max cooper: balance030

Max Cooper's blend of the artistic and scientific schools of thought have steadily built him up to become one of the standout electronic musicians of his generation. His left-of-center approach makes for a truly timeless mix for the 30th edition of the Balance series. Cooper emerged from Nottingham's club scene in the 2000s, holding down a residency at the city's influential Firefly nights where he played turntablist sets across six decks with his fellow resident. From there he became an eminent producer of brooding, densely melodic techno. He has since turned into a more multifarious artist who borders experimental electronica, ambient, and IDM within and alongside his dancefloor-driven output. Wearing several hats these days -- DJ, producer, label owner with his burgeoning Mesh imprint, creator of art installations, consultant for new technologies -- he is a veritable polymath. On a technical level, the mix is drenched with subtle detailing, editing, rearranging -- even binaural processing only audible on headphones that appears to make sounds move around the listener's head in all directions. Exclusives come in the form of Coopers's own "Balance (Perc Tool)" -- self-explanatory -- and the blissful depths of "Music Of The Tides", constructed using an intricate binaural particle cloud simulator plugin created by Rob Clouth. Clouth also provides three other tracks on the mix. More unreleased material comes via Deapmash's "Blocks" -- a fixture in Cooper's sets of late -- and fellow Balance compiler Patrice Baumel's remix of Cooper's "Organa", which Baumel wanted to scrap until he witnessed the amazing reactions when Cooper played it at a festival they both featured at last year. New English act Brecon provide sumptuous broken beat electronica on another exclusive, "Half Light", and Cooper's remix of Nils Frahm's Juno-60 based live jam, "For", which finally gets an official release. During this incredible 118-minute odyssey you'll hear field recordings, brooding soundscapes, hypnotic piano modulations, deep atmospheric techno, heavenly melodies, glitchy electro-pop, hazy ambient passages, ravey breakbeats, glitchy drum & bass, and even some Thom Yorke (Atoms For Peace). Also features Ben Lukas Boysen, Sebastian Plano, Bing And Ruth, Bxentric, Geotic, Agrippa, Portable Sunsets, Dave DK, Olafur Arnalds, Burnski, Tenebre, Lusine, Sarah McIlwain, Donato Dozzy, Batu, Loscil, Tim Hecker, Tessela, Hidden Orchestra, Ben Lukas Boysen, Kimyan Law, Com Truise, HLZ, LSB, Lee Chapman, Belief Defect, Alix Perez, Vaetxh, and Rival Consoles. Double LP version includes MP3 download of the mix; Double LP mix features Bing And Ruth, Nils Frahm, Rob Clouth, Max Cooper, Com Truise, Kimyan Law, Ben Lukas Boysen, Alix Perez, Atoms For Peace, and Vaetxh.