Max Cooper - Kindred

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  • Max Cooper's emotive style is a double-edged sword. The UK producer is behind some of the most plaintive dance music of recent years, but as his debut album showed, there's a fine line between sweet and saccharine. Kindred rounds off a busy year with two tracks that better balance his sentimental side. Soft, luxurious and built on a bed of clinking chimes, "Origins" is Cooper at his prettiest. It's nudged along by a broken beat and samples from frequent vocal partner Kathrin de Boer, like a smoothed-out take on Human's more ham-fisted moments. Diynamic man David August, whose reflective techno makes him an easy match for Cooper, does a fine job at beefing up the percussion and adding swooping synths on his remix. Throwing Snow, meanwhile, brews up a moody, midtempo storm not unlike his Mosaic LP from earlier this year. "Origins" is offset by the ten-minute "Voyage Through The Analogue Womb," a labyrinthine journey through synth sounds that stretch and glitch while an erratic beat surfaces and disappears underneath. Highlighting Cooper's other major strength—tough, snarling texture—it makes Kindred into what is possibly the most coherent display of Cooper's talents yet.
  • Tracklist
      01. Origins 02. Voyage Through The Analogue Womb 03. Origins (Extended) 04. Origins (David August Remix) 05. Origins (Throwing Snow Remix)
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