | 5 MB | 16 MB |
| 7 | Mass & SpringAmon Tobin | Amon Tobin | Play | 04:16 | 9 MB | 26 MB |
| 8 | CalculateAmon Tobin | Amon Tobin | Play | 01:33 | 3 MB | 7 MB |
| 9 | Kitty CatAmon Tobin | Amon Tobin | Play | 04:16 | 9 MB | 29 MB |
| 10 | Bedtime StoriesAmon Tobin | Amon Tobin | Play | 03:44 | 8 MB | 25 MB |
| 11 | Night SwimAmon Tobin | Amon Tobin | Play | 05:56 | 13 MB | 32 MB |
| 12 | Dropped from the SkyAmon Tobin | Amon Tobin | Play | 07:10 | 16 MB | 50 MB |
| 50 mins | 114 MB | |||||
| 50 mins | 323 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pelle Crépin | Photography |
| 2 | Ewan | Art Direction, Design |
| 3 | Tessa Farmer | Artwork |
| 4 | Amon Tobin | Composer, Mixing, Primary Artist, Producer |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |
| CD Quality | FLAC | 16bit 44.1kHz | FLAC is an audio coding format which uses lossless compression. Digital audio in FLAC format has a smaller size and retains the same quality of the original Compact Disc (CD). |