Max Cooper – Synesthetes Museum

Another long mix, after yesterday’s from Jamie Harley. A conceptual cracker from Max Cooper for Magnetic magazine. Includes an unreleased Max Cooper track.

Max Cooper says:

The brief for this mix was to make something inspired by an architectural space. When I was doing my Post-Doc at UCL I used to go the British Museum to relax, and work in the beautiful library there, so I chose the space for the mix. I wanted to capture the ambient atmosphere in the central courtyard, so I did some binaural recording to include in the mix. I also wanted to make the mix something of an exploration through history and ideas in line with the contents of the museum, so I brought in lots of disparate music spanning the centuries and continents. I also mixed it in a way to be like a journey though the museum, turning corners and regularly coming across something totally different and unexpected, with each track being like a different exhibit. Hence the name of the mix, in that, each piece of music almost has a visual content.

Synesthetes Museum: A Mix By Max Cooper

1. Max Cooper “Binaural Museum”

“The people are the exhibits in this audio museum. Recorded in the British Museum hall using binaural mics, which record the sound from inside the ear, thereby capturing the interaction of the sound between the physiology of the head and ears. The result is a more convincing 3-dimensional sound space than a normal mic can provide. Listen with your headphones and close your eyes, the sounds render a vivid scene of activity. I love all the different things going on in the space and the acoustics deliver an amazingly soft mesh of human sounds.”

2. A Winged Victory For The Sullen “Steep Hills of Vicodin Tears” (Erased Tapes)

3. Max Cooper “Woven Ancestry” (Unreleased)

“This track was my attempt to represent musically, the idea of our cultural, mental and genetic ancestry woven together in a complex manner and yielding each living individual. For this purpose I chose three ancient instruments from different parts of the world. You can hear the West African Kora, the East African Nyatiti and the European Harp. I then set each instance of the corresponding instrument playing varied and undulating rhythms to yield an intense interaction of sounds from disparate regions, analogous to the ancestral tapestry of every living being.”

4. Adam Johnson “Anex” (Merck)

5. Peiyou Chang “Song of Gu Qin” (Peiyou Chang)

“This piece comprises a solo of the ancient Chinese instrument, the Guqin, whose origin dates from approximately 1000BC or earlier.”

6. Vaetxh “Randolph Pactali” (Unreleased)

“This track features one of the earliest known recorded pieces of music, by Thomas Edison, using a wax cylinder in 1888 to record ‘4000 voices singing G.F. Handel over 100 meters away.’ This recording sits in unaltered form in there amongst Rob’s 9/8 genius.”

7. Bonobo “Cirrus” (Ninja Tune)

8. ThermalBear “U Love” (Last Night On Earth)

9. Rockwell “Fluf” (Shogun Audio)

10. Xu Zhengyin “Dragon Boat” (China Record Corporation)

11. Unknown Origin “Gregorian Chant” (Edit)

“I found a nice Gregorian Chant written by an unknown composer from around the 9th century. I pitched the chant down to make it less recognizable as human, making it into more of a drone.”

12. MMOTHS “For Her” (Max Cooper Remix) (SQE Music)

13. Unknown Origin “The Call to the Lama from Afar” (Jade)

“This is a traditional Tibetan chant, maybe from around the 12th century.”

14. Rrose “Waterfall” (EAUX)

15. Nils Frahm “Peter” (Max Cooper Remix) (Erased Tapes)

16. James Yorkston “Woozy With Cider” (Jon Hopkins Remix) (Domino)

17. Max Cooper “Binaural Museum”

~ by acidted on April 16, 2013.