Max Cooper

Max Cooper has more than 50 original releases, tracks and remixes under his belt, from glitchy reinterpretations of big bands like Hot Chip and Au Revoir Simone to straight dancefloor 12"s like his breakthrough "Serie" originals and remixes for names like Agoria, Dominik Eulberg, Extrawelt, Pig and Dan, Kaiserdisco and Sasha. The approach, meanwhile, is anything but simple. A melancholy composer whose live sets can raise blisters in a club, Cooper is as comfortable writing abstract electronica as he is writing dancefloor techno 12"s . A rationalist with an otherworldly, idealistic side, Cooper is also a wildly creative musician who until recently had a day job as a sober scientist. And he's swung from extreme to extreme since he first took to the decks 11 years ago. As Cooper sees it, there's conflict, but it's part of the music-writing process. Each side of his personality sparks ideas off the other, and what remains constant is his own unique and starkly emotional style. From his breakthrough trilogy of "Serie" releases on Traum Schallplatten - the first released in 2009 and with each track inspired by a different scientific or mathematical concept - Cooper has built a reputation for one-off originals, killer remixes and challenging DJ and live sets. Since his first release in 2007, his back catalogue now includes two mainstream Hype Machine smashes with reworks of Hot Chip and Portishead, several Beatport genre top 10s, work with the visual artists Whiskas fX and Nick Cobby and an increasing number of collaborations with artists a long distance from Cooper's dancefloor beginnings. With his time now mainly spent writing and touring music, Cooper continues to release his own originals, with The End Of Reason described by Resident Advisor as "a truly sublime beatless tour de force that recalls Philip Glass, Aphex Twin's most serene moments and even Henryk Gorecki's Symphony No. 3", and the UK's IDJ magazine saying that Cooper "consistently proves himself to be one of the most peerlessly beautiful recording artists in modern dance music". Stark, emotive and original, Cooper is, according to Skrufff.com, "One of the greatest new talents to emerge on the dance scene in the last few years".