4 out of 5

Label: Nomark Records

Produced by: Amon Tobin

Paranova is apparently (amongst some other things) a Danish pharmaceutical distributor, but I’m going to guess that that maybe wasn’t the intention of the naming of Cujo’s – Amon Tobin’s – album/title track release, and maybe instead is playing off of “paranoia,” combined with the breakdown into ‘para’ and ‘noia,’ which maybe means protection from boredom, or protection from something new, or maybe none of those things. Maybe it is the phramaceutical distributor.

With the tracks here released singularly over the span of a couple years, alongside this being the first full Cujo release in, like, thirty years, I probably shouldn’t be looking too hard for a central theme. While the Nomark imprint has given Tobin an outlet for some very specific projects, the compilations are also suggestive of an inexhaustive creative who may just keep working, and occasionally will have enough material to go together for a release. The additional fact that Paranova has crossover tracks with himself – Cujo vs. Two Fingers, Cujo vs. Amon Tobin – is a kind of brain-warping suggestion of the same thing: we get a stream of music, and eventually, the pile of stuff that felt more in the Cujo vein got nice and tall, and here we are.

And besides a step up in production quality / skill from that decades-prior release, Paranova initially fulfills a similar role as before, of being feel-good groove, erred more towards the dancefloor than late nite contemplative listening; the core hooks are amazing, and then Tobin / Cujo just kind of loops that for 3-4 minutes, with a bit of breaks or flash here and there to keep it interesting. Top down, you can swap the sequence of this material around, and name it Paranova or claim it guest stars Two Fingers, but it’s fairly similar in mood and pace and pleasantness (and ability to get your head bobbing, without fail).

But: that’s also not the whole story this time. Though I still can’t quite wrap my head around the vs. tracks – like, I can make up hearing a bit more hip hop influence with Two Fingers, or some ISAM-atmospherics on the Tobin track, but I wouldn’t been able to say that without prompting – the sequence of this material on album doesn’t match the sequence in which Amon initially released the singles, song by song; there’s clear intentionality to how this was bundled.

Which sides me with a “protection against boredom” type of definition for the album title. The first half definitely stands side by side with old school Cujo, though, again, I’d highlight how organic and live Tobin has been able to make his productions sound. However, the back half gets bookended by some loose jazz tunes – like, legit, tsh-tsh drums and horns jazz – and inbetween, the beats get sharper and darker; the atmosphere a little more haunting, and woozy; the direction of the songs… less predictable. The beat at the center is still the focus, which aligns it with Cujo, but Amon pushes on the other aspects such that it feels like we’re kind of sampling from Amon Tobin across the years – some jungle touches; some IDM; some experimental – which admittedly goes against my claimed confusion of the “vs.” naming, except I couldn’t identify those tracks separately, is how I mean.

So whether or not the ongoing-writing/release-when-there’s-enough narrative is accurate or not, the thoughtfulness of the structure of Paranova props this up as top tier Tobin, absolutely linked with the Cujo branding while wholly belonging to the artist’s Nomark era of drops.