Amon Tobin – ‘Fear In A Handful Of Dust‘ (CD)

This lovely foil print CD edition from the Amon Tobin catalogue is the first time the 2019 album ‘Fear In A Handful Of Dust’ has appeared on CD. ‘Fear In A Handful Of Dust’ is an album which demands and rewards close listening. The detail in the likes of the abstract electronic blip-fest ’Freeformed’ is thorough, to say the least, and recalls the kind of sound design which made 2011’s ‘ISAM’ so mind-boggling. It’s a warm world of almost bucolic beauty, shot through with a dose of childlike hallucinatory dizziness and unbelievable electronic soundscaping. Check out ‘Velvet Owl’, a seven-minute sprawl of lazy contrails of high-flying melody which melt away and merge as all kinds of fizzing and humming sounds gambol beneath them, eventually creating a climax of noise which, somehow, never becomes irksome. Make no mistake, this is sound art.