1
Max Cooper - Unspoken Words
2
Max Cooper - Inanimate TO Animate Feat. Kotomi
3
Max Cooper - A Model Of Reality Feat. Kotomi
4
Max Cooper - Ascent
5
Max Cooper - Spectrum
6
Max Cooper - Symphony In Acid
7
Max Cooper - Pulse At The Centre Of Being
8
Max Cooper - Exotic Contents
9
Max Cooper - Broken Machines Broken Dreams
10
Max Cooper - Small Window On The Cosmos
11
Max Cooper - Everything
12
Max Cooper - Solace In Structure
13
Max Cooper - Stream Of Thought
MAX COOPER announces new album Unspoken Words, released 25th March on Mesh. Today he shares lead single "Everything" and its accompanying video.
"Everything" is an excitable expression of freedom and joy, an explosion of colour referencing classic synth sounds from Max Cooper’s formative years and the golden era of idealism in music and popular culture of the '80 and '90s.
“I love feeling that anything is possible. It feels like I’m bursting and need to find some expression," says Cooper. "The synths seemed to carry the hope of everything I could imagine, condensed into the simple chord progression, improvised pads and layers of distortion. It was a lot of fun to work with, and spending time in that creative mindset generated lots of ideas which could be shot down later under less manic conditions.”
As an audio-visual artist, Cooper often goes to the medium of video to enhance his music and the ideas and stories which inspire and inform his work. "Everything" is one of 13 short films combined into Unspoken Words and the metanarrative which will be released as a film on Blu-ray to accompany the album on 25th March.
Cooper developed the visual story for ‘Everything’ with long term collaborator Nick Cobby and photographer Andrey Prokhorov, who has a huge library of imagery from around the world.
About Unspoken Words
“I’ve always struggled with words.
"Trying to communicate anything meaningful about my internal state, in any way which seems to do it justice, has always been beyond me.
"But music bypasses language. It is my means of expression, which is why I make a lot of it - I’m compelled to create.”
- Max Cooper, January 2022
Unspoken Words is Max Cooper’s most revealing work to date, leading the listener through experiences of escapism and connection with personal stories of reflection, acceptance, grappling, idealism and rejection.
The raw expression of Cooper’s own mental state illuminates the universal experience of being human. Unspoken Words offers common ground, a unifying space for anyone who faces internal discordance and feels the need for greater connection and greater expression.
Speaking about the process of writing Unspoken Words, Max continued: “I find existing inside my mind to be a sometimes beautiful, sometimes intense, sometimes abrasive, messy, baffling, relentless experience, and I’ve tried to put as much of that feeling and form as I could into the album.”
The deftly mixed audio is accompanied by a visual story which unfolds through 13 short films by a range of visual artists commissioned and directed by Max Cooper, and mixed in Dolby Atmos surround sound.
Unspoken Words will be released on Mesh on 25th March on Blu-Ray + CD, vinyl and digital.
Tracklist:
A1. Unspoken Words
A2. Inanimate to Animate feat. Kotomi
A3. A Model of Reality feat. Kotomi
B1. Ascent
B2. Spectrum
B3. Symphony in Acid
C1. Pulse at the Centre of Being
C2. Exotic Contents
C3. Broken Machines Broken Dreams
D1. Small Window on the Cosmos
D2. Everything
D3. Solace in Structure
D4. Stream of Thought More
"Everything" is an excitable expression of freedom and joy, an explosion of colour referencing classic synth sounds from Max Cooper’s formative years and the golden era of idealism in music and popular culture of the '80 and '90s.
“I love feeling that anything is possible. It feels like I’m bursting and need to find some expression," says Cooper. "The synths seemed to carry the hope of everything I could imagine, condensed into the simple chord progression, improvised pads and layers of distortion. It was a lot of fun to work with, and spending time in that creative mindset generated lots of ideas which could be shot down later under less manic conditions.”
As an audio-visual artist, Cooper often goes to the medium of video to enhance his music and the ideas and stories which inspire and inform his work. "Everything" is one of 13 short films combined into Unspoken Words and the metanarrative which will be released as a film on Blu-ray to accompany the album on 25th March.
Cooper developed the visual story for ‘Everything’ with long term collaborator Nick Cobby and photographer Andrey Prokhorov, who has a huge library of imagery from around the world.
About Unspoken Words
“I’ve always struggled with words.
"Trying to communicate anything meaningful about my internal state, in any way which seems to do it justice, has always been beyond me.
"But music bypasses language. It is my means of expression, which is why I make a lot of it - I’m compelled to create.”
- Max Cooper, January 2022
Unspoken Words is Max Cooper’s most revealing work to date, leading the listener through experiences of escapism and connection with personal stories of reflection, acceptance, grappling, idealism and rejection.
The raw expression of Cooper’s own mental state illuminates the universal experience of being human. Unspoken Words offers common ground, a unifying space for anyone who faces internal discordance and feels the need for greater connection and greater expression.
Speaking about the process of writing Unspoken Words, Max continued: “I find existing inside my mind to be a sometimes beautiful, sometimes intense, sometimes abrasive, messy, baffling, relentless experience, and I’ve tried to put as much of that feeling and form as I could into the album.”
The deftly mixed audio is accompanied by a visual story which unfolds through 13 short films by a range of visual artists commissioned and directed by Max Cooper, and mixed in Dolby Atmos surround sound.
Unspoken Words will be released on Mesh on 25th March on Blu-Ray + CD, vinyl and digital.
Tracklist:
A1. Unspoken Words
A2. Inanimate to Animate feat. Kotomi
A3. A Model of Reality feat. Kotomi
B1. Ascent
B2. Spectrum
B3. Symphony in Acid
C1. Pulse at the Centre of Being
C2. Exotic Contents
C3. Broken Machines Broken Dreams
D1. Small Window on the Cosmos
D2. Everything
D3. Solace in Structure
D4. Stream of Thought More
More records from Max Cooper
1
Max Cooper - On Being ft. Felix Gerbelot
2
Max Cooper - Peace Exists Here
3
Max Cooper - I Am In A Church In Gravesend Listening To Old Vinyl And Drinking Coffee
4
Max Cooper - A Sense Of Getting Closer
5
Max Cooper - Exist Inside This Machine Ft. Aneek Thapar
6
Max Cooper - My Choices Are Not My Own ft. Tawiah and May Kaspar
7
Max Cooper - The Sun In A Box
8
Max Cooper - True Under Certain Conditions
9
Max Cooper - When I Am Alone With My Thoughts. I Am Crushed ft. Aho Ssan
10
Max Cooper - You Couldn't Love Me Enough And I've Spent My Whole Life Making Up For It ft. Ni
11
Max Cooper - My Mind Is Slipping
12
Max Cooper - Mother Nature Must Have A Different Plan For Me ft. Tom VR
13
Max Cooper - The Missing Piece
14
Max Cooper - It's Up To You, What You Do In The Void
Black Vinyl!
Powerful works of art have traditionally sprung from some source deep within an artist and, if they strike the right tone, resonate with an audience to leave a lasting mark. But what if that equation were reversed: what if an artist were to draw their inspiration from deep within their audience, and use that to reflect those ideas, emotions, hopes, fears, pains and aspirations back to us?
Over a two year journey, audio-visual artist and electronic innovator Max Cooper has inverted the creative process by collecting hundreds of anonymous quotes, posing deep but open questions such as "What would you like to express which you cannot in everyday life?" and "What is it like to exist inside your head?"
The goal: to understand what it is truly like to be human right now. The result: his new album On Being, to be released in February 2025 with the first single "Sun In A Box" coming this September 4th.
With On Being, Cooper aimed to probe under the synthetic surface of social media to "create a snapshot of our minds these days," as he puts it by asking people to share anonymously what they dare not ever say publicly. The result is an emotionally raw and shockingly honest kaleidoscope of confessions, ranging from suicide contemplations to miserable marriages to simple pure loneliness, contrasting with hundreds of anonymous confessions of love and longing.
"I was interested in the way I interact with people for my writing process, which usually involves a one-way communication of feelings and ideas that I later find out whether they resonate with others or not," says Cooper.
"With this I could start instead with people's thoughts and feelings, what resonates for them, and make my own interpretations of those musically and visually, and then send those back out to everyone. It's more of a collaborative approach to making an album, and more intense."
Grief, hope, regret, joy, hurt and love form the basis for each track, taking Cooper's ever-evolving creative process in a completely new direction - with profoundly intense results.
"Rendering the experience of being is at the core of what I do musically - but I hadn't realised the impact that other people's words on being would have on me until I started reading the database of thoughts," he says.
"It was like finding a secret window into everyone's minds, and discovering amongst the chaos, pleasure and pain, the experiences that we all share at different times of our lives, and overwhelming emotions and connections that call out to be explored."
Despite what we see in the maelstrom of rage in the echo chambers of society ‘On Being’ reveals that humans still have an innate need to trust one another and express communal generosity - more easily done from the safety of an anonymous portal.
"The quotes carried so much weight for me - I interpreted them with my usual musical tools, but as you can hear in the music, everything got more extreme as I dove into the depths of what everyone had to say later in the record," says Cooper.
The result is a unique work of art that demonstrates unequivocally not only the power of using music without words to express emotions, but the power of words to express what seemed to be inexpressible.
On Being will continue to evolve as Cooper gathers more confessions to feed into this ecosystem of emotions and to create a new range of art projects and other accompanying works which hopefully will speak truthfully to humanity today - and of who we are and who we can become. More
Powerful works of art have traditionally sprung from some source deep within an artist and, if they strike the right tone, resonate with an audience to leave a lasting mark. But what if that equation were reversed: what if an artist were to draw their inspiration from deep within their audience, and use that to reflect those ideas, emotions, hopes, fears, pains and aspirations back to us?
Over a two year journey, audio-visual artist and electronic innovator Max Cooper has inverted the creative process by collecting hundreds of anonymous quotes, posing deep but open questions such as "What would you like to express which you cannot in everyday life?" and "What is it like to exist inside your head?"
The goal: to understand what it is truly like to be human right now. The result: his new album On Being, to be released in February 2025 with the first single "Sun In A Box" coming this September 4th.
With On Being, Cooper aimed to probe under the synthetic surface of social media to "create a snapshot of our minds these days," as he puts it by asking people to share anonymously what they dare not ever say publicly. The result is an emotionally raw and shockingly honest kaleidoscope of confessions, ranging from suicide contemplations to miserable marriages to simple pure loneliness, contrasting with hundreds of anonymous confessions of love and longing.
"I was interested in the way I interact with people for my writing process, which usually involves a one-way communication of feelings and ideas that I later find out whether they resonate with others or not," says Cooper.
"With this I could start instead with people's thoughts and feelings, what resonates for them, and make my own interpretations of those musically and visually, and then send those back out to everyone. It's more of a collaborative approach to making an album, and more intense."
Grief, hope, regret, joy, hurt and love form the basis for each track, taking Cooper's ever-evolving creative process in a completely new direction - with profoundly intense results.
"Rendering the experience of being is at the core of what I do musically - but I hadn't realised the impact that other people's words on being would have on me until I started reading the database of thoughts," he says.
"It was like finding a secret window into everyone's minds, and discovering amongst the chaos, pleasure and pain, the experiences that we all share at different times of our lives, and overwhelming emotions and connections that call out to be explored."
Despite what we see in the maelstrom of rage in the echo chambers of society ‘On Being’ reveals that humans still have an innate need to trust one another and express communal generosity - more easily done from the safety of an anonymous portal.
"The quotes carried so much weight for me - I interpreted them with my usual musical tools, but as you can hear in the music, everything got more extreme as I dove into the depths of what everyone had to say later in the record," says Cooper.
The result is a unique work of art that demonstrates unequivocally not only the power of using music without words to express emotions, but the power of words to express what seemed to be inexpressible.
On Being will continue to evolve as Cooper gathers more confessions to feed into this ecosystem of emotions and to create a new range of art projects and other accompanying works which hopefully will speak truthfully to humanity today - and of who we are and who we can become. More
1
Max Cooper - Forgotten Places Feat. Kathrin deBoer
2
Max Cooper - In Threes
3
Max Cooper - Stereoscopic Dive
4
Max Cooper - Swapped
5
Max Cooper - Vertebrae / Forgotten Places Feat. Kathrin deBoer
6
Max Cooper - With Me Feat. Kathrin deBoer
Acclaimed musician, sound designer and creative Max Cooper announces his first new music of 2023.
As he continues to cut a unique and noteworthy path, the intensely explorative Motif EP see’s the London based audio-visual artist breathe impressive life in multiple directions, and requests our own imagination to see the full picture.
Released on his own Mesh platform, Motif EP is composed by a producer capable of dismantling genres to render them brighter, bolder and ultimately more personal, demonstrating the rich purity of his craft and how his music can be expressed as both a flagrant and elegant listening experience at once.
The first single "Vertebrae / Forgotten Places” featuring Australian singer/songwriter Kathrin deBoer, also known for fronting electro-soul outfit Belleruche demonstrating remarkable control and detail in her haunting voice set amidst a transfixing blend of glitchy electronica and uncompromising drum and bass.
While the presence of integrated thinking around releasing music has long distinguished Max Cooper, it is the notion of performance and entertainment grafted into his style which really admits Max to charge into new territory.
A collection of his influences and a set of motifs from a life in electronic music, Motif EP is equipped with purpose and emotional intimacy. Far from a dark moment of introspection but a diverse collection of audio-visual ideas, each playing a particular role in his live shows which traverse all of his musical passions combined with being alive at this time; immersed in shared history and experience.
Six impressively contemplative and powerful songs that oscillate between Max’s calm, heartfelt reminiscences and youthful remnants of 90’s rave, and a playful precision of dancefloor spirit as he incorporates the sounds of breakbeat, drum and bass and techno.
Reassuringly direct and familiar, fans will recognise signature sound motifs from over a decade of producing, performing and DJing. But more distinctively, Cooper seems disinterested in solely capturing the present and is more concerned with investigating his music's history and investing in crafting its future.
“The mixture of genres on this record might make more sense looking at my life in electronic music. Beginning in the 90’s with an upbringing on classic synth pop and classical music, then my first tape “Prodigy Experience”, and first night out at their Breathe Tour ahead of a delve deep into the Trance, Techno and remnants of Rave of the late 90’s in Northern Ireland and Ibiza. I then moved to Nottingham in ‘99 and went to my first Drum and Bass night at the Marcus Garvey Ballroom, after which I started integrating those records into my collection”
Max Cooper
Playing on the idea of motifs, the cover art was created by Mykola Haleta and features the graphic artist's distinctive textile patterning design.
There is a fresh utilitarian layer to the new EP as it experiments with the interplay between rolled melodies that form a loose web of pensive sound around a more aggressive club-driven production and performance-led frequencies.
Whether serving as an empathetic foil to his new immersive 3D/AV shows or a reinterpretation of his own musical education, Max Cooper’s bold electronic compositions feel excited and increasingly like part of a longer, more timeless story. More
As he continues to cut a unique and noteworthy path, the intensely explorative Motif EP see’s the London based audio-visual artist breathe impressive life in multiple directions, and requests our own imagination to see the full picture.
Released on his own Mesh platform, Motif EP is composed by a producer capable of dismantling genres to render them brighter, bolder and ultimately more personal, demonstrating the rich purity of his craft and how his music can be expressed as both a flagrant and elegant listening experience at once.
The first single "Vertebrae / Forgotten Places” featuring Australian singer/songwriter Kathrin deBoer, also known for fronting electro-soul outfit Belleruche demonstrating remarkable control and detail in her haunting voice set amidst a transfixing blend of glitchy electronica and uncompromising drum and bass.
While the presence of integrated thinking around releasing music has long distinguished Max Cooper, it is the notion of performance and entertainment grafted into his style which really admits Max to charge into new territory.
A collection of his influences and a set of motifs from a life in electronic music, Motif EP is equipped with purpose and emotional intimacy. Far from a dark moment of introspection but a diverse collection of audio-visual ideas, each playing a particular role in his live shows which traverse all of his musical passions combined with being alive at this time; immersed in shared history and experience.
Six impressively contemplative and powerful songs that oscillate between Max’s calm, heartfelt reminiscences and youthful remnants of 90’s rave, and a playful precision of dancefloor spirit as he incorporates the sounds of breakbeat, drum and bass and techno.
Reassuringly direct and familiar, fans will recognise signature sound motifs from over a decade of producing, performing and DJing. But more distinctively, Cooper seems disinterested in solely capturing the present and is more concerned with investigating his music's history and investing in crafting its future.
“The mixture of genres on this record might make more sense looking at my life in electronic music. Beginning in the 90’s with an upbringing on classic synth pop and classical music, then my first tape “Prodigy Experience”, and first night out at their Breathe Tour ahead of a delve deep into the Trance, Techno and remnants of Rave of the late 90’s in Northern Ireland and Ibiza. I then moved to Nottingham in ‘99 and went to my first Drum and Bass night at the Marcus Garvey Ballroom, after which I started integrating those records into my collection”
Max Cooper
Playing on the idea of motifs, the cover art was created by Mykola Haleta and features the graphic artist's distinctive textile patterning design.
There is a fresh utilitarian layer to the new EP as it experiments with the interplay between rolled melodies that form a loose web of pensive sound around a more aggressive club-driven production and performance-led frequencies.
Whether serving as an empathetic foil to his new immersive 3D/AV shows or a reinterpretation of his own musical education, Max Cooper’s bold electronic compositions feel excited and increasingly like part of a longer, more timeless story. More
1
max cooper - Bing and Ruth - The How of it Sped
2
max cooper - Nils Frahm - For (Max Cooper Remix)
3
max cooper - Max Cooper - Music of the Tides
4
max cooper - Rob Clouth - Shedding Layers
5
max cooper - Max Cooper - Resynthesis
6
max cooper - Com Truise / Kimyan Law - Ternary / Luba
7
max cooper - Max Cooper - Balance (Perc Tool)
8
max cooper - Rob Clouth - Transition (Ben Lukas Boysen Remix)
9
max cooper - Alix Perez - Blips
10
max cooper - Atoms For Peace / Vaetxh - Default / Unfolding Mechanism
2LP + download code to the full mix of Balance 030 mixed by Max Cooper. This double vinyl package contains a handpicked selection of Cooper’s favourite tracks from the Balance 030 compilation.
TRACKLISTING
A1 Bing and Ruth - The How of it Sped
A2 Nils Frahm - For (Max Cooper Remix)
B1 Max Cooper - Music of the Tides
B2 Rob Clouth - Shedding Layers
C1 Max Cooper - Resynthesis
C2 Com Truise / Kimyan Law - Ternary / Luba
C3 Max Cooper - Balance (Perc Tool)
D1 Rob Clouth - Transition (Ben Lukas Boysen Remix)
D2 Alix Perez - Blips
D3 Atoms For Peace / Vaetxh - Default / Unfolding Mechanism
More
TRACKLISTING
A1 Bing and Ruth - The How of it Sped
A2 Nils Frahm - For (Max Cooper Remix)
B1 Max Cooper - Music of the Tides
B2 Rob Clouth - Shedding Layers
C1 Max Cooper - Resynthesis
C2 Com Truise / Kimyan Law - Ternary / Luba
C3 Max Cooper - Balance (Perc Tool)
D1 Rob Clouth - Transition (Ben Lukas Boysen Remix)
D2 Alix Perez - Blips
D3 Atoms For Peace / Vaetxh - Default / Unfolding Mechanism
More
***WHITE LABEL 12"*** The second of two remix EPs for Max Cooper's debut album Human - this one bringing one of the album's most talked about tracks Impacts for the first time, with an acid rework by Pitchfork favourites Factory Floor and Perc's insane, obtuse and uncompromising abstract version. This is also the first release of Harvey McKay's version of an earlier Max track, Von der Klippe Fallen - one long grinding techno beat that opens to the dramatic piano of frequent Max's collaborator Tom Hodge.
More
Max Cooper's new release the "Egomodal EP" comes in its vinyl version as a 4 tracks EP. Once again it focuses on dynamics and tangents, along with the concept of complexity and simplicity. Ê The "Egomodal EP" stays true to Max Cooper's approach to link a mathematical structure with a simple one. We are happy to say he has succeeded to fuse complexity with variations by still finding time to focus on details and keeping up that nice randomness which makes his music so appealing also for clubbers and DJs. Ê This release is extremely diverse in styles and offers in its vinyl version everything from the dark Detroit electro styled techno piece "Epitaphy" that evokes old Detroit days… to the melodically trembling "Autumn Haze" that is a huge track because its flow is superbly programmed... to Ripperton's mighty house hymn of a remix, ending in the basseline monster "Raw" which looses its teeth towards the end. The second part of the release features the beautifully melodic "Micron" and the abstract piece of electronica with the name of Ê"Simplicity" that has its cut up vocals dancing like flames around a campfire. The second part of the release also features a remix from Rone who has recently remixed Dominik Eulberg's track "Der Tanz der Glühwuermchen" for Traum. Rone has chosen "Simplicity" to work it in a lyrical and build up… stream like fashion.
More
More records from Mesh
1
Max Cooper - On Being ft. Felix Gerbelot
2
Max Cooper - Peace Exists Here
3
Max Cooper - I Am In A Church In Gravesend Listening To Old Vinyl And Drinking Coffee
4
Max Cooper - A Sense Of Getting Closer
5
Max Cooper - Exist Inside This Machine Ft. Aneek Thapar
6
Max Cooper - My Choices Are Not My Own ft. Tawiah and May Kaspar
7
Max Cooper - The Sun In A Box
8
Max Cooper - True Under Certain Conditions
9
Max Cooper - When I Am Alone With My Thoughts. I Am Crushed ft. Aho Ssan
10
Max Cooper - You Couldn't Love Me Enough And I've Spent My Whole Life Making Up For It ft. Ni
11
Max Cooper - My Mind Is Slipping
12
Max Cooper - Mother Nature Must Have A Different Plan For Me ft. Tom VR
13
Max Cooper - The Missing Piece
14
Max Cooper - It's Up To You, What You Do In The Void
Black Vinyl!
Powerful works of art have traditionally sprung from some source deep within an artist and, if they strike the right tone, resonate with an audience to leave a lasting mark. But what if that equation were reversed: what if an artist were to draw their inspiration from deep within their audience, and use that to reflect those ideas, emotions, hopes, fears, pains and aspirations back to us?
Over a two year journey, audio-visual artist and electronic innovator Max Cooper has inverted the creative process by collecting hundreds of anonymous quotes, posing deep but open questions such as "What would you like to express which you cannot in everyday life?" and "What is it like to exist inside your head?"
The goal: to understand what it is truly like to be human right now. The result: his new album On Being, to be released in February 2025 with the first single "Sun In A Box" coming this September 4th.
With On Being, Cooper aimed to probe under the synthetic surface of social media to "create a snapshot of our minds these days," as he puts it by asking people to share anonymously what they dare not ever say publicly. The result is an emotionally raw and shockingly honest kaleidoscope of confessions, ranging from suicide contemplations to miserable marriages to simple pure loneliness, contrasting with hundreds of anonymous confessions of love and longing.
"I was interested in the way I interact with people for my writing process, which usually involves a one-way communication of feelings and ideas that I later find out whether they resonate with others or not," says Cooper.
"With this I could start instead with people's thoughts and feelings, what resonates for them, and make my own interpretations of those musically and visually, and then send those back out to everyone. It's more of a collaborative approach to making an album, and more intense."
Grief, hope, regret, joy, hurt and love form the basis for each track, taking Cooper's ever-evolving creative process in a completely new direction - with profoundly intense results.
"Rendering the experience of being is at the core of what I do musically - but I hadn't realised the impact that other people's words on being would have on me until I started reading the database of thoughts," he says.
"It was like finding a secret window into everyone's minds, and discovering amongst the chaos, pleasure and pain, the experiences that we all share at different times of our lives, and overwhelming emotions and connections that call out to be explored."
Despite what we see in the maelstrom of rage in the echo chambers of society ‘On Being’ reveals that humans still have an innate need to trust one another and express communal generosity - more easily done from the safety of an anonymous portal.
"The quotes carried so much weight for me - I interpreted them with my usual musical tools, but as you can hear in the music, everything got more extreme as I dove into the depths of what everyone had to say later in the record," says Cooper.
The result is a unique work of art that demonstrates unequivocally not only the power of using music without words to express emotions, but the power of words to express what seemed to be inexpressible.
On Being will continue to evolve as Cooper gathers more confessions to feed into this ecosystem of emotions and to create a new range of art projects and other accompanying works which hopefully will speak truthfully to humanity today - and of who we are and who we can become. More
Powerful works of art have traditionally sprung from some source deep within an artist and, if they strike the right tone, resonate with an audience to leave a lasting mark. But what if that equation were reversed: what if an artist were to draw their inspiration from deep within their audience, and use that to reflect those ideas, emotions, hopes, fears, pains and aspirations back to us?
Over a two year journey, audio-visual artist and electronic innovator Max Cooper has inverted the creative process by collecting hundreds of anonymous quotes, posing deep but open questions such as "What would you like to express which you cannot in everyday life?" and "What is it like to exist inside your head?"
The goal: to understand what it is truly like to be human right now. The result: his new album On Being, to be released in February 2025 with the first single "Sun In A Box" coming this September 4th.
With On Being, Cooper aimed to probe under the synthetic surface of social media to "create a snapshot of our minds these days," as he puts it by asking people to share anonymously what they dare not ever say publicly. The result is an emotionally raw and shockingly honest kaleidoscope of confessions, ranging from suicide contemplations to miserable marriages to simple pure loneliness, contrasting with hundreds of anonymous confessions of love and longing.
"I was interested in the way I interact with people for my writing process, which usually involves a one-way communication of feelings and ideas that I later find out whether they resonate with others or not," says Cooper.
"With this I could start instead with people's thoughts and feelings, what resonates for them, and make my own interpretations of those musically and visually, and then send those back out to everyone. It's more of a collaborative approach to making an album, and more intense."
Grief, hope, regret, joy, hurt and love form the basis for each track, taking Cooper's ever-evolving creative process in a completely new direction - with profoundly intense results.
"Rendering the experience of being is at the core of what I do musically - but I hadn't realised the impact that other people's words on being would have on me until I started reading the database of thoughts," he says.
"It was like finding a secret window into everyone's minds, and discovering amongst the chaos, pleasure and pain, the experiences that we all share at different times of our lives, and overwhelming emotions and connections that call out to be explored."
Despite what we see in the maelstrom of rage in the echo chambers of society ‘On Being’ reveals that humans still have an innate need to trust one another and express communal generosity - more easily done from the safety of an anonymous portal.
"The quotes carried so much weight for me - I interpreted them with my usual musical tools, but as you can hear in the music, everything got more extreme as I dove into the depths of what everyone had to say later in the record," says Cooper.
The result is a unique work of art that demonstrates unequivocally not only the power of using music without words to express emotions, but the power of words to express what seemed to be inexpressible.
On Being will continue to evolve as Cooper gathers more confessions to feed into this ecosystem of emotions and to create a new range of art projects and other accompanying works which hopefully will speak truthfully to humanity today - and of who we are and who we can become. More
1
Jinjé - BBLO
2
Jinjé - My Heart
3
Jinjé - The Wish You Wish You Made
4
Jinjé - Escape From Luna
Following on from his Mesh debut Jinjé returns with Escape from Luna, a four-track EP expanding further on the infinite sonic worlds of his solo production work.
Lead single and opening track ‘BBLO’ launches with a voyage into detailed textural layers, gliding through microscopic ambient-leaning compositions before dropping into a weighty electronic beat with touches of electro and dub.
As a founding member of the Leeds-based experimental band Vessels - an act acclaimed for their ability to defy categorisation - Lee Malcolm is no stranger to breaking the boundaries of genre. With his solo project, Jinjé, he delves into atypical sonic wanderings that navigate between acoustic and electronic, synthetic and organic, employing a learned ear for the fusion of seemingly disparate elements. For this latest release on Mesh, he hones in on these moments of coalescence, fusing various stylistic pieces together with an infectious sense of optimism and an open mind.
Jinjé steers his work across various genres not out of a desire to be referential, but out of a necessity to explore the peculiar spaces that sit between. Implementing this approach with a great understanding of musical production and spatial composition, ‘Escape from Luna’ stands as a crucial documentation of his craft. More
Lead single and opening track ‘BBLO’ launches with a voyage into detailed textural layers, gliding through microscopic ambient-leaning compositions before dropping into a weighty electronic beat with touches of electro and dub.
As a founding member of the Leeds-based experimental band Vessels - an act acclaimed for their ability to defy categorisation - Lee Malcolm is no stranger to breaking the boundaries of genre. With his solo project, Jinjé, he delves into atypical sonic wanderings that navigate between acoustic and electronic, synthetic and organic, employing a learned ear for the fusion of seemingly disparate elements. For this latest release on Mesh, he hones in on these moments of coalescence, fusing various stylistic pieces together with an infectious sense of optimism and an open mind.
Jinjé steers his work across various genres not out of a desire to be referential, but out of a necessity to explore the peculiar spaces that sit between. Implementing this approach with a great understanding of musical production and spatial composition, ‘Escape from Luna’ stands as a crucial documentation of his craft. More
1
Jinjé - BBLO
2
Jinjé - My Heart
3
Jinjé - The Wish You Wish You Made
4
Jinjé - Escape From Luna
Orange Vinyl!
Following on from his Mesh debut Jinjé returns with Escape from Luna, a four-track EP expanding further on the infinite sonic worlds of his solo production work.
Lead single and opening track ‘BBLO’ launches with a voyage into detailed textural layers, gliding through microscopic ambient-leaning compositions before dropping into a weighty electronic beat with touches of electro and dub.
As a founding member of the Leeds-based experimental band Vessels - an act acclaimed for their ability to defy categorisation - Lee Malcolm is no stranger to breaking the boundaries of genre. With his solo project, Jinjé, he delves into atypical sonic wanderings that navigate between acoustic and electronic, synthetic and organic, employing a learned ear for the fusion of seemingly disparate elements. For this latest release on Mesh, he hones in on these moments of coalescence, fusing various stylistic pieces together with an infectious sense of optimism and an open mind.
Jinjé steers his work across various genres not out of a desire to be referential, but out of a necessity to explore the peculiar spaces that sit between. Implementing this approach with a great understanding of musical production and spatial composition, ‘Escape from Luna’ stands as a crucial documentation of his craft. More
Following on from his Mesh debut Jinjé returns with Escape from Luna, a four-track EP expanding further on the infinite sonic worlds of his solo production work.
Lead single and opening track ‘BBLO’ launches with a voyage into detailed textural layers, gliding through microscopic ambient-leaning compositions before dropping into a weighty electronic beat with touches of electro and dub.
As a founding member of the Leeds-based experimental band Vessels - an act acclaimed for their ability to defy categorisation - Lee Malcolm is no stranger to breaking the boundaries of genre. With his solo project, Jinjé, he delves into atypical sonic wanderings that navigate between acoustic and electronic, synthetic and organic, employing a learned ear for the fusion of seemingly disparate elements. For this latest release on Mesh, he hones in on these moments of coalescence, fusing various stylistic pieces together with an infectious sense of optimism and an open mind.
Jinjé steers his work across various genres not out of a desire to be referential, but out of a necessity to explore the peculiar spaces that sit between. Implementing this approach with a great understanding of musical production and spatial composition, ‘Escape from Luna’ stands as a crucial documentation of his craft. More
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Max Cooper - Forgotten Places Feat. Kathrin deBoer
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Max Cooper - In Threes
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Max Cooper - Stereoscopic Dive
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Max Cooper - Swapped
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Max Cooper - Vertebrae / Forgotten Places Feat. Kathrin deBoer
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Max Cooper - With Me Feat. Kathrin deBoer
Acclaimed musician, sound designer and creative Max Cooper announces his first new music of 2023.
As he continues to cut a unique and noteworthy path, the intensely explorative Motif EP see’s the London based audio-visual artist breathe impressive life in multiple directions, and requests our own imagination to see the full picture.
Released on his own Mesh platform, Motif EP is composed by a producer capable of dismantling genres to render them brighter, bolder and ultimately more personal, demonstrating the rich purity of his craft and how his music can be expressed as both a flagrant and elegant listening experience at once.
The first single "Vertebrae / Forgotten Places” featuring Australian singer/songwriter Kathrin deBoer, also known for fronting electro-soul outfit Belleruche demonstrating remarkable control and detail in her haunting voice set amidst a transfixing blend of glitchy electronica and uncompromising drum and bass.
While the presence of integrated thinking around releasing music has long distinguished Max Cooper, it is the notion of performance and entertainment grafted into his style which really admits Max to charge into new territory.
A collection of his influences and a set of motifs from a life in electronic music, Motif EP is equipped with purpose and emotional intimacy. Far from a dark moment of introspection but a diverse collection of audio-visual ideas, each playing a particular role in his live shows which traverse all of his musical passions combined with being alive at this time; immersed in shared history and experience.
Six impressively contemplative and powerful songs that oscillate between Max’s calm, heartfelt reminiscences and youthful remnants of 90’s rave, and a playful precision of dancefloor spirit as he incorporates the sounds of breakbeat, drum and bass and techno.
Reassuringly direct and familiar, fans will recognise signature sound motifs from over a decade of producing, performing and DJing. But more distinctively, Cooper seems disinterested in solely capturing the present and is more concerned with investigating his music's history and investing in crafting its future.
“The mixture of genres on this record might make more sense looking at my life in electronic music. Beginning in the 90’s with an upbringing on classic synth pop and classical music, then my first tape “Prodigy Experience”, and first night out at their Breathe Tour ahead of a delve deep into the Trance, Techno and remnants of Rave of the late 90’s in Northern Ireland and Ibiza. I then moved to Nottingham in ‘99 and went to my first Drum and Bass night at the Marcus Garvey Ballroom, after which I started integrating those records into my collection”
Max Cooper
Playing on the idea of motifs, the cover art was created by Mykola Haleta and features the graphic artist's distinctive textile patterning design.
There is a fresh utilitarian layer to the new EP as it experiments with the interplay between rolled melodies that form a loose web of pensive sound around a more aggressive club-driven production and performance-led frequencies.
Whether serving as an empathetic foil to his new immersive 3D/AV shows or a reinterpretation of his own musical education, Max Cooper’s bold electronic compositions feel excited and increasingly like part of a longer, more timeless story. More
As he continues to cut a unique and noteworthy path, the intensely explorative Motif EP see’s the London based audio-visual artist breathe impressive life in multiple directions, and requests our own imagination to see the full picture.
Released on his own Mesh platform, Motif EP is composed by a producer capable of dismantling genres to render them brighter, bolder and ultimately more personal, demonstrating the rich purity of his craft and how his music can be expressed as both a flagrant and elegant listening experience at once.
The first single "Vertebrae / Forgotten Places” featuring Australian singer/songwriter Kathrin deBoer, also known for fronting electro-soul outfit Belleruche demonstrating remarkable control and detail in her haunting voice set amidst a transfixing blend of glitchy electronica and uncompromising drum and bass.
While the presence of integrated thinking around releasing music has long distinguished Max Cooper, it is the notion of performance and entertainment grafted into his style which really admits Max to charge into new territory.
A collection of his influences and a set of motifs from a life in electronic music, Motif EP is equipped with purpose and emotional intimacy. Far from a dark moment of introspection but a diverse collection of audio-visual ideas, each playing a particular role in his live shows which traverse all of his musical passions combined with being alive at this time; immersed in shared history and experience.
Six impressively contemplative and powerful songs that oscillate between Max’s calm, heartfelt reminiscences and youthful remnants of 90’s rave, and a playful precision of dancefloor spirit as he incorporates the sounds of breakbeat, drum and bass and techno.
Reassuringly direct and familiar, fans will recognise signature sound motifs from over a decade of producing, performing and DJing. But more distinctively, Cooper seems disinterested in solely capturing the present and is more concerned with investigating his music's history and investing in crafting its future.
“The mixture of genres on this record might make more sense looking at my life in electronic music. Beginning in the 90’s with an upbringing on classic synth pop and classical music, then my first tape “Prodigy Experience”, and first night out at their Breathe Tour ahead of a delve deep into the Trance, Techno and remnants of Rave of the late 90’s in Northern Ireland and Ibiza. I then moved to Nottingham in ‘99 and went to my first Drum and Bass night at the Marcus Garvey Ballroom, after which I started integrating those records into my collection”
Max Cooper
Playing on the idea of motifs, the cover art was created by Mykola Haleta and features the graphic artist's distinctive textile patterning design.
There is a fresh utilitarian layer to the new EP as it experiments with the interplay between rolled melodies that form a loose web of pensive sound around a more aggressive club-driven production and performance-led frequencies.
Whether serving as an empathetic foil to his new immersive 3D/AV shows or a reinterpretation of his own musical education, Max Cooper’s bold electronic compositions feel excited and increasingly like part of a longer, more timeless story. More
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Indian Wells - An Escalator In A Storm (Incompiuto Part I)
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Indian Wells - Four Walls
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Indian Wells - Against Numbers
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Indian Wells - No One Really Listens To Oscillators
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Indian Wells - I Cannot I
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Indian Wells - Habitat
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Indian Wells - Life Of JS (Incompiuto Part II)
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Indian Wells - Calabrian Woods
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Indian Wells - Before Life
This was pressed using recycled pellets so each colour is different. We've no way of telling you what colour you'll get :)
Introspective, engaging, electronic music exploring the concept of “unfinished” in relation to oneself, art, architecture and surroundings; ‘No One Really Listens To Oscillators’ is the gloriously titled new album by Indian Wells, the project of producer Pietro Iannuzzi from southern Italy. Announced today, along with new single ‘Calabrian Woods’, the nine track album is set for release on 15th July 2022 on Max Cooper’s Mesh imprint.
The album’s initial conceptual input came from an article in The New York Times referencing a new conceptual architectural style. The term “Incompiuto” (Unfinished) which was theorized by Alterazioni Video & Fosbury Architecture and concerned unfinished works that reveal the inability of projects to make infrastructures useful and sustainable for the community.
“The head of this article was a photo of an escalator in the middle of nowhere in Calabria, where I live,” explains Pietro. “I knew this escalator very well and I immediately realized that my perception of this "reality" could be really different from people who have never lived in this area. It can be said that I grew up in the unfinished - between unfinished houses and other half-built works that are now an integral part of the landscape, without really noticing. In reality, our experience is influenced by everything that surrounds us and this context shapes us to make us live a distorted reality, which we very quickly get used to.”
“Before I started to create this album, I cleared my mind,” says Pietro. “I went back to when I fell in love with electronic music and listened to Radiohead’s Kid A and Amnesiac, Warp artists like Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin, Border Community, William Basinski, Massive Attack. I felt my last album was unfinished, and realised something had to change in my music.”
Indian Wells’ last album, 2017’s warmly received ‘Where The World Ends’, was supported by an array of tastemaker press (“Soaring euphoria” Mixmag Top 50 Albums of 2017, “Tender, pulsing techno” Resident Advisor, “A standout cut in the realm of emotive techno” XLR8R, “Techno with an artful, emotive edge” Clash, “A refreshing vision of club music” Electronic Sound, "The album simply glows" A Closer Listen) and standout track ‘Cascades’ received plays across BBC Radio (Gideon Coe, Huw Stephens, Jamz Supernova, Pete Tong, Phil Taggart, Tom Ravenscroft). More
Introspective, engaging, electronic music exploring the concept of “unfinished” in relation to oneself, art, architecture and surroundings; ‘No One Really Listens To Oscillators’ is the gloriously titled new album by Indian Wells, the project of producer Pietro Iannuzzi from southern Italy. Announced today, along with new single ‘Calabrian Woods’, the nine track album is set for release on 15th July 2022 on Max Cooper’s Mesh imprint.
The album’s initial conceptual input came from an article in The New York Times referencing a new conceptual architectural style. The term “Incompiuto” (Unfinished) which was theorized by Alterazioni Video & Fosbury Architecture and concerned unfinished works that reveal the inability of projects to make infrastructures useful and sustainable for the community.
“The head of this article was a photo of an escalator in the middle of nowhere in Calabria, where I live,” explains Pietro. “I knew this escalator very well and I immediately realized that my perception of this "reality" could be really different from people who have never lived in this area. It can be said that I grew up in the unfinished - between unfinished houses and other half-built works that are now an integral part of the landscape, without really noticing. In reality, our experience is influenced by everything that surrounds us and this context shapes us to make us live a distorted reality, which we very quickly get used to.”
“Before I started to create this album, I cleared my mind,” says Pietro. “I went back to when I fell in love with electronic music and listened to Radiohead’s Kid A and Amnesiac, Warp artists like Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin, Border Community, William Basinski, Massive Attack. I felt my last album was unfinished, and realised something had to change in my music.”
Indian Wells’ last album, 2017’s warmly received ‘Where The World Ends’, was supported by an array of tastemaker press (“Soaring euphoria” Mixmag Top 50 Albums of 2017, “Tender, pulsing techno” Resident Advisor, “A standout cut in the realm of emotive techno” XLR8R, “Techno with an artful, emotive edge” Clash, “A refreshing vision of club music” Electronic Sound, "The album simply glows" A Closer Listen) and standout track ‘Cascades’ received plays across BBC Radio (Gideon Coe, Huw Stephens, Jamz Supernova, Pete Tong, Phil Taggart, Tom Ravenscroft). More
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Alex Banks - A Way Out
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Alex Banks - Introspective
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Alex Banks - What We Have
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Alex Banks - Resonate
Respected producer, DJ and sound designer Alex Banks presents his third studio album ‘Projections’, returning to Max Cooper’s Mesh imprint.
The work follows up critically acclaimed releases on Modeselektor’s Monkeytown, Ninja Tune, where he remixed Bonobo, and his sublime sophomore album ‘Beneath the Surface’ from 2019. Produced in his studio in Brighton, UK, the album is an immersive nine-track masterstroke covering the gamut of electronica, techno, breakbeat, bass and IDM, fit for clubs and home-listening alike.
The project was born in the early stages of 2021. With little outside stimulation to draw inspiration from, Banks invested in new gear including a Moog Matriarch, DFAM and a host of Eurorack Modules - and set about immersing himself in the possibilities of his new semi-modular synths.
In terms of sonic reference points, he found himself in new territory, too. “Usually going to a club night, or concert, or even the simple things in life that you take for granted all feed into a melting pot of things that inspire me to create. But without these, I instead found myself drawing on memories of experiences, and imagining new ones for the future to come. I began to feel like these were projections, almost like memories of experiences I had been projecting via the music I was creating,” he shares, adding that memories of clubbing trips to Berlin, London and Brighton fuelled his vision for the album.
Furthermore, the seclusion we collectively experienced allowed Banks to philosophise on the nature of human connection, which fed into the album concept: “I started to think about how during our period of relative isolation, we are all projecting into the digital ether, searching for a connection in an increasingly virtual world where shared human contact and experiences have become scarce.”
In ‘Projections,’ Banks creates an immersive world to get lost in, typified by the ambient opener, ‘Transitions’, where he builds up a dreamy ocean of sound. ‘Into the Realm’ sees the artist set the scene for the off-kilter album landscape to follow, as modulated synth patterns ricochet throughout. First single ‘A Way Out’, due out 6 April, takes us onto the dancefloor, a foot in breaks and techno alike, flanked by his signature pads and intermittent synth melodies that radiate a sense of melancholic optimism. The track is complimented by a striking video clip by award-winning motion graphics designer Matthew Clugston who has translated its contrasting moods into a brilliant juxtaposition between artificial and natural life cycles.
Made during a four-day period where Banks locked himself away in his studio, ‘Introspective’ conveys the uneasiness of its creator and is his most intense production to date, as a soaring wall of sound drops down into an exhilarating gabber finish. Elsewhere another notable includes the big rolling electro-edged techno cut ‘Recall Mindset’, as Banks channels the feeling of being back on a Berlin dancefloor. ‘Before the End’ is similarly brilliant, swinging between bass and IDM and features vocals from a demo by his wife Maya Wolff, which were chopped, re-pitched and layered with FX.
Banks will be touring the album this summer with a new A/V experience featuring stunning audio reactive visuals and a custom- built pyramid light structure. Performing with Ableton and a selection of the analogue gear he used to create the LP, he will rework the tracks to create a unique experience with every show.
Tracklist:
A1. Transition
A2. Into the Realm
A3. A Way Out
B1. Introspective
B2. Recall Mindset
C1. What We Have
C2. Before the End
D1. Resonate
D2. Stratosphere More
The work follows up critically acclaimed releases on Modeselektor’s Monkeytown, Ninja Tune, where he remixed Bonobo, and his sublime sophomore album ‘Beneath the Surface’ from 2019. Produced in his studio in Brighton, UK, the album is an immersive nine-track masterstroke covering the gamut of electronica, techno, breakbeat, bass and IDM, fit for clubs and home-listening alike.
The project was born in the early stages of 2021. With little outside stimulation to draw inspiration from, Banks invested in new gear including a Moog Matriarch, DFAM and a host of Eurorack Modules - and set about immersing himself in the possibilities of his new semi-modular synths.
In terms of sonic reference points, he found himself in new territory, too. “Usually going to a club night, or concert, or even the simple things in life that you take for granted all feed into a melting pot of things that inspire me to create. But without these, I instead found myself drawing on memories of experiences, and imagining new ones for the future to come. I began to feel like these were projections, almost like memories of experiences I had been projecting via the music I was creating,” he shares, adding that memories of clubbing trips to Berlin, London and Brighton fuelled his vision for the album.
Furthermore, the seclusion we collectively experienced allowed Banks to philosophise on the nature of human connection, which fed into the album concept: “I started to think about how during our period of relative isolation, we are all projecting into the digital ether, searching for a connection in an increasingly virtual world where shared human contact and experiences have become scarce.”
In ‘Projections,’ Banks creates an immersive world to get lost in, typified by the ambient opener, ‘Transitions’, where he builds up a dreamy ocean of sound. ‘Into the Realm’ sees the artist set the scene for the off-kilter album landscape to follow, as modulated synth patterns ricochet throughout. First single ‘A Way Out’, due out 6 April, takes us onto the dancefloor, a foot in breaks and techno alike, flanked by his signature pads and intermittent synth melodies that radiate a sense of melancholic optimism. The track is complimented by a striking video clip by award-winning motion graphics designer Matthew Clugston who has translated its contrasting moods into a brilliant juxtaposition between artificial and natural life cycles.
Made during a four-day period where Banks locked himself away in his studio, ‘Introspective’ conveys the uneasiness of its creator and is his most intense production to date, as a soaring wall of sound drops down into an exhilarating gabber finish. Elsewhere another notable includes the big rolling electro-edged techno cut ‘Recall Mindset’, as Banks channels the feeling of being back on a Berlin dancefloor. ‘Before the End’ is similarly brilliant, swinging between bass and IDM and features vocals from a demo by his wife Maya Wolff, which were chopped, re-pitched and layered with FX.
Banks will be touring the album this summer with a new A/V experience featuring stunning audio reactive visuals and a custom- built pyramid light structure. Performing with Ableton and a selection of the analogue gear he used to create the LP, he will rework the tracks to create a unique experience with every show.
Tracklist:
A1. Transition
A2. Into the Realm
A3. A Way Out
B1. Introspective
B2. Recall Mindset
C1. What We Have
C2. Before the End
D1. Resonate
D2. Stratosphere More
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Llyr - Refuge Of Majesty
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Llyr - Chorus Of The Insects
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Llyr - Winged Chamber Music
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Llyr - Courtship Signal
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Llyr - Intrusion #509
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Llyr - The Hawthorne Effect
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Llyr - Interject (feat. Private Agenda)
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Llyr - Encroachment
Constructed from a library of sounds collected by the artist in the rainforests of Borneo, Llyr’s debut album is an expansive documentation of natural beauty and human interference. Out July 29th on Max Cooper’s Mesh imprint, it is the first full-length album from the Berlin resident.
The result of painstakingly manipulating these recordings via a multitude of cutting edge production techniques, Biome is an expression of precarity and beauty. It invites the listener to be enveloped by Llyr’s augmented reality rendering of the tropical rainforest, one of the Earth’s most biodiverse and iconic biomes, and encourages them to consider our impact on the natural world.
Split into two sections - Pre-Anthropocene and Anthropocene - Biome tells its story with vast sonic ecosystems of molecular detail. Opening to the sounds of bird call, faint monkey hollers and the gentle crackling of mist-enshrouded trees, the album sets its tone with an archetypal impression of the jungle; one of instant familiarity. This is then expanded on across eight tracks, with the first four offering an abstract meditation on the marvels of nature, and the remainder of the album presenting a sonic vision of human interference - more chaotic and complicated than before.
Llyr’s recordings include signifiers of human presence left untouched as an integral part of the story, with natural phenomena manifesting in different ways on each track. The resulting creations are a testament to the inherent musicality of the natural world. ‘Courtship Signal’ uses a recording of frogs singing in Kubah National Park to map out the rhythms and pitches of its composition, reconstructing an exact structural replica of these mating calls before manipulating and recomposing. Elsewhere, ‘The Hawthorne Effect’ captures a swarm of insects engaging in a rare mating ritual, sampling both a collective hum and individual percussive moments to build an entire library of sound. Similarly, ‘Winged Chamber Music’ carves out a majestic sonic cave using recordings of water dripping and the chattering of bats pitched down to human hearing range. Having engaged wholeheartedly with these moments as they occurred, Llyr extracts themes and motifs with a sincere respect for their origins.
The first section is made in its entirety from Llyr’s own rainforest recordings with no use of drum machines, synths or samples. The recordings feature at every possible scale from macro to micro: unmodified binaural field recordings set the scene; granulated layers add pseudo-synthetic textural atmosphere; iteratively processed one-shots provide punctuation; and carefully designed custom instruments, forged from short fragments and cycles, express harmony and rhythm. The second half, heralding the arrival of humans, relaxes the rule book and a smattering of synthetic elements enter the fray to maximise visceral impact.
The resulting work is a debut album that considers extensive themes by weaving these rare recordings into a remarkably coherent sonic blueprint. Biome resonates as both an affecting listening experience and a thematic exploration of the changing world we inhabit. More
The result of painstakingly manipulating these recordings via a multitude of cutting edge production techniques, Biome is an expression of precarity and beauty. It invites the listener to be enveloped by Llyr’s augmented reality rendering of the tropical rainforest, one of the Earth’s most biodiverse and iconic biomes, and encourages them to consider our impact on the natural world.
Split into two sections - Pre-Anthropocene and Anthropocene - Biome tells its story with vast sonic ecosystems of molecular detail. Opening to the sounds of bird call, faint monkey hollers and the gentle crackling of mist-enshrouded trees, the album sets its tone with an archetypal impression of the jungle; one of instant familiarity. This is then expanded on across eight tracks, with the first four offering an abstract meditation on the marvels of nature, and the remainder of the album presenting a sonic vision of human interference - more chaotic and complicated than before.
Llyr’s recordings include signifiers of human presence left untouched as an integral part of the story, with natural phenomena manifesting in different ways on each track. The resulting creations are a testament to the inherent musicality of the natural world. ‘Courtship Signal’ uses a recording of frogs singing in Kubah National Park to map out the rhythms and pitches of its composition, reconstructing an exact structural replica of these mating calls before manipulating and recomposing. Elsewhere, ‘The Hawthorne Effect’ captures a swarm of insects engaging in a rare mating ritual, sampling both a collective hum and individual percussive moments to build an entire library of sound. Similarly, ‘Winged Chamber Music’ carves out a majestic sonic cave using recordings of water dripping and the chattering of bats pitched down to human hearing range. Having engaged wholeheartedly with these moments as they occurred, Llyr extracts themes and motifs with a sincere respect for their origins.
The first section is made in its entirety from Llyr’s own rainforest recordings with no use of drum machines, synths or samples. The recordings feature at every possible scale from macro to micro: unmodified binaural field recordings set the scene; granulated layers add pseudo-synthetic textural atmosphere; iteratively processed one-shots provide punctuation; and carefully designed custom instruments, forged from short fragments and cycles, express harmony and rhythm. The second half, heralding the arrival of humans, relaxes the rule book and a smattering of synthetic elements enter the fray to maximise visceral impact.
The resulting work is a debut album that considers extensive themes by weaving these rare recordings into a remarkably coherent sonic blueprint. Biome resonates as both an affecting listening experience and a thematic exploration of the changing world we inhabit. More