Now, to begin: I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of minimal per se. It has its moments, sure, but a lot of the output that might well be considered the bread and butter of minimal tech has always left me feeling, well, bored as shit, really. Which I guess is what separates those genres you love with a deep and abiding passion from those about which you simply know enough of the surface layer so as to appear loosely knowledgeable should the topic come up in conversation. “Oh yes, Reginald, that Dutch house sure is everywhere. I say, have you heard the track ‘Riverside’? What a bangor!” And such. For me, minimal has generally slotted in to the latter of these categories though; a realm of electronic music that I’ve flirted with periodically but have never been sufficiently intoxicated of/around as to actually get to the point of active label recognition. Kompakt/BPitch notwithstanding, but that’d be kinda like saying you were down with electro because you knew Ed Banger.

But – and with minimal I’ve found it is a hefty but, much like Roseanne’s (ZING!… I’ll let myself out)- when it’s good, it’s really good. Really, really good. Although, that notwithstanding, I do get the feeling that the sorts of minimal I tend to find myself enamoured of are probably those varieties largely scorned by the true fan. Not for me the skittering drums and subtle permutations of a Ricardo Villalobos LP (seriously, have you listened to Thé Au Harem D’Archimedé? Masterwork or not, it’s like dance music for the sedimentary rock set), no, what I want from my minimal is a healthy dose of stately melodic fruition. The Field nailed it. Gui Boratto ain’t half bad either. And now British newcomer Max Cooper is making a steady tilt at this maxed-out-minimal throne. Yep. He’s all like Simba from the Lion King taking down Scar with a drum machine and classical sensibilities.

Max’s music is exactly what you expect from a producer operating in the field – subtle, affecting, massively pretentious – but there’s still something immediate and raw about a lot of his output. These tracks somehow manage to be both melancholy and propulsive at the same time; they’re introspective but built to party, much like a chubby teenager in a Hawaiian shirt jacked up on bourbon and unleashed on an unsuspecting public… God, now there’s a night I wouldn’t want to remember even if I could. Yikes. Quite unlike that evening, Cooper’s techno is deep, moving, precise and filled with a compelling, dark energy. Which is to say, the tracks unfurl slowly, spending their first half inching ever on toward a state of sonic immensity before cresting the breakdown and suddenly dropping in to a resurgent bass thrum and nostalgia-ridden melody line that I could imagine tearing the living emotion out of your average 6 am Berghain punter. There would be tears and everything. They’re also produced with an eye for detail and texture that could perhaps be labelled ‘symphonic’, although maybe that’s just an overblown way of saying he uses strings an’ shit. Nonetheless, Cooper has recently finished up a remix for Michael Nyman, which I do feel goes some way toward shoring up his orchestral credentials. Of course the man has produced his share of more straight up tech offerings too, but I’ve found that even those seem somehow more compelling by contrast with the rest of his output.

But, really, all of that is three paragraphs of needlessly waffly prose to just say one thing: Max Cooper makes beautiful, hypnotic techno that should be listened to by anybody with even a passing interest in intelligently geared dance music. Now, with that out of the way, get it in ya’

Domink Eulberg – Daten Ubertragungs Kusschen (Max Cooper Mix)

Max Cooper – The End Of Reason

Portishead – Roads (Max Cooper Remix)

And because it was the first track of Max’s that I was exposed to, and potentially still the best, his just released remix of Hot Chip’s ‘I Feel Better’ is fucking superlative and should be listened to by absolutely everybody.

His tracks are all over Beatport, Juno, iTunes, et al, so go, explore, purchase and make Max Cooper a part of your life.

[Image courtesy of glass magazine]