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Rising UK electronica star Max Cooper has collaborated with Canada’s intellectual art-rockers BRAIDS on a two-part EP named CONDITIONS ONE. The first of a set of upcoming releases from Cooper examining the human condition, CONDITIONS ONE will be the first release on new live-electronica label FIELDS and is accompanied by evocative and indelicate remixes by hotly tipped northern UK acts Ghosting Season and D/R/U/G/S, as well as an already-released free iPhone app Automaton that previewed one track of the EP.
The human condition is a well-examined idea – but as an ex-genetics researcher with a PhD, Cooper takes a somewhat aslant look at humanity with the two collaborations. “Pleasures,” he says, “is just that – an attempt to write something purely pleasurable and beautiful. But Automaton is darker – an attempt to show how humans are essentially deterministic, trapped in a set of predictable reactions to their environment, their upbringing, their lives”.
All members of BRAIDS sing, and the tracks on the CONDITIONS EP combine vocal lines, melodies and individual vocal sounds from every song on BRAIDS’ most recent album, Native Speaker – both as “proper vocals”, and or ethereal, pure sound.
BRAIDS
Hugely successful with both critics and touring audiences, BRAIDS’ experimental, poppy debut Native Speaker was described as “mesmerizing and vertiginous as desire can be” by the New York Times, “equally tactile and dissolute, cerebral and surreal” by Pitchfork and shortlisted for Canada’s Polaris Prize. Art students from Calgary, Canada, the band were on tour before they had even written the drum tracks for their debut album, and they are currently writing its followup in Montreal, for release in 2013.
MAX COOPER
… is known in Europe for three things: huge festival sets that swing freely between delicate live electronica and abrasive techo glee; his stark, emotional reworks of acts such as multi-million selling soundtrack composer Michael Nyman (Gattaca, the Piano), Hot Chip, Nils Frahm and Olafur Arnalds, and the downtempo classic Hayling by FC Kahuna and Swedish songstress Hafdis Huld; and for his scientific background, which has strongly influenced his 50+ original tracks and remixes as well as the videos he commissions to accompany his work. He has been voted one of the top 100 DJs worldwide by canonical techno and electronica blog Resident Advisor, with his track The End of Reason compared to Philip Glass, Gorecki and Aphex Twin.
Until recently, Cooper worked as a genetics researcher for University College, London while making and touring his music on weekends and at night. He only retired his first, more sober science career in 2010.