Two Fingers - Stunt Rhythms Album Review

Maybe it's the number of shots of Bombay Sapphire he likes straight up, or it might even be a symbolic temporary wave towards his past career, but on the basis of Stunt Rhythms, Amon Tobin's alter ego Two Fingers is capable of being much more than a casual distraction.

Whilst the Brazilian's forays into electronic music were crowned recently with an encyclopaedic feeling, retrospective box set, his latest departure proves to be an unlikely renaissance in the fare more urban fields of dirty, ultra low-end bass and elastic, snake-like breaks. It's hard to convey the effect without the music to listen to, but probably the best allegorical effort we can make here at Contact Towers is by asking you to imagine a space hopper blown up by a pair of predatory sub woofers. There. Now you have it.

A project which Tobin first surfaced under the auspices of an eponymous track contributed to 2010's now almost legendary Ninja Tunes 20th Anniversary compilation, the premise remains as cunningly simple now as then. With a return to making club orientated music for people who like to spend their weekends having their internal organs re-arranged, the emphasis is on bending shades of dubstep, techno and even juke into "dance" tunes that are something still proudly a little off centre.

Much of Stunt Rhythms struts. Opening duo Stripe Rhythm and Snap are both as skull crushing as they are exhilarating, throbbing with vitality and big, greedy loops that will have heads nodding in post-midnight submission from Croydon to Carlisle. Audacious as they sound, these prove to be just warm up acts, as Fools Rhythm steps up to be the best battle rap soundtrack we've heard this year, just waiting for one of the game's biggest players to produce some grizzly fire and brimstone over it to an audience of millions.

Tobin's other sideline is sound tracking games like Splinter Cell and, true to form, there are one or two moments that owe their lives to chase scene dynamics, Sweden alive with hide-and-seek menace and discombobulated android voices, whilst the multifarious Lock86 and Razorback both prove that he's comfortable with giving the likes of Rustie a pulverising run for his laptop funk money.

Look, let's get right to it here. We're not saying that Amon Tobin's made one of the most pelvis snapping things of the year, we're not even suggesting it should come with its own council noise abatement warning, but we can guarantee you that Stunt Rhythms will have you air scratching faster than you can say Technics decks. Oh, and buy yourself a neck brace. You're going to need it.

Andy Peterson