Who turned out the lights? Electronica's Prince of Darkness Amon Tobin releases Chaos Theory , the chillingly atmospheric soundtrack to Tom Clancy's latest instalment of the Splinter Cell videogames in February.

ZS: So, for the uninitiated, how would you describe yourself?
AT: I'm mainly interested in rhythms, percussion, and drums. I'm a beatsmith, I suppose!

I have a relatively small market! So it's quite cool to be able to infiltrate the masses without having to compromise what I do

A fine job title if ever I heard one. What was the first major factor that inspired you?
I went away to live in Portugal when I was about 17 and when I moved back Jungle was just taking off. I felt a bit out of it, I hadn't really heard much of what was going on, but I was just really impressed by the hardcore sound, and the way the drums were all real breaks, not drum machine breaks. I was pretty fascinated by how they could get that to work, so I checked out various samplers to figure out a way of doing it and I really got into it then.

As a percussionist, do you find yourself listening to a lot of everyday sounds, and wondering how you can pick them apart and use them?
Oh definitely, all the time. I'm more into getting stuff off vinyl than recording, but it's cool to use different sorts of sounds, and replace a snare with something really unusual.

Is Chaos Theory your first full length soundtrack?
Yes, definitely. I'd never tried anything like that before.

Is it something you'd be keen to do again?
I don't know, I think it was a bit of a one-off. It was a really good opportunity between recording my next record and touring, and I just thought it would be a good thing to try. I'd been interested in soundtracks for years, and I'd always wanted to do one, but I didn't think I'd do one for a game!

It's quite unusual...
Yeah, really unusual, and at first I wasn't too sure, but then it seemed that I would have so much creative freedom on this particular project, they were pretty cool about me doing my thing, they just wanted it to work in the game.

Although the soundtrack is being released in its own right, there is naturally a definite progression that runs through the album. With your other work, do you find that you have a similar kind of journey happening on the album or do you tend to concentrate on individual tracks?
Normally, I'd concentrate on individual tracks, but here I had a sort of unified sound that I was going for, I was trying for different interpretations of themes and countries where things were happening, just looking at what was going on in the game. They're making the game with a view to making it like a movie, and you star in this movie, so they wanted the whole thing to be quite cinematic.

It does have a sense of a filmscore about it. Where did you draw your influences from for it?
Dirty Harry, Bernard Hermann, Ennio Morricone, Dario Argento movies, all kinds of composers and the way that they approached different sorts of ways of making a scene scary or tense.

It must have been amazing to be commissioned to do something like this.
It was definitely cool! For me it's like a way of reaching people that would never have heard of me... I have a relatively small market! So it's quite cool to be able to infiltrate the masses without having to compromise what I do.

A lot of people have apparently said kind things, and turn up and are very famous, but I have no idea who they are!

How long did it take you to work on the soundtrack?
Most of the summer. I started it when I came off tour in March, and went through to October/November. I disappeared the whole time, and got very well acquainted with all the delivery services!

Always best to be acquainted with such things anyway, I think! I gather that you used almost entirely acoustic instruments for the soundtrack?
Yes, that's right. I was trying to go for something that wasn't the 'nu-metal' standard that gets used in videogames, I just wanted to try out some acoustic guitars. A lot of the game is set in Korea, so it's all in the tradition of James Bond movie soundtracks where the sound of the area suddenly starts popping up...I love all that stuff.

You've been praised by the likes of David Byrne, is he a hero of yours?
A lot of people have apparently said kind things, and turn up and are very famous, but I have no idea who they are!

Fair enough. So what's next for you?
I'm going to work on my next record, and I'll probably do some shows related to the soundtrack, but I'll mainly be in the studio most of the year, which is really where I want to be.

Takeaways across town, you have been warned...

Chaos Theory is released on 7th February.

Audio
'The Lighthouse' - Amon Tobin
Windows Media / Real Media

Video
'El Cargo' - Amon Tobin
Windows Media / Real Media

--Image from Ninjatunes website--