Review: For the deftly mixed audio on Max Cooper's latest conceptual album Unspoken Words, it is accompanied by a visual story which unfolds through 13 short films, directed by a range of visual artists that are all commissioned and directed by Cooper and mixed in Dolby Atmos surround sound. Featuring various aural moods throughout, whether it's the evocative deep house of "Spectrums", the euphoric trance reductions of "Pulse At The Centre Of Being" to the multi-layered IDM experience of "Exotic Contents" or the saucer-eyed wonder of "Everything" - Unspoken Words is Cooper's most revealing work to date.
Review: In 2019 Max Cooper was getting toward the end of a push that saw the producer digging his heels into a most atmospheric, electro-acoustic and experimentally accessible sound. Keeping his progressive and melodic subtleties alive is a remix album featuring HAAi, Fort Romeau, Josh Wink and Rob Clouth to Steffi, Non Square and Max Cooper himself. Fort Romeau chimes in with a synth-fuelled ray of hope next to the syncopated rhythms, tumbling keys and arpeggiated vocals of Rob Clouth's touch. Haai goes deep, dubstep and estranged vocals in her remix, with some classic warehouse acid techno action coming from master of the discipline, Josh Wink. Turkish artist and recent Mesh signee Non Square turns in something reminiscent of that classic Bpitch Control IDM sound next to the straight up deep, lo-fi and banging electro rawness of Steffi's remix. Max Cooper reinterpretation in the mix too!
Review: Delving further into a colourful introspective synthesis by the release is Max Cooper's Mesh label that so far in 2020 has exhumed music from the depths of minds like Rob Clouth, Alex Banks and Indian Wells. Bringing closure to what's been an epic year for Mesh is this all encompassing four-track from Cooper himself; a record born from the first lockdown phase a generation has seen that comes to life through an otherworldly frame of field recordings, harmonies, clicks and cuts to micro-rhythms and trance heavy pulsations inspired by our planet itself. Full of humanity, playfulness and rearing intensity, Cooper's elements here are an accompaniment to a series of short films that take an acousmatic approach to voice, foley sound design and pianos, with the free jazz and orchestral brilliance of "Spike" and "Surge" a high note. Adding to the legacy of music created by the likes of Pantha Du Prince and the percussive end of the Erased Tapes catalogue in "Swarm", Cooper warmly wraps its arrangement in hopeful and luscious tones, alongside the equally sweet notes and melodic bounce of "Reflect" - a track-title and album name that says it all.
Review: "The Barbican is such a special and powerful space, I've had many of my greatest live musical moments there," tells Max Cooper in an interview. Yearning for the Infinite follows Cooper's 2018 LP One Hundred Billion Sparks which comes through a commission that the Barbican Centre gave Max Cooper in being able to present a live audiovisual show in an attempt to capture what he defines as 'the overwhelming vastness of infinity' within Kulturquartier's "Betonhalle". Impressive. Much like Nils Frahm, Max Cooper hits on many a sweet note when venturing through his own interpretation of liminality, arriving with the sound of fizzing electronics and the hum of hardware, to field recordings, live drums and emotionally affecting synths lines. A trip from start to finish.
Review: Tracks from Max Cooper's One Hundred Billion Sparks album from 2018 get remixed by a veritable who's who of underground electronic music. Barker turns "Phi" into a jittery, broken beat piece, while in Synkro's hands, "Rule 110" turns into a stop-start slice of drum'n'bass, with the original version's melodies unravelling over its hyper-speed breaks. Parra For Cuva and Roly Porter's takes on "Hope" make for more reflective, immersive listens, particularly the Porter version, with its expansive, hymnal ambience. In contrast, DJ Tennis & Barratt pick up the pace with their edit of "Reflex", turning it an undulating groove, while Robag Wruhme's version of "Volition" is a superior piece of glitchy minimal house.
Review: "Reflex" was one of the highlights of Cooper's 2018 album, One Hundred Billion Sparks, and it's not hard to understand why. Evolving from glitchy percussion and menacing bass tones, it teases the listener without ever truly exploding. For this single release, Cooper has edited the track, and "Reflex Values", the new version, sees him finally give the original the release that it needed. Pummelling kicks underpin the glitchy elements that morph into a stepping segue before Cooper heads back into straight 4/4s. Cooper then hands over the reins to DJ Tennis and collaborator Barratt, who turn "Reflex" into a tripped out, low-slung house groove that resounds to cowbells and atmospheric synths.
Review: Following up 2016's acclaimed Emergence album, Max Cooper has spent the last year working on his new LP for his Mesh imprint. He has explained that each track on One Hundred Billion Sparks 'is a score to a visual story stemming from this system of one hundred billion sparking neurones, which create us.' As with previous concepts, he has also ventured into some weird visual realms for the project, finding more beautiful ideas/scenes to bring to another one of his acclaimed live shows - his most ambitious thus far. Features the singles "Identity" and "Rule 110" in addition to other sonic highlights such as the deeply eheteral "Phi", "Emptyset" with its rich tapestry of hypnotic melodies or the sheer tension and suspense of "Identity".
Review: For this project which explores the intersection of science, music and art, Max Cooper was influenced by varying interpretations of time. For the inspiration behind the EP, he said he was trying to find an explanation for our experience of time - a growing physical dimension that we experience in the present, but on the cusp of inflation. Pretty deep stuff! Furthermore, the visual and musical ideas were conceived during train journeys, then taken into the studio to form each track, and finally a collaboration with Kevin McGloughlin created video representations that will feature in their upcoming live show. The sombre and introspective ambient journey "Veil Of Time" starts things off until "Resynthesis" kicks in with the groove on this lush deep tech house journey backed by superior sound design. "Stacked Moments" takes things up a notch yet again on this hard hitting effort - possibly the most most aggressive we've ever heard from the Irishman. Its broken rhythms approaching near industrial moments, backed by some abrasive sonic textures. Finally his collaboration with Rob Clouth entitled "Corporeal" (heard previously on Cooper's Essential Mix) features the sound of a synth run through a radio transmitter!
Review: Like Nathan Fake and Dominik Eulberg, Cooper is a master of a particularly gentle, organic strain of trance. The UK producer's ability to craft beautiful, atmospheric tapestries is audible from the get-go here, with the title track showcasing jittery wind chimes and evocative melodies. The somewhat grandiose-titled "Coils Of Living Synthesis" sees Cooper up the tempo, but with a twist as glitchy, dissected rhythms provide the backing for windswept synths. There is a similarly dynamic at play on "Molten Landscapes", where he fuses swirling hooks with an offbeat, pulsing groove. "Four Tone Reflections" sees him, like many of his peers, integrate throbbing fuzzy guitar with a clubby groove, while Romanian in Berlin Cosmin TRG rounds off the release with a stepping techno take on "Chromos".
Review: This jam-packed collection boasts ten new remixes of tracks from Max Cooper's 2016 album Emergence, a largely downtempo set inspired by his live audio-visual performances. As you'd expect, many of the reworks are dancefloor focused, with Vessels, Joe Farr (whose distorted, industrial-tinged techno take on "Panned" is a definite highlight) and techno veteran John Tejada all delivering standout interpretations. These fine remixes are accompanied by similarly impressive rubs that don't strive as hard for club plays, with Hidden Orchestra's symphonic version of "Symmetry" and Tom Hodge's intricate, melodious rework of "Cyclic" standing out.
Review: Max Cooper's magnificent opus Emergence was released in late 2016 and was one fantastic journey through the deeper shares of tech house and electronica, incorporating some awe inspiring sound design and deeply evocative grooves that accompanied an impressive visual show for his live sets. The single "Distant Light" was a deep and slinky cut, geared for the late night and here it gets a remix by Leicester's Rival Consoles. He takes it down a far darker and tunnelling route with sinister horns, hypnotic pads and tough rhythm patterns; all the while retaining some of the ethereal magic of Cooper's original. Brilliant rework right here.
Review: London's Max Cooper has stated that when he plays a live show, he likes to deconstruct the performance into fragments of sound on a granular level, paying meticulous attention to detail. For his Emergence live A/V (that he's been touring for the last two years), he applies these same principles to the visuals; using a variety of MIDI methods that are synced and allow him to manipulate both in realtime. It's the story of how "everything comes from (almost) nothing," using knowledge, theories and insights gained from his previous role as a geneticist. Cooper weaves a together a fascinating auditory experience here, his second album since 2014's Human, covering a variety of sonic moods in his now signature way. Take for instance "Trust" featuring the lovely vocals of Kathrin deBoer and a bit of help from good studio mate Tom Hodge; here jazzy drum and bass arrives via field recordings and classical aesthetics in wonderful harmony. Also, the deep, multi layered and ethereal journey track "Waves" sees Cooper on point, as usual, until "Cyclic" goes for something a bit more ferocious on this broken beat techno exercise where inventive use of sampling and sound design collide with perfect tension and suspense.
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