No Filler Music Podcast - Amon Tobin: Chaos Theory

Episode Date: March 1, 2021

When Ubisoft Montreal went searching for a composer to score Chaos Theory, the third installment of the Splinter Cell video game franchise, they went to the best of the best in Hollywood. This included legendary film composer Lalo Schiffrin, who was behind such scores as Dirty Harry, Bullitt, and Cool Hand Luke. When those plans fell through, Ubisoft turned to then underground producer Amon Tobin, who's jazz-infused drum and bass sound was the perfect compliment to the noir-soaked espionage stealth action of the Splinter Cell franchise. The result is the now iconic, groundbreaking soundtrack that changed gamer's perception of what a game score could sound like, and further cemented Tobin as a legendary underground producer. Tracklist: Kokubo Sosho Battle Main Title (Dirty Harry Theme) - Lalo Schifrin Ruthless El Cargo Displaced Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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In store online at Sephora. And welcome back to No Filler, the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Travis, and it's just me today. There is no co-host. Usually it's myself and my brother Quentin. But he is traveling today. Actually, he's been traveling in the past few days. we haven't been able to get together this week to record. So it's just me. You're stuck with my

musical preferences. And if you listen to this podcast on the regular, you probably know that I'm a fan of video game soundtracks. Now, you know, hold on a minute before you get, before you shut off your listening devices for those who are tired of me talking about video game soundtracks. I'm coming at you today with something a little bit unique. And it's really one of the first video game scores that kind of tapped into an underground musician. And I am talking about Amon Tobin's 2005 splinter cell game chaos theory. So we talked about this a little bit on our episode that we did on Brieco Lodge, which is Amon's first record. Abin Tobin, for those of you who don't know the man, is a Brazilian down-tempo trip-hop electronic

musician. And we talked about his background and how he was signed to Ninja Tune Records on that episode that we did. So I'm not going to dive into the origins of this guy or talk about any of his early stuff, because we kind of touched on that already. So go back and listen to that episode. It's one of the early ones if you're interested. But today we're going to focus on this soundtrack that he did.

So the thing about this record, aside from it being a video game score, is that Ninja Tune actually put it out as its own separate Tobin record. So the story is back in 2004, Ubisoft was looking to get a, well-known Hollywood composer to do the score for this. And they were kind of fishing around. They reached out to Lalo Schifrin. And if you're familiar with movie scores, you may recognize him as the guy that did films like Dirty Harry, Cool Hand Luke, Bullet with Steve McQueen. He's done a ton of stuff. And he's sort of known for like this jazz influence scores. And long story short, they weren't successful with.

any of that. So they decided to reach out to Ninja Tune and specifically A.M. Tobin. So I'm going to, I'm going to read from the Ninja Tune page that they have about this release. They've got some notes here. And they said, in the end, they being Ubisoft, made a braver decision by employing none other than our very own Aemn Tobin. And Aiman, as you might expect, completely revolutionized what you might expect from humble game music. As he himself put it, I tried to write the music as if it was a score for a Dario Argento movie.

And whether you like Iman's music or not, no other game ever sounded like this. And I have to agree with what they said they're like. As you know, I listen to a ton of video game scores. And this one really stands out on its own because it's Amon Tobin music and it sounds like Aeman Tobin music. but he knew that he was doing this for a video game score.

And so he did some really interesting things, which is like, for example, you know, if you've ever played a Spiller cell game, you'd know. The goal is to sneak around, right? But depending on how you decide to play the game, you could just run in with a gun out and start shooting people, right? And so the music had to adapt to that kind of stuff and had to adapt to the decision that you as a player made, right? So anyway, let's just start playing some tunes here.

What I first wanted to do, I'm going to play the title track to Dirty Harry, which, as I said, was a score by Lilo Schifrin, who is one of the composers that Ubisoft was going for or was hoping to get. But anyway, I think it's interesting. So let's play that real quick. Here's the main title to Dirty Harry. Okay, so you can hear how that sounds like kind of your classic, heist kind of song, right? That came out in 1971. What I really wanted to focus on with that was the drums, right? Because that is what obviously drum and bass music is all about and what

trip hop and downbeat type of music is all about. And that's what Aiman Tobin does really well. So having heard that, let's listen to my first pick from this record. So again, this is Aymond Tobin. And this is his score for the game, chaos theory, came out in 2005. And we are going to start with a song called Ruthless. It has kind of a slow build, but I think it's worth it for the payoff. Okay, here we go. So there you have it, right? It sounds very, very plausibly could be a heist movie soundtrack, right?

I mean, obviously it's a little bit more contemporary. It's drum and bass, so everything's kind of manipulated and warped a little bit, as most of Eam and Tobin stuff is. But once those drums kick in, and that baseline, that killer baseline too, that sort of draws it in, yeah, it's all about that drum and bass, right? So I'm going to quote, again, I'm going to read from this, the album entry page on Ninja Tunes website, which, by the way, is the record label, if that's not obvious yet. I think I've mentioned Ninja Tune several times on this episode, but that is the record label.

Okay, so as they put it here, an electronic record made almost entirely from acoustic instruments. Every sound was lovingly warped and rewarped, handcrafted, and caressed before having thousands of volts shot through it for that trademark amen adrenaline rush. Right. So that's kind of a big piece of how Tobin approached his early stuff, but most of it was sampled in from his own vinyl collection, right? And with this record, what he does for chaos theory, it's the first time that he started to use his own field recordings. And that became something that he started doing from then on out on his own records, especially Foley Room, which I think may have came out after this record. have my discography timeline correct in my head. Yeah, that's right. So Foley Room came out in 2007. It's also worth noting that he did the infamous, the very first infamous video game. He also

scored that, which I didn't realize. So I'm going to go ahead and add that to my Spotify. I'm going to listen to that later. Anyway, so let's keep going here. So sort of as you would expect with any good video game. There has to be, you know, sort of a ebb and flow, if you will, to suit different levels of action in a particular game. So we're going to play a song that's a little bit more mellow as far as the drums go. But this one showcases some really cool guitar samples that he brought into this. So here we go. This song is called El Cargo. Okay. So, So I guess one thing I wanted to point out about this dope-ass track is the really cool vocal samples in the background. It kind of sounds like a choir, female choir or something like that, kind of ghostly almost.

One thing that stood out to me about that in particular is if you listened to or played the two Splinter Cell games that came out before this, they did that very same thing. they would incorporate like sort of these vocal backgrounds with some strings, minus the drum and bass flavor that Eamon Injects into it. But anyway, what I appreciate about that is that Tobin tried to keep it, you know, on brand, if you will. Because, you know, with video games, especially by the time you're in the third installment of a video game, like that world has been built up, you know what I mean? And if you're a fan of the game in the series, you know, there's a certain tone and a certain aesthetic and everything down to the way the music sounds is important to the fan of the game,

right, that they're playing. So this score, chaos theory obviously sounds so much different because of what Eam and Tobin brings to his music. But he still made it sort of feel like a Splinter Cell game, if you will. It doesn't feel completely out of place. But anyway, I love that song. It's probably one of the songs that I remember the most from the score because of that guitar riff that sort of runs throughout it. And just everything about it, the piano that comes in,

the heavy drum that sort of toward the end of that clip that I played, that sort of shifts things around a little bit. one thing I wanted to note is that the songs that I'm playing are from the Ninja Tune release of this score. So the songs that you may remember hearing in the game were obviously much more drawn out and like I was saying earlier, he wrote four distinct parts for each of these songs. And so what ends up being released on the Ninja Tune record is the more condensed, like packaged version of each of these songs. But if you're playing the video game, you may hear one piece of that song kind of looped and more drawn out because is a video game,

right? So as you're moving throughout a level, it's going to shift into another part of this song, right? But anyway, really interesting stuff. I got one more track for you if you're still listening because for some of you, this could just put you to sleep. You know what I mean? But if you're a fan of drum and bass and if you're a fan of trip pop and stuff like that, this is classic Tobin, you know, and it's a revolutionary video game score when it came out. It sort of changed the game. And now all sorts of artists out there that aren't classical composers, right,

are making video game scores. He sort of was a pioneer in that regard, right? As far as like, hey, look, an underground, relatively unknown electronic join bass composer can make make a video game score for one of the top, like one of the top video game franchises of all time, right? So when this happened, it was, it was game changing. No pun intended. Okay, so here we go. One last track and this one is called Displaced. And that is like a classic drum and bass, a drum beat right there, right, to close it out. So, yeah, again, I mean, what's not to like about this? The guitar, the bass, right?

Like I said earlier, it's all acoustic instruments that he's pulling in and sort of, like I said, warping, manipulating, throwing it into his Eamon Tobin machine and it comes out on the other end, sounding dope as hell, right? So I don't know if it shows up on this particular. particular release, right, the Ninja Tune release of the score. I think you maybe hear the flute in one of the tracks on this record. But one thing I also wanted to note was that he brought in a live band for some of the recording of this, including a Mexican composer named Nacho Mendez and a Japanese flutist named Aiji Miyaki. So if you'd like some of this stuff, go back and

listen to the rest of this record. But more importantly, I would say, say, go listen to Aymn Tobin stuff because it all has the same kind of vibe to it, this dark, noir kind of sound to it. And again, that's why it was a brilliant choice on Ubisoft's part to go with Tobin for a stealth sort of dark action espionage game, right? That's what Splinter Cell's all about. And the funny thing is I remember once that drum and bass, fast drum beat kind of kicks in on that last track that we played, I distinctly remember running around in that game back in 2005 or whenever I played it, I remember that drum and bass. I remember that would kick in if an enemy spotted you or something like that and you're being pursued, that drum and bass would kick

in, which, you know, how dope is that, right? So if you have the ability, it might be even more enjoyable to go back and play the game. So you can experience, you know, how Tobin thought about this stuff in relation to a video game. Because then you really get to get immersed in the music as you're sort of running around, you know, being all stealthy with a gun and stuff. It's really cool. Anyway, so yeah, that's that. I hope you weren't bored to death because I don't have my good buddy and brother Quentin here to sort of bounce jokes off of and stuff. But he will be back next week. I promise you that. And I think the plan is to talk about the internet.

Not the thing that Al Gore invented. I'm talking about the supergroup, hip-hop group that goes by the internet. So we're going to talk about them. and that's going to be sweet. I'm looking forward to that. All right. So this has been Amin Tobin and his music for the video game, Chaos Theory.

Go check it out. Go back and listen to our episode on his first record, Brieco Lage, if you want to know a little bit more about him and sort of hear what he was doing early on. And like I said, it's in the same vein. very much so as this stuff. I would say his, his music, his independent music, is more jazz-based, at least his early stuff was.

So yeah, if you, if you'd like to any of this kind of stuff, you'll dig what this guy does. And yeah, that's that. Next week, we'll dig into the internet. And, yeah, in the meantime, you can find us on our website, no filler podcast.com. You can find us on Twitter. No Filler Podcast. Reach out to us. Tell us what you like, don't like.

Tell us what kind of artist you want to hear us talk about. Tell us what kind of music you've been listening to lately. You never know. We may give you a shout out. And yeah, you can also find us on the Pantheon Podcast Network. That is the home to many, many excellent music podcasts. It is the podcast network for music lovers. So check them out at pantheonpodcast.com.

we'd also like to think Pantheon sponsor AKG. And that'll do it. My name is Travis. We'll come at you next week. Take care.