|
|
|
|
viewing 1 To 9 of 9 items
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LP
|
|
MAX 031LP
|
Markus Wormstorm presents his second solo album, Figure In Field, a work characterized by an electrifying urban combination play with African voices, percussion, and classical instruments. Wormstorm loves slow-motion grooves with the attitude of Cape Town's typical hip hop intensity. Figure In Field is the soundtrack to an imaginary African sci-fi movie. In it Wormstorm experiments with downtempo pulses, Bernard Herrmann-style compositions, singing using click consonants, anime sampling, and Xhosa rapping. Wormstorm combines his passion for the culture of South Africa with his expertise in electronic music and classical composition, leading the listener simultaneously into both his fantasy world and the reality of modern South Africa.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
MAX 023CD
|
With Dignity, Tenderheart mirrors his soul, his deep wish for peace in a place that has been shaken by colliding political interests. Dignity and music for peace are his reaction to the unstable situation in Eastern Europe. After his Duo EP, which was the start-up for M=Maximal's series "Musik ohne Worte," he now releases his first album on M=Maximal. Tenderheart already gained the attention of the chill out club scene with various contributions to compilations like Cafe De Paris, This Is Deep and Deep Tech House. A great and unconventional music scene in Kiev is the impetus for a multi-colored club scene in a historic environment which has also inspired also classical composers such as Mussorgsky.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
MAX 024CD
|
He is a multi-colored shades artist. He is poetry, he is stoic. He interfaces the differences without self-denying. He is a dancer. He is a video-artist. He is an entertainer. He was a girl. Stoic as fuck, with a baby face and a set of blue-collar shoulders, Ellison Renee Glenn aka Black Cracker rocks a swag aesthetic that lies somewhere between Dipset and Blackbox. Currently living between Berlin and Lausanne, but based professionally out of NYC, he works as a producer/MC/writer and has collaborated with the likes of CocoRosie, Creep, Bunny Rabbit and Grand Pianoramax, among others. Black Cracker is known as an unconventional yet highly-appreciated artist who knows how to translate studio time into energetic stage performances -- one of the reasons why artists like Slick Rick, Grimes, Trust, and many others have enjoyed sharing the stage with him. His work has recently been covered in The New York Times and Vice magazine, on Converse Rubber Tracks, in the Adidas store magazine, as well as on CNN. Includes remixes from Acid Washed, Ashworth, and Wild Katz.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MAX 015LP
|
Let's keep it short: The eponymous "It's All" is The Von Duesz's most impressive song to date. Since their label debut Garant (MAX 009CD), The Von Duesz represent live performed club music in the niche between electronica, Kraut and jazz. Now they intensify their open approach by transforming it into sublime pop -- a change that suits them extremely well. Even if "Alert Me" shows that Florian Schäffer, Henning Rice, and Ismail Oezgentuerk are still experts of improvisation, combined with the perfectly-staged arrangements particularly of "It's All" and "The Eye," they give M=Maximal a truly elaborate record. "It's All" is characterized not only by Oezgentuerk's plaintive baritone vocals but also by its sparing drums and infiltrating Moog sounds, evoking a profound and decelerated pathos -- as if Caribou and The Notwist were having a studio session to record a little hit song. Three artists accepted the invitation to put a new perspective on this gem. Egokind, well-booked Berlin sound scientist, adds even more deepness to the mix and makes a proposal on how Burial's vocal cuts could sound in daylight. Truly more of a rework than a remix is the track by Gebrüder Teichmann, who strip the original song by focusing on drums and adding dissonances. The final track is made by Christian Borngräber's and Ulrich Hornberg's project More Of Radical Architecture. Their M.O.R.A. remix presents a retro-futuristic and uptempo version of "It's All."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
MAX 011CD
|
Markus Wormstorm is a South African writer, sculptor, an app and video game designer, a composer, a cat lover, a founding member of a fantasy collective for animated short films, a producer and an electronic musician. He is also that sort of classically-educated pianist that can barely stay still. Not I, But a Friend contains 50 minutes of a musical odyssey characterized by tremendous depth and an emotional deepness rarely seen before. Filled with spooky vocals, plaintive strings, tickling basses and a Yann Tiersen-based ivories romanticism, Wormstorm's ambient electronica reenacts a world of mystical subtleties, spectral textures and acoustic details. Instead of becoming a dance album or a typical sound landscape, his music verges on an atmospheric soundscape with a rather gloomy, cinematic touch. Not I, But a Friend offers us a contrasting ride of musical textures enriched with vibraphones, clarinets, marimbas, cellos and even tweeting birds. This brings Wormstorm to a musical cornerstone that may even well be appealing to jazz, hip-hop or techno trendsetters. Modern, classic and minimalistic, Not I, But a Friend promises to be the soundtrack of the subconscious.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
MAX 012CD
|
M=Maximal presents a record by Oliver Lichtl aka Uphill Racer, showing us that those who walk down the path of the search for the unknown might also just find what they have been looking for. Having worked together with Aydo Abay (Blackmail) and Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) on his last album, the man from Ingolstadt, Germany now embarks solo on a whole new road with his fifth album, Golden Anchor. Catchy tags such as "bedroom electronica," "indie songwriting," and "modern dream-pop" may give us a hint on his latest work. In the case of Uphill Racer, however, it is about a discovery rather than being confined to known places. With Lichtl one experiences a mellotronic melancholy that meets exhilarating guitar chords. They transmit a sparkling sense of hope even in the presence of the lightest synth gimmicks. Meanwhile, vocals hover between feelings of obliviousness and scenes of apparent romanticism. Instead of fixing its eye on the pop scene, Golden Anchor settles down in a place where acoustic craftsmanship reigns. It is an album that highlights the imperfection of our beings without wasting a single word in the process.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
MAX 009CD
|
M=Maximal presents the second album by The Von Duesz. Live performed club music, dancefloor-jazz deep as dark house, a sound like a warm cave: with this three-piece band, electro-organic music from Germany gets a projectile which taps the pulse of the age. Animating the monotony of minimalist electronic music with errors, improvisation and physical energy, their "dancekraut" becomes the soundtrack to plunge, turn around and start to shake. Garant celebrates the delight in playing Krautrock, revived by the danceable beats of this young decade. The Von Duesz present thirteen heavy-seated tracks, joyfully piling up textures and layers that represent 40 years of electronic music. Whereas the single "The Worst Has Yet to Come" sounds yet Caribou-esque, right around the next corner hides the tone of Matthew Herbert, making room for dark house music ("Diesel") on the one hand and post-rock on the other, to finally find itself in the arms of "Feuilleton" -- a cinematic piece of the '70s with a subtle gush of original instruments like Polymoog, Multimoog, and the Minimoog. For a warm analog album, which was entirely improvised and ornamented with only a few overdubs, the tracks turn out to be immensely confident and occasionally so fine, that some loose ends almost become pop. After their self-produced first album Dynamo, Ismail Özgentürk, Florian Schäffer and Henning Rice bring their technique of real-time composition to a new level. While on their debut they wafted and carefully felt their way, The Von Duesz now manages to become voluminous. In the studio, they continued the free-spirited approach they started live: a balancing act that led them to a variety of renowned venues in Germany, to the highly-acclaimed Fusion Festival to jazz festivals and back again, proving there's no contradiction between jazz and the underground, between German influences and international sounds, between improvisation and catchy clarity.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
MAX 006CD
|
M=Maximal presents a remix album of tracks off of o F F Love's debut, Probably Love (MAX 001LP). o F F Love explores the theme of love (or non-love) in a different way. Uniqueness, suspense, attachment and intensity arises from his music. The sentiments are simple, direct, not hiding behind words, but sharing the feelings just as they are, just as they come. o F F Love pushes repetition to its extreme in his open diary, just like an obsessive lover would, adding variations of the same song until the repetition feels like hypnosis. You start to engage with its slowness and minimalism and with ghostly abruptness, it all of a sudden, it becomes real emotion. With their remixes, oOoOO, Sail A Whale, Craxxxsoft, E+E, Iced Out and Boyof18+ exploring Probably Love and turn it into something else. Fragile songs become stronger. Feelings are kept the same.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MAX 001LP
|
This is the debut album from o F F Love. Autotune, echo and reverb -- slow heart beats and minor chords -- o F F Love's music is fragile. Hidden behind a Ying Yang-print scarf and transforming his voice, o F F Love is talking from a distance. However, he couldn't be more direct than in his manner of sharing his feelings with his minimal productions and repetitions: not looking for perfection, but emotions. Feelings are shared, almost forgetting about privacy or discretion. o F F Love performances might often make some audience members feel like a voyeur. Mixing his obsessions for boy bands of the '90s, the vulnerability and extreme emotion in Arthur Russell's and Panda Bear's vocals, and the excessive use of autotune by current RnB artists, o F F Love creates a heart-rending minimal RnB in disguise, floating between a kaleidoscope of ambient sounds and a more noisy cataclysm of emotions. Probably Love is an open diary about what can be mistaken for love, presenting o F F as a broken dreamer, a wounded lover, missing the One. o F F Love released 2 EPs in 2011 (Disenchanted Fairytale and Secret), and played/performed in Europe supporting CocoRosie, How To Dress Well, Creep, Butterclock, oOoOO and Sin Fang, but also in some less conventional venues such a boxing ring, a bed and on top of a construction site for the opening of an art show in Berlin.
|
|
|
|