4 out of 5

Label: Nomark Records

Produced by: Amon Tobin

While I think ever since releasing under his own name Amon Tobin’s works have combined some sense of fun with exploration – excepting a few more purely sensory releases, you could always find a couple tracks to boogie to – there was also a shift towards more experimental efforts starting with Foley Room. Aliases like Two Fingers gave Tobin a clear path for working on beats plus the outre stuff, and then Nomark further established an “in house” way to push these explorations even further, spinning up a new identity as-needed. I’ve liked all of this stuff and encourage it, but, fine, my go to albums are late 2000s early 2010s video game soundtracks and ISAM, and dang if Only Child Tyrant doesn’t scratch a lot of that itch, while continuing Tobin’s ability to wholly justify a project under its own ID.

OCT takes note of the live instrumentation sound from Nomark projects like Figueroa and applies it to a funky krautrock band, jamming on a fuzzy bass to deliver instantly notable grooves that are then overlain with some Infamous-y jungle or breaks. Figueroa actually peeks in for vocals on track 2, but the beat keeps us in boppy territory, harkening back to Ninja Tune days in terms of accessibility, which is not a dirty word here: Time to Run is just fun. That said, the format is maybe constrictive in its own ways – sticking to a band sound; trying to do verse-chorus-verse like setup – and the A-side tracks tend to run out of steam and loop for each of their last minutes or so. On the B-side, a fresh approach: surf jams via King of Kong, then the remaining tunes variously nib from ISAM (very digital, but very lush) and a Tobin take on old-school gaming bleep-blops, upcycled via 90s acid.

Though the clear split in styles makes the project feel like a compilation at times, Only Child Tyrant’s first full outing is generally an utter delight, unleashing the glee that Tobin had been more carefully parceling out in other releases from this era.