Spectrum
Max Cooper
21.03.2022
MESH076
Digital / 12" Vinyl / blu-ray
Spectrum
About
Max Cooper recently announced new album project Unspoken Words, set to be released 25th March on Mesh. Today he shares new single "Spectrum" and its accompanying video.
Cooper has been exploring the difficulties of communicating with words as part of the Unspoken Words project. The title "Spectrum" is a reference to what Cooper describes as "the valence of language along a positive to negative scale of mood, which we need to work with when describing emotive states."
"An internal state, for me, at least, is a speckled sampling of this spectrum, perhaps tilted in one way more than another, but always in relation to the spectrum and moving with each new thought," he continues. "Writing the music created a melting pot of feelings for me. It carries a lot of hope and happiness, but also sadness and reflection, without there being any conflict. It’s a simple example of how language is a poor tool when it comes to describing an internal state succinctly and accurately, where music can do so, far more effectively and directly. "
As an audio-visual artist, Cooper often goes to the medium of film to enhance his music and the ideas and stories which inspire and inform his work. "Spectrum" is one of 13 short films combined into Unspoken Words and the metanarrative (released as a film on Blu-ray to accompany the album on 25th March).
For the "Spectrum" music video, Cooper was keen to explore the visual analogy of the colour spectrum, and presenting it in partial, changing form, in relation to human imagery.
"I chatted to the artist and film creator Christian Stangl about the project, and he came up with the idea of using rocks with partial crystal structures, water and lighting effects to explore the natural creation of colour spectra from split white light. The system yielded some structures reminiscent of human form, and Christian created human apparitions amongst them to be discovered with each viewing."
The deftly mixed audio is accompanied by a visual story which unfolds through 13 short films by a range of visual artists commissioned and directed by Max Cooper, and mixed in Dolby Atmos surround sound.
Unspoken Words will be released on Mesh on 25th March on Blu-Ray + CD, vinyl and digital. Pre-order above.
Cooper has been exploring the difficulties of communicating with words as part of the Unspoken Words project. The title "Spectrum" is a reference to what Cooper describes as "the valence of language along a positive to negative scale of mood, which we need to work with when describing emotive states."
"An internal state, for me, at least, is a speckled sampling of this spectrum, perhaps tilted in one way more than another, but always in relation to the spectrum and moving with each new thought," he continues. "Writing the music created a melting pot of feelings for me. It carries a lot of hope and happiness, but also sadness and reflection, without there being any conflict. It’s a simple example of how language is a poor tool when it comes to describing an internal state succinctly and accurately, where music can do so, far more effectively and directly. "
As an audio-visual artist, Cooper often goes to the medium of film to enhance his music and the ideas and stories which inspire and inform his work. "Spectrum" is one of 13 short films combined into Unspoken Words and the metanarrative (released as a film on Blu-ray to accompany the album on 25th March).
For the "Spectrum" music video, Cooper was keen to explore the visual analogy of the colour spectrum, and presenting it in partial, changing form, in relation to human imagery.
"I chatted to the artist and film creator Christian Stangl about the project, and he came up with the idea of using rocks with partial crystal structures, water and lighting effects to explore the natural creation of colour spectra from split white light. The system yielded some structures reminiscent of human form, and Christian created human apparitions amongst them to be discovered with each viewing."
The deftly mixed audio is accompanied by a visual story which unfolds through 13 short films by a range of visual artists commissioned and directed by Max Cooper, and mixed in Dolby Atmos surround sound.
Unspoken Words will be released on Mesh on 25th March on Blu-Ray + CD, vinyl and digital. Pre-order above.