MAX COOPER

A remix I made for Au Revoir Simone, a slow dubby sort of affair, not really for the the dancefloor.

I didn't want to use the full vocals so I went for a high-passed ghostly sort of effect with them, it catches some nice bands in the top of her voice though!

Au Revoir Simone - Take Me As I Am - Max Cooper Remix

Nils Frahm is one of the best artists out there in my opinion, with pretty much the best live show I've ever seen. But aside from all that, this was just a really enjoyable remix to work on because the original is such a great piece of music, and seemingly so well suited to what I wanted to do with it - which was to try and turn Nils' instrumental jam on his Juno, into something house/techno/club/44 compatible, but still carrying the class and feeling of the original. It was one of those remixes that just seemed to fit and flow easily, with minimum strain and maximum enjoyment on my part - usually a good sign for a remix (the one's that have to be forced never seem to quite get there).

Big thanks to Billboard for featuring this remix, which is now available as part of my Balance 030 compilation:
https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/dance/8454339/max-cooper-nils-frahm-remix
http://smarturl.it/Balance030MaxCooper

Stream / buy

Nils Frahm - For - Max Cooper remix

This track is about having a walk on a nice sunny day in the countryside, all is well and good, until you accidentally fall off a cliff. We chose the title in Deutsch due to the kick focused poundingness rhythmically.

It was a fun track as I decided I'd let loose, and you might notice, particularly towards the end it gets pretty loose! But luckily Tom's beautiful 5 bar piano riff is there to anchor things at either end, and hopefully save you from the death by cliff (you might notice it's a pain to mix with those 5 bar loops though).

So a bit of background - Tom Hodge is a great pianist and composer who I met recently, and we've been working on lots of interesting things. This is the most extreme in terms of the noise levels really, we've done some nice stuff too, as we're not planning on starting a death metal band just yet.

Lot's more to hear from this collaboration with the release out on Monday 28th on Fields + an amazing remix from Petrels of the A-side track (Fragments of Self) + an amazing video for the A-side by Nick Cobby, which we're all really excited about!

Thanks for listening!

Von Der Klippe Fallen - with Tom Hodge - FIELDS

This track is about emergence from the combination of polar opposites. Fragments of self from very different places, but part of the same whole.

Combining classical and computational elements is something I've been experimenting with for some years, but this attempt to combine the extreme opposites of each was spurred on by some chance DJing experiments, a fortuitous collaboration opportunity, and the amazing work of my friends Olafur Arnalds and Vaetxh (Rob Clouth). I found that I could mix the most beautiful and delicate piano solo of Olafur, with the most hyper-edited and jarring glitch of Vaetxh, and that the result actually worked, well, for me anyway, even if half the people in the club stood confused about how to dance. So when the opportunity arose to work with the pianist and composer Tom Hodge, I wanted to try and create this form of merger of extremes for a release, rather than it being confined to my DJ toolbox (also on the classical meets glitch history from a slightly different angle, check out "Rossz Csillag Alatt Született" from Venetian Snares 2005!).

After some discussion of ideas and approach with Tom, he sat and played and made some recordings for me, which I then chopped and build chords and structure around, sent them back to him to play over the top of again, and then back to me to edit and glitch the playing along with the nasty noises. My detailing process was that of finding some interesting sound sources (binaural recordings, drum hit samples, clangs and slams etc) and using some Max for live randomisation chains to generate lots of partially random complexity which I could then edit as audio before repeating the process with additional layers, eventually bringing the recorded piano audio in to the editing too.

At completion of the audio I was really happy to find out that Nick Cobby, one of my favourite video artists and long standing collaborator, was available and interested in working on the visual side of the project. He took the combination of seemingly incompatible opposites, and applied it visually with his beautiful generative forms, smooth and organic for the melodic sections, and jagged and abrasive for the percussive sections - big thanks to Nick for his amazing work as always!

So, that's probably enough ranting about this track from me, aside from why it is like it is, I hope it's something that you can enjoy irrespective of the conceptual faff.

Buy on Beatport

Fragments of Self - with Tom Hodge - Out Now on FIELDS

Taken from Max Cooper's debut album "Human," out now.

iTunes www.smarturl.it/MCHuman
Beatport: http://smarturl.it/HumanBeatport
Vinyl / CD bit.ly/FIELDSshop

"Incredibly intense" - Pitchfork

"Insanely good" - The FADER

"Impossibly gorgeous" - FACT

"Burns with an incredible creative intensity ... sumptuous, enticingly beautiful" - Clash

"Freaky ... like Fuck Buttons on a tender hangover" - THUMP

"Wants you to dance and cry simultaneously, and will probably succeed in doing so" - DUMMY

"Ace" - theQuietus

"A religious experience .. a master at blending blissed-out, lightweight textures with moments of heavy darkness" - Earmilk

"A quiet elegance that's unique to the genre" - XLR8R

"Some of the more ambitious and exploratory music crafted within the last few years" 
- The Music Ninja

"One of today's most innovative electronic musicians" - DJZ

order on iTunes

Numb feat. Kathrin deBoer - Album version (clip)

This is one of those tracks which gets lost in the abyss of labels and politics for years, before finally resurfacing, on what I'm pleased to say is a great home in Ryan Davis' amazing Klangwelt label. I've updated and remastered the track to bring it up to standard, but it's more or less the same as what you might have heard on some old live sets. This one is called the Porcelain remix, because it's the more fragile of the two versions I made - the other is the Svukt remix, which is a noisy electronica/dubstep influenced affair with a silly wobbly bassline.

N'to - Ekphrasis - Max Cooper's Porcelain Remix (preview)

I had a modern classical/electronica mix from a friend (JamBon) which I had been listening to a lot, and after a weekend away the original of this track was really stuck in my head. At some point I clicked that it sounded just like the style of another friend - Hiatus, and on checking, it was him! So I got straight on email to him asking if I could have the parts, and I even got started on the remix before they arrived by buying the mp3 and starting to lay some ideas around that - When it's on I find it's best to go with it. It was a really enjoyable remix to do given how beautiful the original parts are, my mix is quite similar really, as I couldn't improve on it melodically, I've just tried to add some of my own flavour and twists.

Hiatus - Third - Max Cooper Remix

You might remember this track from a while back - it was originally a remix I did for the band, Get People, which wasn't programmed for official release, so I thought that the situation better be rectified and I went back to the track and updated it, and it was lucky enough to find a home on Sasha's new Last Night on Earth label. It's going out as a collaborative release rather than a straight remix because it's deviated quite far from the original, and also because it forms a more consistant solo release that way. I hope you like it! 

Max Cooper Feat. Get People - Careless

I wanted to make something really heavy for this one, and for the whole "Mechanical Concussion" EP, as the name might suggest! This one is the B-side for the release, which will be coming on vinyl and digital on Stephan Bodzin's Herzblut label at the end of this month.

So yeah, it's a bit of heavy triplet marching style drums here, and some big distortion with a little Mrimba riff over the top. Maybe it's a bit scarey, but I captured the aggression I was after at least. Also beware when mixing this track, it's triplets so won't sit nicely over most 44 tunes!....It'll mix a treat with my Fairmont and Cream Sound remixes though

Max Cooper - Ruptured (preview clip)

Agoria - Panta Rei - Max Cooper Remix

For this one I wanted to make something soft and enveloping that puts a sort of heavy relaxed feeling onto the listener, with the clicks and subtle rhythm to carry it along. A gravity well is an area of space that is warped by a large mass, looking something like a well in 2D representations hence the the name, and an area of space where you would feel the inescapable heavy pull of gravity all over your body, which was the feeling I was trying to produce with the track - For the mass I was thinking something a bit heavier than the earth, but not so heavy as to be painful. This one has a video on the way too, following the same concept, that should be ready this week!

Max Cooper - Gravity Well (clip)

Magic Panda has been doing some great stuff in recent years, so when he sent me over his album to consider for remixes I immediately found a couple of tracks I had to work with. The problem was I couldn't decide which one to remix, so I decided to remix both tracks into one. This is the result, containing parts from two different tracks, combined into a single remix. Out today on Tigerbeat6!

Magic Panda - Distant Places - Max Cooper Remix (clip)

This original track had a really nice piano riff along with an interesting groove and some weird noises, perfect remix material! Also I love what Mauro Norti has been doing, and Wide Angle, so I got involved. I think I did a lot of the ideas for this one during a wait for a delayed flight in an airport, and I was feeling pretty tired at the time, and a bit paranoid because some weird guy sitting opposite seemed to be staring at me. Then some other guy came up to me with a mobile phone in two pieces, slightly freakily shouting words of English that made no sense and trying to give me this phone, I never managed to figure out what he was on about. Anyway, this track was my escapism from all that crap, I tried to make something nice and relaxing and enveloping to remove me from reality a little, hope you like it.

Mauro Norti - You and me - Max Cooper Remix (clip)

A1 track on my new 12" along with Enveloped, Sea of Sound, and a remix from Maetrik!

Max Cooper - Ripple

This remix had some really nice vocal and guitar parts, but when I combined them with my drums it didn't really work for me. So I decided to create a long build with the original parts, which finally drops into a more stripped down form to try and maintain the quality of the original elements. It's a bit of a combination of deepness with euphoria, which I hope still works, I guess I'll find out what you think about it soon enough!

D/R/U/G/S - The Source Of Light - Max Cooper Remix

Dominik Eulberg - Sansula (Max Cooper's Lost In Sound Remix)

I went pretty minimal on this one, no hi-hats, and pretty much no drums actually, just a kick and much later into the track a snare comes in.....There was something about the simple repetitive 2 note melody hits and chords I landed on that just seemed to work without needing anything much else, well hopefully it works for other people too and not just me. It's been going down really well in the clubs at least, it seems to make people clap for some reason, maybe because it's so simple and kick focused rhythmically, it's got a bit of a marching stomp feel.

I stripped out most of the parts from the original, and focused on the great pads and vocal sweeps, which seemed to lead to the melodic idea somehow. It was one of those remixes which flowed nice and easily, not too much conscious thought required, I just let it flow out.

I made an edit of an old video to fit the track too, full details about that on the youtube link:

http://youtu.be/pXdoDtQlvDE

Nick Warren - Devil's Elbow - Max Cooper Remix (out now)

This is the second idea I worked on with Kathrin deBoer for the Conditions Two EP, and an attempt to make something surreal. I tried to use her voice as an instrument in the track, rather than presenting it as a normal vocal at the forefront of the mix. I used lots of Max for Live fiddling’s to mangle up her vocals into all sorts of weird noises, and then picked out some of my favourites to use in the track. Most of the noises that aren’t the drums and main synths, so pretty much all the weird noises in the track, are made from Kathrin’s voice.



The overall feeling was something soft and organic, where in addition to the unpredictability and non-loopy manner of the vocal effects, the drums also follow a loose and slightly randomised pattern, with lots of shuffle to add to the free feeling. I thought the approach made it end up sounding a bit maddening and messy, and there was also a strong feeling of space in there with the main pads, so this combined with the surrealist approach lead me to the name ‘Falling Into Recursive Space’.

For Max Cooper mixes/free downloads:
soundcloud.com/max-cooper/sets/max-cooper-free-downloads

And music videos here:
www.youtube.com/user/maxbcooper

And for up to date info on all the goings on, you can join the mailing list on my site if you like:
www.maxcooper.net/

Max Cooper Feat. Kathrin deBoer - Falling Into Recursive Space (clip)

The Slow Revolt is a great musician, with a great voice, so it was a pleasure to remix this track of his. I tried to enhance the vibe of the original rather than force it into any sort of club format. I just added some new chords by granularising the guitar and layering it up, and focused on making some interesting effects with the vocals and my usual weird noises before finally introducing new bass and strings later to try and bring everything to a peak. I hope you like it!

Available from:
Boomkat http://bit.ly/10OaO6X
iTunes http://bit.ly/17tGtND
Juno http://bit.ly/16etHmB
Beatport: http://www.beatport.com/release/doldrums/1093992

The Slow Revolt - This Dark Matter - Max Cooper Remix (clip)

This is a shortened down version of a remix I did for MMOTHS recently. If you want the full length (mixable) version then you can get that from here as part of an excellent free remix package: http://mmothsmusic.com/diariesremixes

It was a nice remix to work on, with some great field recordings, a lovely simple piano riff, and some looped vocal samples which all slotted nicely into the new structure I wanted to go with - something a bit more club compatible than the original, but still hopefully carrying the feeling.

I messed around with the field recordings in the Monolake Granulator a bit, to get some subtle glitch/randomness in there, but other than that I went pretty straight on the arrangement, just gradually introducing the layers and adding a new synth to punctuate the peak, and a new bassline and chord variation.

The idea with the field recording/glitched intro section was to try and make something non-melodic and a bit harsh and cold, in attempted polar contrast to the warmth of the main melodic section and enveloping bass ie I wanted try and make the bleak part emphasise and accentuate the nice part.

So, anyway, here it is, as a free download for all.

MAX COOPER

Tatiana