The first time you hear Amon Tobin's dark, dystopian cut-up jazz, you don't know what to think. Is it live musicians? Is it samples? Is it a mixture of the two? Over the last few years, Brazilian-born, Brighton-based Tobin has gained a reputation not only as an exceptional craftsman, but also as a found-sound composer. He's one of a handful of artists whose painstaking work justifies the assertion that sampling is an artform all its own, rather than a non-musician's shortcut.

I had an opportunity to speak with Tobin prior his recent Chicago performance. The circumstances of our conversation wound up creating a unique challenge. Tobin's performance was a late show, immediately following Tortoise's FLOWER 10 concert (part of a series of shows celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Flower booking agency). As a result, our interview wound up being conducted in the midst of post-show backstage revelry, and drew constant weird looks from various band members and hangers on who wondered what we were doing (as well as a few people I've interviewed before, who paused to give Tobin a look of sympathy). The resulting party ambience did nothing to obfuscate Tobin's replies to my questions, but managed to completely drown out the questions themselves. It's only now, after a month of reconstruction, that the interview sort of makes sense...

Splendid: Supermodified definitely seems to be moving away from jazz -- or at least, while you're still using jazz as a foundation, you're using it differently.

Amon: Yeah, I think that really I'm just trying to change the sounds more. It's still made of jazz, it's still made of the same things that I've always made music from, but I'm trying to get it so that the end result is a bit further removed from where the sounds came from.

Splendid: Has the fact that a number of other artists have discovered -- and to some extent adopted -- your sound fueled the move, too?

Amon: I'm not too concerned with what other people are doing, really. I'm trying to always try new things and at least keep it interesting for myself. I dunno. I want to try and push things as far as I can always, and I don't want to make the same record again and again, but I'm not leaving jazz anywhere. I'm still as much into jazz as I was before. I'm still learning about jazz -- still scratching the surface. It's just that I'm trying to make more my own kind of music. I don't necessarily want it to be made from this, or made from that -- I want it to be something of my own in the end.

Splendid: The thing that initially drew me to your music, and really made it seem special to me, is that unless you listen for it, it's actually hard to identify many of the samples as samples. Most people can't get them to mesh so well. What's your secret?

Amon: It's just laborious sampling, really. It's just about getting sounds and chopping them up very fine so that you have a lot more room to manoeuvre when it comes to mixing them together.

Splendid: So how long does it take you to put together, say, a single track?

Amon: Actually it's quite quick. I've been doing it for a while now, in this way, working with samples. I'm getting better at not wasting too much time on an idea that isn't going to go anywhere. I'm getting better at deciding before I start something whether it's worth carrying on with or not... So I'm getting faster and faster, and the arrangement -- I usually do it in a solid block, you know? I'll keep doing it until the track is done. And it'll take a couple of days, but I'll take a few weeks to actually mix it down and make all the levels sound right. It's a big part of what I'm doing, because the sounds are always clashing. I'm using third party samples all the time, so frequencies are clashing all the time and I have to really be careful when I'm mixing, because I'm not a trained studio engineer. I have a lot of room for improvement still. It's a lot of hard work.

Splendid: Does your work methodology make you listen to music in a different way? I would imagine that you'd listen to music, especially jazz, the way an artist might look at a rack of different-colored tubes of paint.

Amon: I don't know. I think I still appreciate music the same way everyone does. I look for something else as well, though. I certainly don't sit down and analyze everything I hear. It's kind of a bonus -- if you're really into something, you appreciate it on that extra level.

Splendid: So if you're out somewhere and you hear a piece of music that has, say, the exact sort of three-note clarinet sequence you've been looking for, do you immediately have to find a sheet of paper and write it down?

Amon: You have to let things go sometimes. I hear things all the time on the radio, or in a shop, and I haven't got the ability to record it there and then. You have to let it go... You come across things by chance as well, so the things that you can't have, you let go. Otherwise you go mad.

Splendid: Do you take advantage of touring to go to as many record stores as you can?

Amon: Yeah! I do now. I go on tour and I use it a lot for buying records. It's a great way to visit various shops around the country and around the world. It's a very lucky position to be in, and I exploit it to the maximum.

Splendid: So did you get to shop in Chicago today? Dusty Groove, perhaps?

Amon: Yeah, I've been doing that all day...went down to Dusty Groove. It was very cool.

Splendid: Do you keep detailed notes, or do anything to index the records that you use?

Amon: I'm not nearly that methodical. Kid Koala is. He does that. Maybe... I'm a bit worried about getting too systematic about what I do. I try to leave enough room for discovering things while I'm looking for other things -- know what I mean? So if I have a specific sound on a record, I don't really want to write down exactly where it is and what it does...

Splendid: Because you'll miss the other stuff.

Amon: That's right. I find so much when I'm looking for other things... I try and keep it quite loose.

Splendid: So if you had the option of using live instruments instead of samples -- perhaps as a way of keeping things "loose" -- would you?

Amon: Well... I did a collaboration with a human beatbox, which is pretty awesome. I don't use live musicians on my tracks, but I do the occasional collaboration with someone who does a live thing.

Splendid: Human beatbox -- that's Quadraceptor, right?

Amon: Quadraceptor, yeah. He's pretty awesome.

Splendid: How'd you get hooked up with him?

Amon: He blew me away... I met him in Montreal when I was doing a show, and he just came up to me and did this whole track in my ear, with bass, drums, melody, everything at the same time. It blew me out...it was incredible, so I thought, "I've got to try doing something with him." Because I'm looking for new percussion sounds and new angles on rhythm all the time. It seemed like a good idea.

Splendid: So with the detail-oriented nature of your work, is it hard to defocus and rest? I'd imagine after a while, you'd start deconstructing everything you heard -- like, someone slams a door and you start thinking "Now, the first two thirds of that door slam would make a great drum sound..."

Amon: (Laughs) Yeah.

Splendid: Your album titles display an escalating intensity -- you've gone from the simple collage of Bricolage to the alterations of Permutation, and now you've reached the extremity of Supermodified. What's the next step?

Amon: All the titles for my records are exactly the same -- the all mean the same thing. I'm just trying to get across the process that I use to make music. You really have to try and get that across to people. People don't realize, and they think it's live, and I want people to realize that it's made in a different way to the way that traditional music is made. Again, it's not like I have a serious agenda in that respect -- I'm not trying to sell people something. I'm just trying to describe the way that the music's made, using the titles.

Splendid: In addition to the usual concert gigs, you've also been invited to jazz festivals. Was it intimidating?

Amon: Well, I just went and DJed.

Splendid: Do you find that jazz fans treat you differently?

Amon: Well, I don't think it's particularly appropriate that I play in a jazz festival. If someone invites me, I'm willing to go along and play anywhere, y'know?

Splendid: Do you get a hassle from hardcore fans?

Amon: No, the thing I've found is that the really hardcore jazz people are very open-minded, and they're very interested in people taking jazz in new directions. It's the sort of wanna-be experts that tend to be more damning and less open-minded about using music in different ways. I've had a lot of support from people I respect in jazz, and I wasn't respecting that at all.

Splendid: That's encouraging. Now, your music has been described -- accurately, I'd certainly say -- as dark, cinematic and brooding. And yet you live in Brighton -- certainly not a "cheery" British seaside town anymore, but not exactly possessed of the sort of urban feeling your music carries. What gives?

Amon: I don't know, man. The music I make isn't really a blueprint of my personality or where I live. It's not autobiographical. Obviously I put some of my feelings into it... of course I do. It's mainly driven by an interest in the contrast between heavy things and light things, and aggressive things and nonaggressive things, and the way that they're put together. So it's more kind of an exploratory sort of thing than an expression of my inner angst. I'm not a tortured artist at all -- I'm really very happy.

Splendid: Yeah, I didn't get the "tortured artist" vibe from you at all. You seem to be enjoying your work too much.

Amon: Yeah, I love what I do. I love exploring "dark" things as much as I love exploring "light" things. I don't really discriminate. And Brighton, just to put the record straight, isn't a particularly cheerful seaside town. It's cool -- certainly nothing to complain about -- but the weather's shit.

Splendid: Another "would you if you could" question, and one that I find myself asking a lot of artists. A lot of sample-friendly musicians have made the jump to film music -- Barry Adamson, for instance, and Graeme Revell. Your music is obviously tremendously cinematic. Is that a move you'd like to make?

Amon: Very much. I really am interested in doing a proper score for a film -- but it's hard, because not that many people are willing to take a risk on someone who hasn't done a score before, even though virtually every single journalist I've talked to, almost without exception, brings this up.

Splendid: I figured you must get asked about it a lot, but I hadn't heard your answer before. I hate to ask you something you've answered so many times before...

Amon: No, I'm glad. I want people to know that I'm interested in this. Know what I mean? I want filmmakers to know that I'm interested in this, and I want to get involved in it. Very much. I'm very into films, and I'm very into the idea of making music that works in a visual context, so for me it's something that I'd love to get involved in.

Splendid: Would you want to be brought in at the end, or have creative input from the beginning?

Amon: Obviously my perfect situation would be to start at the beginning with the filmmakers and work out exactly what needs to be done, and try and do something synonymously... But I don't think it's that straightforward. There are a lot of people involved in films, and synchronizing everything is a whole industry in itself, I'm sure. I've had a few near-brushes and many offers of different things, where they didn't come off due to timing or whatever. I'm still waiting to see if I get involved in that.

Splendid: I hope you get that chance. Moving on...am I correct in saying that you've been on tour for quite a long time?

Amon: I dunno. I've been on and off. I did some touring for about a month or so when I released Supermodified, and I've been doing the Xen shows for the last two weeks, but it hasn't been too hardcore. It's been alright.

Splendid: Would you rather tour more, or work in the studio more?

Amon: I'm always gagging for the studio. I really belong in the studio more -- I'm not a performer. Touring for me is great, because I get to have the complete opposite of what I normally have, that kind of isolated situation. Truthfully, though, I want to be primarily making music, so I have to make sure that the touring doesn't take all that.

Splendid: Can you demo tracks and tinker with stuff on a laptop while you're on tour?

Amon: At the moment I'm having trouble finding a sound card that's going to work effectively in a laptop. When that comes -- and I think there are some things that'll be available soon -- they'll allow me to do that. And I already have everything else I need -- I've got a small portable record player which I always take to the shop, and I sample things on my headphones. I'll be able to plug that into the laptop and use either a software sequencer, or sync it up with some portable midi sequencer and do everything there and then on all the dead time I have on tour. I'm looking forward to that. It'll be amazing. I'll definitely be doing that.

Splendid: Okay, let's assume you've been given the money and means to produce your music any way you want -- including using a full orchestra of living, breathing musicians. Would you do it that way, or stick with the studio trickery?

Amon: Fuck no! I'm not going in that direction at all. Sampling for me is not a stepping stone to going on and working with live musicians. It's really a way of working that's different from working with traditional instruments, and it interests me very very much. So really, at the moment I can afford more equipment than I have, but I'm not into doing that. I don't want to be getting musicians and equipment and studios. I want to have a piece of music in my mind, and have the tools that I need to execute that. I don't really need to do it the other way 'round.

Splendid: And that's certainly a valid way of doing it. I ask the question merely because a lot of musicians who begin their career using samplers eventually feel the need to "prove" themselves as musicians by using real instruments. And often the work is inferior.

Amon: It's weird, because it kind of goes full circle. A lot of people who start off using samplers because of financial restrictions -- maybe they'd like to have a bass guitar and a saxophonist in the band, but they can't... But I think that's the wrong reason to use a sampler. It shouldn't be a substitute for instruments, because it's not the same as an instrument. If I wanted a saxophone player in my track, I'd get a saxophone. The idea of a sample is that you take the real instrument and you turn it into something else -- you do things with the sound that a real instrument couldn't do. People kind of look at it as kind of a progressive step -- going from the sampler to having a band. But it seems to me that it's the way music has always been done -- not really a step forward so much as a step sideways.

Splendid: Something I've noticed in recent years -- and it may or may not be symptomatic of sampling "culture" -- is that music simply doesn't last any more. Few songs are committed to sheet form and published, and in general the mindset is that today's music will provide the fertilizer for tomorrow's music. Do you worry that your work won't endure, that it'll just be absorbed back into the food chain?

Amon: I have no control over things like that. I try not to concern myself too much with what happens to the music after I do it. My control ends in the studio, and I'll make the best music I can and hope that many people will hear it, and that it'll influence people in some way, or just contribute something, anyway, to my generation's music, but I can't control what actually happens. But you're right -- music is very throw-away. It certainly seems, when you look back, that people treat it as product. It's such a cynical way to look at it! At the same time, that's kind of a major label thing. There's a real feeling of longevity as a priority on a small label like Ninja tune. They're not out there churning out any old shit that's gonna sell at the moment even though they know it's gonna die tomorrow. They're trying to make it so that it's a long-term thing. And I certainly intend to be making music the rest of my life, whether people buy it or not. So I'll wait and see.