Amon Tobin has announced ISAM Live 2.0, with a series of US performances.
For the Autumn run of dates throughout America, ISAM Live 2.0 will introduce the new ISAM construction, enhanced with new audio and visual elements.
Part of the new content in the ISAM Live show will be composed of forthcoming Two Fingers material. Tobin will be revealing new music from his beat-oriented alias, in anticipation of his ‘sophomore album’, due this Fall on Big Dada.
If you’ve seen the original ISAM Live show, leave a comment and let us know what you think of it!
Dates & Locations:
- Sept 1 : Seattle (Moore Theatre)*
- Sept 2 : Portland (Roseland Theatre)*
- Sept 4 : Denver (Ellie Caulkins Opera House)*
- Sept 6 : Minneapolis (Orpheum Theatre)*
- Sept 7 : Milwaukee (The Rave)*
- Sept 8 : Chicago (Congress Theatre)
- Sept 9 : Detroit (Royal Oak Music Hall)*
- Sept 10 : Toronto (Kool Haus)*
- Sept 12 : Boston (House Of Blues)*
- Sept 13 : Montclair (Wellmont Theatre)*
- Sept 14 : New York (Hammerstein Ballroom)*
- Sept 17 : Philadelphia (Electric Factory)*
- Sept 19 : Clemson (Brooks Center at Clemson University)*
- Sept 20 : Atlanta (The Tabernacle)*
- Sept 21 : Orlando (House Of Blues)*
- Sept 22 : Miami (The Fillmore at Jackie Gleason)*
- Sept 24 : Dallas (The Palladium)*
- Sept 25 : Austin (Music Hall)*
- Sept 27 : San Diego (House Of Blues)*
- Oct 5 : Berkeley (Greek Theatre)**
- Oct 12 : Los Angeles (Greek Theatre)*
*with Holy Other
**with Kronos Quartet & Holy Other
Trailer : Anne-Marie Bergeron & VSL
via aymat
I ? the original ISAM so much. It’s one those ultra-rare albums that is such an unlikely candidate for listening to on headphones AND experiencing live — but then again, those cyberpunk visuals really pushed the staggering, sculpted bass beyond the sum of its parts. What drove my enjoyment even beyond was being there with some lovely friends from Spectrasonics and Ableton — afterwards we were all jumping around, letting our inner children out and marveling at what we’d just experienced. 🙂
I think ISAM is a historically important musical contribution because over the years, Amon has approached creative sampling from so many perspectives, be it cutting up dusty jazz breaks and evolving to recording his own foley. Unlike some other material people call “challenging”, ISAM does have structure and melody (and even jolly “So Happy Together”-like singing!). I think what may most be frustrating to conventional expectations is that when the bass kicks in on various tracks and you start to dance — it stops! Almost like Amon is trolling those who are anticipating “the drop”. 😉 In that respect, it’s really akin to Westerners listening to a raga for the first time — they hear “sounds” but the time signature, scales, and soforth are quite alien to them, and demand retraining!
Like learning to breathe again.
Speaking of, I’ve enjoyed ISAM like some post-dubstep from an alternate reality, because Amon took the cliched tropes of the popular forms, and completely recreated it into some biomechanical world of Kyma-laden, granular-stuffed aural gourmet. To where it almost becomes unrecognizable sound design but there are glimmers, rim lighting and silhouettes that clue you into earlier precedent. (For example, Amon collaborated with Noisia and there’s some of that influence leaking through here.) What I also appreciate with ISAM is UNITY: a lot of the earlier “IDM” elements of classic Warp/etc. recordings which would’ve been split across different artists and albums are found within a single passage or track at times. Experimental music — not just for experiment’s sake. Strong to say that Amon ventured out, took a lot of risks, and succeeded.
And oh yeah… the live visuals and Cirque du Soleil optical trickery are brainbuggering in the best of ways! If you dig visualists like Scott Pagano and have been curious to see those forms extruded with more depth, here’s the one for you! Definitely a memory worth making.
Ha, synthhead — you gotta get Unicode support on here (please)! It turned my decisive heart icon into a mysterious “?”
It was a dope performance. IMO, the best part was after the “official” show when he was DJing.