MAX COOPER – THE OLD MARKET, HOVE 3.10.24
OK, so I’ve never done any illegal drugs in my life, as music and ale are my vices of choice, but I swear to God that the Max Cooper performance in Hove at The Old Market tonight is about as trippy as I’ve ever got…..maaaaan! Mind you exactly 10 years ago today was quite close as The Horrors played on Worthing Pier Pavilion and the music was very loud and the lights and lazers were so dazzling, that it felt like a trip. One of my mates couldn’t cope with the onslaught as it was frazzling his brain and so he has to leave the gig!
Tonight though, this certainly isn’t the case Max Cooper! For those that are unaware of who he is then in short he’s a Techno/House/Minimal DJ and producer from London. But that would seriously be selling him short! So let’s delve further….
Max Cooper is an electronic composer, multi-disciplinary artist, music label founder and former scientist who has carved out a unique space in music and visual art. He has carved a unique space as an audio-visual artist with a science PhD and an international reputation as a leading electronic musician. His work carries an emotional resonance and sensory immersion, often focusing on humanity’s place in the world. He merges electronic music and visual art with scientific enquiry through installations, live performance, immersive audio-visual experiences, a range of digital media and award-winning music videos.
His Bandcamp page hosts a stunning array of material that he has unleashed into the unsuspecting world. His first releases date back to 2007, when he juggled studying Computational Biology with being resident DJ at a local techno club. His first album dropped a decade ago in 2014, this being ‘Human’, which was followed by ‘Emergence’ in 2016, ‘One Hundred Billion Sparks’ in 2018, ‘Yearning For The Infinite’ in 2019, (which incidentally got remixed 2 years later), in between which was the ‘Glassforms’ joint project with Bruce Brubaker, and two years ago he dropped his ‘Unspoken Words’ album.
He has supplied the music for a powerful video narrated by Greta Thunberg and Pope Francis and played at COP26, urging world leaders to consider climate and environment in Covid recovery plans. He then became the first techno artist to play at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece.
Other work includes commissions from The Barbican, France TV, and collaborations with Zaha Hadid Architects, The Babraham Institute, and L-Acoustics alongside musical reworks of contemporary classical musicians including Philip Glass, Nils Frahm, Terry Reilly and Michael Nyman and pop artists Hot Chip and Moby.
His label, ‘Mesh’, is keenly placed to explore the intersection of music, art and science through interdisciplinary creative collaborations that blur lines between art, mathematics, film, choreography, sciences, architecture, psychology and spirituality.
We are at The Old Market in Hove for the first of a two night residency, both of which have sold out which should keep promoters SJM Concerts rather happy. After this Max will be heading off to Manchester then Glasgow and then over to Bologna. After which he whisks off to Los Angeles, Mexico City, San Francisco and Vancouver. In December he will be performing in Leeds and Cambridge, with the final show of the year lined up in Bratislava just before Christmas.
We knew that we were in for something rather special, but this massive 2 hour 47 minute set, which ran from 8:14pm to 11:01pm was one continual barrage on the senses. Thankfully, we had secured our positions centre front, having arrived moments earlier, so no time for beer tonight! In front of us was the clean expanse raised stage area and to the centre rear of that was as far as I could make out a platform with 2 Pioneers DJ units and 3 laptops. It sounds simple, but I assure you, it’s far more complicated than that. Behind these electronics there was a screen, which was filling the whole of the back area. In addition to this, right in front of my eyes at a distance of a mere 5 feet away, there is an almost totally transparent mesh curtain which hangs from the ceiling and goes right across the whole length of the stage area. A foot in front of this is the crowd barrier, there’s no room for a photo pit.
This is a sold out performance, as is tomorrow’s and everyone is facing forward and staring at the stage. At 8:14pm the intro words appear on the back screen and the ambient electronic sounds begin. “The limits of my language means the limit of my world” was shown on the screens which is a thought provoking statement. The quality of the sound is crisp and clear and it’s loud too, so much so that I feel the music coming up through my feet and hitting my chest and the tips of the hairs on my head start to tingle. Add to this that my field of visual vision expands to the whole of the front mesh and nothing more and nothing less. The ambient wailing recorded vocals and synth sounds are accompanied by videos which are projected onto the rear of the stage behind Max as well as also onto the front giant mesh sheet. Sometimes it’s just the rear video and a majority of the time it’s both. They are quite often in sync and at other times they are fighting against each other to be seen!
The result of this is a 3D style show with depth of field and as I’m right at the front and the vivid coloured videos play out, I find that certain combinations are confusing my brain. Especially those where the video on the mesh screen moves towards me and I feel my upper self instinctively moving backwards, so much so that I nearly topple backwards on several occasions. My plan was now to ensure that I don’t topple backwards into the people behind me! So I hit on the idea of keeping at least one foot firmly planted on the floor whilst swaying to the beat or when having a boogie. It’s like when you’re sitting on a train and looking out of the window at another stationary train inches away from you on another platform, and then your brain tells you that your journey is continuing, but in fact it’s the other train that is moving off and not your train!
The totally immersive experience starts to change from solely ambient waves and at 8:33pm we get the first booming beat that kicks in. Each and every Max Cooper performance is created live and so tomorrow’s sold out show will be different from tonight’s. There is no tracklist as such each time, the audience just goes off on a different trip each time! At 8:58pm the music has moved very much into Jam & Spoon territory, it’s hypnotic and blips and bleeps play out nicely. It was during this segment that I was wondering if there was any experience out there better than this and the only one I could think of was the one seen in many YouTube videos that people have recorded inside the 18,600-seat Sphere (aka Sphere at the Venetian Resort) auditorium east of the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, USA. It’s basically one giant dome that you sit in and it has 16K resolution wraparound interior LED screen, speakers with beamforming and wave field synthesis technologies, and 4D physical effects. The arena cost $2.3 billion, making it the most expensive entertainment venue built in Las Vegas. I’ve personally not been there, but I reckon it’s the biggest mindf*ck out there!
Meanwhile back in the room in Hove, Max Cooper’s musical vibe is changing and at 9:36pm, things turn techno with drum and bass vibes. I’m totally absorbed in another world and I feel as though if I held out my hands, that I could physically touch the moving images that are flashing in front of my face! At 9:44pm, there’s a passage of music which is very similar to M83 and by 9:58pm we were seriously in ‘Born Slippy’ (Underworld) territory. It was here that I was aware that I was gazing in wonderment at everything around me and I was like a little boy in the toy shop that’s just found a whole host of previously unseen ‘Matchbox’ cars. At 10:24pm the music was sounding rather like Josh Wink’s 1995 ‘Higher State Of Consciousness’ epic and 14 minutes later at 10:38pm Max even dropped in elements of The Prodigy’s ‘Poison’. The instrumentals with sampled vocals were the staple of the set and at 10:42pm, it got seriously drum and bass-like. There were many different genres of electronic music on offer this evening, with a vast majority getting the “hit” button from me. There were a number of “miss” tunes as well, like the drum and bass ones, but I guess there was something for everyone!
Without doubt this will be the visual music gig of the year, as I’m not seeing Kraftwerk this year, who’s 3D shows are on a par! Musically, however, I have heard better this year, but I’m certain tonight will live long in the memory! An awesome night out!
