Mastered by Guy at The Exchange

Last updated

Mastered by Guy at The Exchange
MaxTundra-Masteredbytheguyattheexchange.png
Studio album by
Max Tundra
Released2 September 2002 (2002-09-02)
StudioThe Electric Smile, Bristol; [1] Battenburg; Notre Catford
Genre
Length40:59
Label Domino
Producer Ben Jacobs
Max Tundra chronology
Some Best Friend You Turned Out to Be
(2000)		Mastered by Guy at The Exchange
(2002)		 Parallax Error Beheads You
(2008)
Singles from
Mastered by Guy at The Exchange
  1. "Lysine"
    Released: 5 August 2002
  2. "Cabasa"
    Released: 21 April 2003

Mastered by Guy at The Exchange is the second studio album by Ben Jacobs under his stage name of Max Tundra. Released on 2 September 2002 through Domino Records in the United Kingdom and by Tigerbeat6 Records in North America, making it his first album to be distributed in North America. The album was also Max Tundra's first to be released with vocals on nearly all the tracks.

Contents

Two singles were released from the album: "Lysine" and "Cabasa". The album failed to chart in both the United Kingdom and the United States, but received high critical acclaim with the music website Pitchfork referring to the album as a "A massive achievement" and placed it on their list of Top 50 albums of 2002.

Production

Mastered by Guy at The Exchange was the first Max Tundra album to use vocals. In an interview with Pitchfork he explained that "The songs are extremely different from those on the first record. When I was writing Some Best Friend You Turned Out to Be , I thought of all sorts of weird and wonderful machines and instruments I could use to make noises, but singing never occurred to me. I had never considered using my voice on any Max Tundra record ever, but hey, I like to keep things varied, so this time round I figured what the hell!" [4] Jacobs had previously used vocals was in a "Will Oldham pastiche" cover version of Taylor Dayne's "Tell it to My Heart", released as a B-side to the "Ink Me" single, in which he sang with an American accent. For the album he chose to sing in an English accent.

Max Tundra found it difficult to write lyrics as well, saying "I'm getting to grips with writing lyrics, but it is somewhat more difficult than anything I've done before... The lyrics themselves are taking ages to write-- it's something I'm not used to." [4] The other vocalist on the album is Becky Jacobs who is Max Tundra's sister. [4] The album's title is literal; it was mastered by Guy Davie at a studio named The Exchange.

Music

Lyrics

Film and music video director Michel Gondry, whom the track "Gondry" is dedicated to. Michel-Gondry-Be-Kind.JPG
Film and music video director Michel Gondry, whom the track "Gondry" is dedicated to.

This is Tundra's first album with vocals, and all but one of the tracks have vocals. [5] [6] The lyrics on Mastered by Guy at The Exchange have been described as stream of conscious and not being rich with subtext. [5] Max Tundra refers to this on "Labial" with "I only sing about things that happen to me/ I never learned to fill my songs with allegory" [6] The BBC noted recurring themes included "unaffected tales of Food Chemistry, bands splitting up, employment history and even an homage to video maker Michel Gondry." [7] while Pitchfork noted theme of "girls he's loved or loves, complaints about his day jobs". [5] The lyrics are also littered with musical references. [5] References range from trance music and the band Yes where he sings "Downstair's they're playing trance again / that awful bendy guitar / up through the floor again / It's 9am till I cry / And Time and a Word my friend / Inspires me more than guitars". [5] [6]

The lyrics to "MBGATE" are derived from a quote taken from The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien. Pitchfork also described the song "Gondry" as a plea to filmmaker and music video director Michel Gondry to direct one for him with lyrics referencing his music videos for "Let Forever Be" and "Around the World". [5] [6] Gondry himself included the song at the end of his Work of Director retrospective on DVD. Stylus Magazine described the album's first single for "Lysine" as sounding like a nutrition manual with lyrics of "many foods are rich in arginine, concentrate on the ones with more lysine". [8] Max Tundra has also stated that not everything he wrote about actually happened. In an interview with Stylus Magazine, he proclaimed that "half the lyrics on that album are true and half are false, but I'm not gonna tell you which half." [9]

Style

Max Tundra's vocals have been described as "high, mellifluous" and that they resemble Scritti Politti's Green Gartside and Prince. [5] [10] The album's music style has been described by AllMusic as a "jumpy collision of found sounds, Squarepusher-type beat thrashes, and jaunty wrestling with "real" instrumentation." [10] In a review from the BBC noted of "songs which shift gears regularly, ending up in places their openings barely hint at". [7] The BBC pointed out "Cabasa" which "starts life as lopsided techno and ends up as a slice of piano driven barrelhouse boogie" and "Hilted" which "mutates from Commodore 64 game soundtrack to sunkissed acoustic guitar pop". [7] The BBC's view was reflected in Stylus Magazine 's review the album which stated that "You may have heard the pounding house anthem that "Labial" sounds vaguely like, but the prog flourishes will catch you off guard". [8]

Release and reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [10]
Muzik Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [11]
Pitchfork 9.3/10 [5]
Playlouder 3.5/5 [12]
Stylus Magazine A [8]
Tiny Mix Tapes 4/5 [13]

Mastered by Guy at The Exchange was released in 2002 by Tigerbeat6 in North America and Domino in the United Kingdom. [14] [15] The album failed to chart in the United States and was not reviewed by many critics but was received positively by those who did. [10] [16] Kingsley Marshall of the online music database AllMusic gave the album four out of five star rating, comparing the album's style to Prince and Squarepusher. [10] The BBC's Peter Marsh wrote positively that Max Tundra has "come up with an album which has more ideas per minute than most of his contemporaries can manage over the course of a career." [7] Chris Dahlen of Pitchfork gave the album a very positive review, referring to the album as "A massive achievement" and claiming that there was "so many synths, beeps, beats, glitches, horns, hooks, voices. It shouldn't work. But it does. Perfectly." [5] Pitchfork also listed the album as the 12th best album on their list of top 50 albums of 2002, [17] and 52nd on their list of the top 100 albums released between 2000 and 2004. [18] Pitchfork also placed the album at number 182 on their list of top 200 albums of the 2000s. [19]

In 2022, electronic musician and PC Music founder A.G. Cook praised the album: "Mastered by Guy at the Exchange is a true cult album—a playful monolith that sounds both nothing and everything like the 2000s. Stumbling across it as a teenager, it reinforced a hunch I had: that music is a place where anything could happen, and total chaos could be held together by the lightest of pop hooks. There’s an oddly British quality to Max Tundra’s work, a soft and polite maximalism – pioneering, eccentric and infinitely remixable."

Track listing

All tracks are written by Ben Jacobs

No.TitleLength
1."Merman"1:56
2."MBGATE"2:27
3."Lysine"4:02
4."Fuerte"2:07
5."Pocket"0:59
6."Cabasa"7:12
7."61over"1:08
8."Lights"1:39
9."Hilted"2:50
10."Acorns"3:26
11."Gondry"3:26
12."Labial"6:09

Personnel

Release history

RegionDateLabelFormatCatalog
United Kingdom2 September 2002 Domino LP WIGLP112 [20]
CDWIGCD112 [20]
United States4 November 2002 Tigerbeat6 CDMEOW062 [20]

Related Research Articles

<i>Hard Normal Daddy</i> 1997 studio album by Squarepusher

Hard Normal Daddy is the second studio album by English electronic musician Tom Jenkinson under the alias Squarepusher, released on 28 April 1997. The album was Jenkinson's first studio album as Squarepusher for Warp. A single for the track "Vic Acid" was released in 1997 prior to the album's release.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cex (musician)</span> American musical project

Cex is an American musical project run by Rjyan Claybrook Kidwell and started in 1998 at the age of 16. Although Cex and Kidwell are frequently used interchangeably, Cex occasionally expands to several people at sporadic points, such as particular tours or albums. In the past it has included Kidwell's musical associates, friends, touring partners, or high school bandmates.

<i>Turn On the Bright Lights</i> 2002 studio album by Interpol

Turn On the Bright Lights is the debut studio album by American rock band Interpol. It was released in the United Kingdom on August 19, 2002, and in the United States the following day, through independent record label Matador Records. The album was recorded in November 2001 at Tarquin Studios in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and was co-produced, mixed and engineered by Peter Katis and Gareth Jones. Its title is taken from a repeated line in the song "NYC".

<i>Ultravisitor</i> 2004 studio album by Squarepusher

Ultravisitor is the seventh album by English electronic musician Squarepusher, released on 8 March 2004 by Warp Records. The album incorporates many of the various musical styles exhibited by Jenkinson on his previous albums, including drum and bass, acid techno, jazz fusion, and electronic noise. A few of the tracks feature layered, modulated, or filtered bass guitar. Several of the instrumental parts were recorded live and include applause, blurring the lines between live and studio performances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knives Out (song)</span> 2001 single by Radiohead

"Knives Out" is a song by the English rock band Radiohead, released as the second single from their fifth album, Amnesiac (2001). It features lyrics about cannibalism and guitars influenced by the Smiths.

<i>I See a Darkness</i> 1999 studio album by Bonnie "Prince" Billy

I See a Darkness is the sixth album by American musician Will Oldham, released on Palace Records on January 19, 1999, as the first album under the name Bonnie "Prince" Billy. The album features appearances from Bob Arellano, Colin Gagon, Paul Oldham, David Pajo, and Peter Townsend.

<i>You Forgot It in People</i> 2002 studio album by Broken Social Scene

You Forgot It in People is the second studio album by Canadian indie rock band Broken Social Scene, released on October 15, 2002. It was the band's commercial breakthrough. You Forgot It in People features intricate, experimental production techniques and a large number of instruments coinciding with the band's vastly expanded size. Local excitement for the album was so big that initial pressings sold out quickly, causing the need for a 2003 reissue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sunshowers</span> 2004 single by M.I.A.

"Sunshowers" is a song by British musician M.I.A. from her debut studio album, Arular. It was written and produced by Maya "M.I.A." Arulpragasam, Ross Orton, Steve Mackey, August Darnell and Stony Jr. Browder, with additional vocals and production by Nesreen Shah and Anthony Whiting. The song was released as the second single of the album on 7 July 2004 following the 2003 release of debut "Galang" and is M.I.A.'s first official release with XL Recordings. Released in vinyl record and CD single format, with the song "Fire Fire" serving as the song's B-side, "Sunshowers" was distributed by Interscope Records in the US.

<i>Do You Know Squarepusher</i> 2002 studio album by Squarepusher

Do You Know Squarepusher is the sixth studio album by Squarepusher, released on Warp in 2002. It peaked at number 35 on the UK Independent Albums Chart. It includes a cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart". The CD version of the album includes an additional disc of live recordings, titled Alive in Japan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Tundra</span> Musical artist

Benjamin Thomas Jacobs, more commonly known by the stage name Max Tundra, is an English multi-instrumental musician, singer and music producer. His work is noted for its maximalist approach, which is predominantly electronic music but incorporates non-electronic styles and instruments. Jacobs' production style has been noted as an influence on the hyperpop style which became prevalent in the 2010s onwards.

Tigerbeat6 is a San Francisco and Berlin based independent and (mostly) electronic record label run by Kid606. The label is run as a DIY operation and releases a variety of electronic music styles, including noisecore, intelligent dance music, bedroom pop, folktronica, and electronica-driven hip hop. The name reflects De Pedro's obsession with cats, which also comes to light in the catalogue numbers, all of which start with MEOW. It is also a loose reference to the top-selling teen magazine Tiger Beat. The label's first release was in 2000; it has over two hundred releases in total. A 2001 compilation of the label's output was described as "stripping intelligent dance music of its intelligence[,] often resorting to outright silliness, and sometimes parody." The A.V. Club described the same compilation as satirizing glitch through "gestures borrowed from punk, indie-rock, and hip-hop."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lovely Head</span> 2000 single by Goldfrapp

"Lovely Head" is an electronic song performed by British group Goldfrapp. The song was written and produced by Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory for the duo's debut album Felt Mountain (2000). It was released as the album's first single in May 2000 but did not chart. In November 2001, the song was re-issued as a double A-side single with "Pilots " and reached number sixty-eight on the UK Singles Chart.

<i>Jane Doe</i> (album) 2001 studio album by Converge

Jane Doe is the fourth studio album by American metalcore band Converge, released on September 4, 2001 by Equal Vision Records. The album was produced by Matthew Ellard alongside guitarist Kurt Ballou, and the artwork was designed by lead vocalist Jacob Bannon. It was the band's first album to feature bassist Nate Newton and drummer Ben Koller, and the last to feature guitarist Aaron Dalbec; Converge's line-up has remained stable since.

<i>Lost in Translation</i> (soundtrack) 2003 soundtrack album

Lost in Translation: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack album to the 2003 film Lost in Translation, directed by Sofia Coppola. The soundtrack was supervised by Brian Reitzell and was released on September 9, 2003, through Emperor Norton Records. It contains five songs by Kevin Shields, including one from his group My Bloody Valentine. Other artists featured on the soundtrack include Air, Death in Vegas, Squarepusher, Phoenix and the Jesus and Mary Chain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Be Mine! (Robyn song)</span> 2005 single by Robyn

"Be Mine!" is a song by Swedish recording artist Robyn, written and composed by herself and producer Klas Åhlund for her self-titled fourth studio album (2005). It was released as the album's lead single in Scandinavia in 2005 and released as the fourth single from the album across most European territories in 2008.

White Williams is the music project of Cleveland/New York-based musician Joe Williams. He released one album and EP under this name before using the Motion Graphics moniker. In August 2016 the self-titled album was released through Domino Records.

<i>Parallax Error Beheads You</i> 2008 studio album by Max Tundra

Parallax Error Beheads You is the third studio album by Max Tundra, the stage name of electronic musician Ben Jacobs. The album was released on 20 October 2008 through Domino Records.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Seed (2.0)</span> 2003 single by The Roots featuring Cody Chesnutt

"The Seed (2.0)" is the second single by The Roots from their fifth album Phrenology (2002). The track, which features Cody Chesnutt on the guitar and vocals, is an "uptempo retooling" of his song "The Seed" from the album The Headphone Masterpiece. The song's music video was nominated for the MTV2 Award at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards. Jeff Vrabel of Billboard described the track as "a genre-bending mix of rock guitars and Prince-styled keyboards and drums".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">House of Jealous Lovers</span> 2002 single by The Rapture

"House of Jealous Lovers" is a song by American indie rock band the Rapture. It was released as the lead single from their second studio album, Echoes, in March 2002, through DFA Records in the US and Output Recordings in the UK. It was eventually re-released in 2003.

<i>Some Best Friend You Turned Out to Be</i> 2000 studio album by Max Tundra

Some Best Friend You Turned Out to Be is the debut studio album by Max Tundra, the alias of English producer Ben Jacobs. After releasing his debut single "Children at Play" through Warp Records in 1998, Tundra signed with Domino Records who released the album on April 25, 2000. The tracks "Cakes" and "Ink Me" were issued as singles.

References

  1. ↑ "Classic album: Max Tundra on Mastered by Guy at the Exchange". 30 August 2022.
  2. ↑ Ross Hoffman, K. "Max Tundra: Styles". AllMusic . Retrieved 1 December 2008.
  3. ↑ Pitchfork Staff (2 October 2009). "The 200 Best Albums of the 2000s". Pitchfork. Retrieved 27 April 2023. Crafty and clever as his earlier works were, he had more to say this time, and so he started writing pop songs...
  4. 1 2 3 LeMay, Matt (1 January 2002). "Interview: Max Tundra". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 15 June 2008. Retrieved 25 August 2008.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Dahlen, Chris (20 October 2002). "Max Tundra: Mastered by Guy at the Exchange". Pitchfork. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Max Tundra. "Lyrics". Max Tundra . Retrieved 25 August 2008.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Marsh, Peter (20 October 2002). "Max Tundra Mastered by Guy at the Exchange Review". BBC Music . Retrieved 25 August 2008.
  8. 1 2 3 Martin, Tyler (1 September 2003). "Max Tundra – Mastered by the Guy at the Exchange – Review". Stylus Magazine . Archived from the original on 10 February 2009. Retrieved 25 August 2008.
  9. ↑ Powell, Mike (2 April 2007). "Hi! Max Tundra". Stylus Magazine. Archived from the original on 10 February 2009. Retrieved 25 August 2008.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Marshall, Kingsley. "Mastered by Guy at the Exchange – Max Tundra". AllMusic . Retrieved 8 May 2012.
  11. ↑ Bell, Duncan (September 2002). "Max Tundra: Mastered by Guy at the Exchange (Domino)". Muzik (88): 108.
  12. ↑ Moffat, Iain (3 September 2002). "Mastered By Guy at the Exchange by Max Tundra". Playlouder. Archived from the original on 20 February 2003. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  13. ↑ Mr P. "Max Tundra – Mastered by Guy at the Exchange". Tiny Mix Tapes . Retrieved 2 July 2019.
  14. ↑ "Domino". Domino Records . Retrieved 25 August 2008.
  15. ↑ "Tigerbeat6". Tigerbeat6. Archived from the original on 28 October 2007. Retrieved 25 August 2008.
  16. ↑ Warwick, Neil; Kutner, Jon; Brown, Tony (2004). The Complete Book of the British Charts. Omnibus Press. ISBN   1-84449-058-0.
  17. ↑ Pitchfork staff (1 January 2003). "Top 50 Albums of 2002". Pitchfork. p. 4. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  18. ↑ Pitchfork staff (7 February 2005). "The Top 100 Albums of 2000–04". Pitchfork. p. 5. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  19. ↑ Pitchfork staff (28 September 2009). "The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s". Pitchfork. p. 1. Retrieved 1 October 2009.
  20. 1 2 3 "Discography". Max Tundra. Retrieved 25 August 2008.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.