Maps

Max Cooper

June 24, 2021

Alternative / Electronic / Ambient / Experimental Electronic / Techno

Max Cooper announces Maps, a new EP set for release on 24th June via Mesh. Opening track "Weakness Of The Flesh" is launched alongside a short film as part of the films.dance series. The track's origins began with The Jacob Jonas dance company, who choreographed a story for dancer Emma Rosenzweig-Bock, which was then given to filmmaker Kevin McGloughlin to reinterpret. Max Cooper then scored to this video sequence in collaboration with classical Indian vocalist Samad Khan, and reworked the musical results into two further pieces which would become the Maps EP. Watch the film "Weakness of the Flesh" from 3rd May at www.films.dance and Max Cooper’s YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/c/maxcoopermax “I was struck by the raw, textural aspect to this dance project, with the vast concrete space, the dirt on Emma's face, the writhing intensity and the stuttering clones. "It seemed to me to be peaceful and smooth as well as violent and rough at the same time. "I tried to bring some of those combinations into the soundtrack, using binaural recordings of my fingers scrubbing against rough concrete surfaces and a wind chime making disorganized melodies. For the synth elements, I played several layers live while trying to mimic the movements of the dance, often being compelled into moments of discordance and strange edits. I stuttered the sounds to sync with Kevin's clone actions, and followed a slightly unusual arrangement defined by the visual sequence rather than by musical considerations." - Max Cooper on "Weakness Of The Flesh" The four-track Maps EP was born of a multi-disciplinary arts collaboration, with choreography, dance, film and music, each mapped to the other. “A map is the representation of one structure in terms of another," explains Cooper. "Each creative provided their own mapping, not of some literal structure or brief, but of the feelings, movements, textures, the felt form of what was presented, which carried so much intent from the outset and filtered through the whole process." Maps was created from the choreographer’s vision guiding the performance of the dancer, the visual interpretation of the dance, the composition of the score in response, the vocalization in response to the score, and the musical reinterpretation of the sum of that content. Every step was another challenge where we tried to capture the feeling and essence of project with a new medium. It was also a creative challenge for Cooper to write music for abstracted dance for the first time, defining his musical form by it with some unusual musical results and diversions which he believes wouldn’t have made otherwise. "It was an absolute pleasure getting to work with Kevin's vision and Samad's beautiful voice, and the amazing work of Emma and Jacob," he says. "There was more than plenty of rich content there for me to draw on, that's why the project ended up as an EP rather than just a single piece as I experimented with different interpretations. Further reading about maps and mapping and their wider implications can be found in Max’s journal archive: https://maxcooper.net/fragmenting-consciousness