Max Cooper approaches music like mathematics. His background and PhD in science is likely part of this unique approach, with Cooper’s interests lying in the science of sequencing sound. The result of this obsessive investiture into the possibilities of sound design has resulted in Cooper becoming renowned for crafting a style of electronica with a distinct emotional resonance. His music is tuned into the sort of frequencies that appeal to our potential to feel. Often combining the music he programmes with visual art, and in turn taking inspiration from the visual and abstract world, Cooper’s sound art pulses with an achingly visceral energy. His latest album, Unspoken Words, traverses the scope of his influences and inclinations, flowing from near ambient soundscapes to amorphous and sharp ideations of club and breakbeats.
The scope of Unspoken Words is astounding. At first listen, it’s easy to be lured into the quiet of the album’s title track and the first half of Inanimate to Animate. Like its namesake, the latter continues the droning silence of Unspoken Words until it begins to jump with ecstatic bursts of kinetic sound. The energy of Unspoken Words swells as the album progresses, phasing from the introspective and nostalgic static buzz of tracks like Ascent or the thrumming waves of Spectrum and Pulse at the Centre of Being. Symphony In Acid marks a significant shift, with Unspoken Words breaking its silence and plummeting into propulsive chaos. Symphony In Acid pulls together an orchestra of squiggling synths and pads against a distant techno stutter, growing in texture and ambiguity as it progresses. The shuddering, bass distortion of Exotic Contents is core shaking, juxtaposed with beams of drone synths that glow like sliding violin strings. These crescendo into a post-dubstep cacophony, bleeding into the opening machine sounds of Broken Machines Broken Dreams. A trippy, acidic tech-house cut, the track is the closest Unspoken Words and Cooper comes to the conventional dancefloor. Solace In Structure, a standout, features a breakneck breakbeat pattern and churning synths. The drum’n’bass adjacent track recalls Aphex Twin with its erratic yet deliberate structure, continuing to reveal its layers of sound including a scattered 8-bit arpeggio. Unspoken Words returns to where it started as it reaches its conclusion, slipping back into a quieter turn of phrase as it ends with the glowing ambience of Stream Of Thought.
Download and stream Unspoken Words here
There’s a slight new-age, spiritual approach to Unspoken Words that sees Cooper looking toward the metaphysical. It’s an interesting concept, given that his art has always been so grounded in the theoretical. Nevertheless Unspoken Words remains as cerebral as ever, but there’s a sense of surrendering to the inherent chaos of sound for Cooper rather than an attempt at its dominance. It’s almost as if Unspoken Words traces the history of his musical evolution, and offers a glimpse at its future; less formula, more non-calculated feeling.
Watch the trailer for Unspoken Words below.
Follow Max Cooper
