An Interview with Max Cooper…
NSG’s David Lancaster spoke to Max Cooper ahead of his show at Grand Central Hall about musical escapism, being influenced by the energy of his hometown, and lighting up an ancient theatre in Athens!
Max Cooper is an electronica artist and a techno producer who creates emotional immersive soundscapes that sit alongside amazing visual projections and light installations, both for the concert hall and for the dancefloor.
DL: Hi Max, thanks again for the interview. You grew up in Belfast, how did it all start for you? Were you into music from an early age??
MC: I was always surrounded by music and always affected by it, but despite trying to play some instruments I didn’t become obsessed with it until I discovered nightlife in the late ’90s.
DL: How many instruments do you actually play Max?
MC: I don’t play any instruments well. I play lots of things badly and then remove the bad bits, it’s the joy of the digital musician. That way I can focus my efforts on expressing feelings and ideas rather than the pains of motor control training. Although of course there are certain types of expression I cannot achieve with my technique, that’s where collaborations with “real” musicians come in.
DL: Some great musicians have come out of Northern Ireland such as Van Morrison, The Undertones, and Snow Patrol, to name just a few, were those guys an inspiration for you or an influence in any way?
MC: No, but I was influenced by the culture and energy for a gig that is hard to see anywhere else in the world, it’s a special place for a party.
DP: Your music is a mix of melancholic piano blended in with euphoric synth sounds at times visiting techno rhythms, taking the listener on a majestic journey. How would you describe your sound, Max?
MC: It’s hinged around harmony, feeling, and musical storytelling, that’s the thread. BPM’s and genres aren’t something I like to be constrained by, I just try to create whatever I think is the right atmosphere and soundtrack for each given situation, with full flexibility to change what I’m doing in the moment if I think it’s needed.
DL: You’ve been at this for over a decade now and you have released a huge amount of content, you have been prolific with your output, what’s been the highlight or high points for you so far?
MC: The collaborations have been the high point, I’ve been lucky to work with some amazing creatives and institutions, The Barbican, Sonar, The McGloughlin Brothers, Zaha Hadid Architects, Andy Lomas, Architecture Social Club, Tom Hodge, Jessica In, there have been many collaborations which I have learned a lot from and which have yielded beautiful results.
DL: You’ve worked with Philip Glass too and re-interpreted some of his work, he’s an amazing composer, how did that come about, was it always an ambition of yours?
MC: Yes, I’d been a long term fan of his music, which certainly influenced mine, as well as influencing my visual collaborations via his score for Koyaanisqatsi. So it was great getting to delve deep into his work and reinterpret it with the pianist Bruce Brubaker and software developer Alexander Randon for the Glassforms record. We built a system for live electronic reworking of the original Glass pieces from the software up.
DP: You play here at Grand Central Hall on July 3rd, after that you play The Roundhouse in London, but you also have another huge event happening at The Acropolis in Athens, again, this sounds awesome! I’ve been to The Acropolis and it really is beautiful at night with The Parthenon all lit up. What are your plans for that show and will we be able to watch it on a stream or anything? I wish I could be there.
MC: We’re looking into filming and streaming the Acropolis show, I hope it will be possible, but there are plenty of complications because of the important historical status of the ancient theatre in which it will take place. As with every show, I will try to find the right visuals as well as the right music to complement the space. I usually project onto the surfaces of each live setting as well as onto semi transparent screens, to make the architecture and surroundings blend with my visual collaborative projects as best I can.
DP: You just put out ‘Leaving This Place‘, the lead track from your upcoming EP ‘Maps.’ Leaving This Place has an interesting video, it reminds me a bit of the old rave, techno videos from the late ’80s early ’90s, lots of abstract shapes moving and morphing about, can you tell us about the idea behind the video?
MC: It’s an algorithmic process reminiscent of Wolfram’s cellular automata and Conway’s game of life. These processes look like basic retro graphics because they were invented some time ago and do have very simple rules, but they also contain great richness visually. Both Conway’s and some of Wolfram’s systems (Rule 110) have been shown to be Turing Complete, which means these simple pixel growing visualisations can be set up in a manner to simulate any computational process, and if you believe in a deterministic universe they could simulate you too. They also beautifully demonstrate the link between aesthetics and computation, with the sorts of visual systems needed for universal computation being those with an apparent balance of pattern and disorder. Despite being these simple toy systems they touch on so many important things and have been an interest of mine for many years, hence the collaboration with Jazer Giles who used a balance of two algorithms, pixel sorting, and an exploratory Physarum style also, to get an interplay of something reminiscent of organic and inorganic processes in the toy system. I just love the idea we can look at these things and learn so much, that’s what keeps me coming back to them.
DL: Is it true that you spent hours and days on end writing the song, Leaving This Place?’ I saw that you said something about having no sleep and forgetting to eat because you got lost in the song. Can you tell us about how you write and create your music, Max??
MC: I nearly always get lost in writing music like that, the disconnection from everything else is one of the joys of making music and why so many people do it, I think. That piece in particular was built with escapism in mind.
DL: ‘Maps’ is out soon, can you tell us about the tracks on the EP and what your inspiration was for these new songs?
MC: It was a project that came from a score to a modern dance piece by the Jacob Jonas dance company. There were many creatives involved, from choreography to dancer to filming to processing to musical and vocal interpretation, each layer with its own mapping of the feelings and ideas to a new medium. My scoring process leads to several musical ideas so I decided to make an EP around it with this mapping theme, with two ambient scores to the dance, one percussive reinterpretation of the vocal score, and one fully electronic visual project whose techniques are mapped back to the original dance video to yield something new again. It’s just a big melting pot of ideas built from one another.
(Maps EP Artwork)
DP: I imagine the lockdowns made it hard for you having to re-arrange shows and tours and stuff, it must have been a logistical nightmare? We mentioned earlier that you have a few big shows planned for this year, where else can we see you, and have you got any other plans for the rest of 2021??
MC: Yeah it’s been a rough time for everyone in the music and touring industry. I’ve got a few gigs starting now, quarantine rules pending. The main one to add would be my residency at Phonox in Brixton every Friday in August.
DL: Once again thanks for giving us the chance to interview you Max, good luck with the new music and the live events. Is there anything else you’d like to add?
MC: No, thanks for the interview!
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