Max Cooper

Purveyor of the finest cerebral electronica, Max Cooper returns to the fray with immersive and beautiful new album, Emergence. Hamish Mackintosh meets him in his studio

- Hamish Mackintosh

Max Cooper isn’t your average DJ/producer. The music that he creates (along with the concepts behind it) glitch and crackle with lofty ambitions to go further into the nature of things. As with sublime debut album, Human, Cooper’s new offering, Emergence, uses electronic music to explore the human condition not to mention stimulate the senses. A long-time explorer of the possibilities of audio-visual systems, Emergence began life as a series of collaborations with visual artists, which Cooper then furnished the music for – and what music! Max Cooper’s musical world is a joyous blend of ambient synthscapes, crackling glitches, faraway voices and haunting piano motifs.

Where once Max was firmly based in the box, Emergence sees him well and truly, well, emerge, in part, from the confines of the computer and complement his deft digital skills with some choice new analogue additions to his musical palette. Emergence also sees Max further experiment with his penchant for binaural recording, which in laymen’s terms means… get your headphones on to enjoy even more layers to the music!

Having decamped from his previous bedroom studio to the more spacious environs of the attic, FM met up with Max Cooper to hear more about his journey out of the box and into the neural network. Music, as the beloved Boards of Canada astutely noted, truly is maths.

FM: What’s changed since we last spoke a couple of years back for the release of your debut album, Human?