Un mix hors de commun de Max Cooper dans… la bibliothèque du British Museum

Putain mais ce bonhomme est une boite à idées intarrissable et surtout où tout est bon à prendre. Notre ex-scientifique (oui il est allé jusqu'au PhD et a bossé dans la recherche) venait durant ces études dans cette même bibliothèque pour se reposer ou étudier. Ce qu'il a voulu faire est simple : s'imprégner de l'ambiance de la bibliothèque et sampler/mixer de la « library music. Bon, on dit ça comme ça mais il est en train de devenir l'Amon Tobin de la techno l'ami Cooper non ?

Avec tout ça, Max Cooper se retrouve à (re)mixer des raretés type des chants de moines tibétains du 12ème siècle, un des premiers enregistrements de l'histoire réalisé par Thomas Eddison en 1888, du spoken word, des chants Gregorien du 9ème siècle, du folklore chnois mixé avec du glitch sauvage…

On adore ce type.

1. Max Cooper – Binaural Museum
2. A Winged Victory For The Sullen – Steep Hills of Vicodin Tears (Erased Tapes)
3. Max Cooper – Woven Ancestry (Unreleased)
4. Adam Johnson – Anex (Merck)
5. Peiyou Chang – Song of Gu Qin (Peiyou Chang)
6. Vaetxh – Randolph Pactali (Unreleased)
7. Bonobo – Cirrus (Ninja Tune)
8. ThermalBear – U Love (Last Night On Earth)
9. Rockwell – Fluf (Shogun Audio)
10. Xu Zhengyin – Dragon Boat (China Record Corporation)
11. Unknown Origin – Gregorian Chant – Edit
12. MMOTHS – For Her – Max Cooper Remix (SQE Music)
13. Unknown Origin – The Call to the Lama from Afar (Jade)
14. Rrose – Waterfall (EAUX)
15. Nils Frahm – Peter – Max Cooper Remix (Erased Tapes)
16. James Yorkston – Woozy With Cider – Jon Hopkins Remix (Domino)
17. Max Cooper – Binaural Museum

Si vous voulez en savoir plus, Max le guide vous fait la visite ici :

Track 1/17 – Max Cooper – Binaural Museum: The people are the exhibits in this audio museum. Recorded in the British Museum hall using binaural mics, which record the sound from inside the ear, thereby capturing the interaction of the sound with the head and ears, and yielding a more convincing 3-dimensional sound space than a normal mic. Listen on headphones and close your eyes, and it turns into scene of activity. I love all the different things going on in the space, and the acoustics yield an amazing soft mesh of human sound.

Track 3 – Max Cooper – Woven Ancestry: This track was my attempt to represent musically, the idea of our cultural, mental and genetic ancestry weaving together in a complex manner, to yield each living individual. In order to represent this idea I chose 3 ancient instruments from different parts of the world, the West African Kora, the East African Nyatiti, and the European Harp. I then set each instance of each instrument playing different and undulating rhythms, to yield a complex interaction of sounds from disparate regions, analogous to the woven ancestry yielding each living person.

Track 5 – Peiyou Chang – Song of Gu Qin: This piece comprises a solo of the ancient Chinese instrument, the Guqin, whose origin dates from approximately 1000BC or earlier.

Track 6 – Vaetxh – Randolph Pactali: This track features one of the earliest known recorded pieces of music, by Thomas Edison, using a wax cylinder in 1888, to record "4000 voices singing G.F. Handel over 100 meters away". This recording sits in unadulterated form in there amongst Rob's 9/8 genius.

Track 10 – Xu Zhengyin – Dragon Boat: Traditional Chinese music

Track 11 – Unknown Origin – Gregorian Chant: I found a nice Gregorian Chant written by an unknown composer, from around the 9th century. I pitched the chant right down to make it less recognisably human, and into more of a drone.

Track 13 – Unknown Origin – Call to the Lama from Afar: A traditional Tibetan chant, maybe from around the 12th century.