Biography
Ben Jacobs was born in Camberwell, London, and is the son of Gerald Jacobs, literary editor of The Jewish Chronicle . Jacobs grew up taking piano lessons, but mostly enjoyed playing television theme songs and music from adverts. [2] As a teenager, he bought a Commodore Amiga 500 with his bar mitzvah money and began exploring electronic music with it. [2] Jacobs began sending demos out to labels. Warp Records received one song he recorded titled "Children at Play" and released it as a single in 1998. [2] Following this single his debut album Some Best Friend You Turned Out to Be was released by Domino Records in the UK in 2000. [3]
The instrumental record was followed up with Mastered by Guy at the Exchange, his first to use vocals. [4] Max Tundra explained "When I was writing Some Best Friend, 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!" [5] Mastered By Guy at the Exchange received positive reviews, [6] [7] [8] including being named the 12th top album of the year on Pitchfork Media's list of top 50 albums of 2002. [9]
In 2006, Max Tundra released a new single as part of Tomlab records "Alphabet Series" for the Letter M. The single included a cover of The KLF's "What Time Is Love?", [10] made with his Amiga in 1989. In 2008, Max Tundra toured the UK with Hot Chip [11] and released the album Parallax Error Beheads You which he had worked on for six years. [2] [11] The first single from the album was "Will Get Fooled Again" and was released on 29 September 2008. [12]
On 5 June 2010, Max Tundra effectively announced on Twitter that Parallax Error Beheads You would be the final Max Tundra album. However, in a radio interview from May 2011, [14] he mentioned that he was only taking a break in order to focus on his remix and production work. On 30 March 2012, he claimed on Twitter that he had begun working on a new Max Tundra album.
In 2011, Max Tundra contacted pop duo Daphne and Celeste through social media to offer his production to make a comeback. [16] A single for their song "You and I Alone" was released in 2015, written and produced by Max Tundra. [16] Three years later, Max Tundra announced a full-length studio album he had produced for Daphne and Celeste set for release as Daphne & Celeste Save the World on 30 March through Max Tundra's Balatonic label. [17]
In July 2022, Max Tundra resurfaced with Remixtape, an EP composed of remixes and cover versions contributed by artists such as A.G. Cook, Kero Kero Bonito, Katie Dey, Julia Holter and Tundra himself, released to coinicide with all three Max Tundra albums being remastered on coloured vinyl. Tundra also contributed an original track, "Long-Tail Limbo", for the video game Trombone Champ . [18]
Musical style
Max Tundra has been noted for his maximalist approach to composition and music production, often incorporating complex chord structures, experimental recording techniques, and a diverse range of instrumentation, many of which he has taught himself how to play. Whilst primilarly noted as an electronic artist, Tundra's music draws influence from a wide range of musical styles, including jazz, progressive rock, folk, indie rock, classical, R&B, UK garage, house, show tunes, chiptune, glitch, and musique concrete, often criss-crossing within songs. The density of his work has been considered a predecessor to the hyperpop scene, though Jacobs claims that he never set out to make a "proto-hyperpop LP", and that his music reflects more of an "eclectic sprawl of genre-free pop".
In 2021, Jacobs stated that "At the start of my career I decided I wanted to invent a new style of music with each song. I'm not sure I always achieved that, but I'm proud of how stylistically varied the three Max Tundra albums are. On the first LP (Some Best Friend You Turned Out To Be) it really was an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink multi-instrumental approach, trying to create music that didn't sound like anything else out of mbires, melodicas and mallets. As the albums progressed, this approach transformed into a kind of "mutated pop" aesthetic, where I would take at least the raw materials of existing genres and remould them into new shapes. Each LP is more electronic than its predecessor, as I dropped traditional instruments in favour of more purely synthetic sounds".
Kieran Hebden, known as Four Tet, is an English electronic musician. He came to prominence as a member of the post-rock band Fridge before establishing himself as a solo artist with charting and critically acclaimed albums such as Rounds (2003), Everything Ecstatic (2005) and There Is Love in You (2010). In addition to his eleven studio albums as Four Tet, Hebden's work includes a number of improvisational works with jazz drummer Steve Reid and collaborations with Burial and Thom Yorke.
The Lemon of Pink is the second studio album by American musical duo the Books. It was released on October 7, 2003 by Tomlab. Like much of the duo's work, the songs on The Lemon of Pink juxtapose samples with folk and string instrumentation and other melodic elements, including guest vocals by Anne Doerner.
Michael James Owen Pallett is a Canadian composer, violinist, keyboardist, and vocalist. Under their erstwhile moniker of Final Fantasy, Pallett won the 2006 Polaris Music Prize for the album He Poos Clouds. Pallett is also known for their contributions to Arcade Fire, having toured with the band and been credited as an arranger and instrumentalist on each of their studio albums. In January 2014, Pallett and Arcade Fire member William Butler were nominated for Best Original Score at the 86th Academy Awards for their original score of the film Her (2013).
Jonathan Julian Hopkins is an English musician and producer who writes and performs electronic music. He began his career playing keyboards for Imogen Heap, and has produced but also contributed to albums by Brian Eno, Coldplay, David Holmes and others.
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (CFTPA) was the musical solo-project of musician Owen Ashworth of Redwood City, California.
Halfway to a Threeway is an EP by American musician Jim O'Rourke. It was released by Drag City in 1999.
Daniel Deacon is an American composer and electronic musician based in Baltimore, Maryland.
Matt Elliott is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter, originally from Bristol, England and now based in France, who plays dark folk music. He also produced and recorded electronic music under the name The Third Eye Foundation.
Noah Benjamin Lennox, also known by his moniker Panda Bear, is an American musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and co-founding member of the band Animal Collective. In addition to his work with that group, Lennox has released six solo LPs since 1999, with his 2007 album Person Pitch inspiring the chillwave genre and numerous other acts. His subsequent albums Tomboy (2011) and Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper (2015) both reached the Billboard 200.
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.
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.
Daphne and Celeste are an American pop duo, consisting of Celeste Cruz and Karen 'Daphne' DiConcetto. Three of their singles reached the top 20 in the UK Singles Chart.
Dominique Leone is an American musician and writer based in New York City. He was born in Shreveport, Louisiana on December 29, 1973, and grew up in the Dallas, Texas area.
Heartland is the third full-length album by Canadian indie rock artist Owen Pallett, released January 12, 2010 on Domino Records. It's the first of Pallett's records to be released under their own name. Since the album was their first to be released in Japan, they wished to avoid generating confusion with the Final Fantasy video games from Square Enix, and to avoid infringing on any trademarks. Pallett stated that their previous albums will be repackaged and reissued under their own name at some point.
Parallax is the third studio album from Bradford Cox's solo project Atlas Sound, released November 7, 2011 on 4AD. The album debuted at #97 on the Billboard 200 and has received critical acclaim.
Chris A. Cummings, known professionally as Marker Starling, is a Canadian songwriter and musician.
Daphne & Celeste Save the World is the second studio album by American pop duo Daphne and Celeste. The album was released on March 30, 2018, almost 18 years after their debut LP We Didn't Say That!.
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.
"Money Machine" is the debut single by American hyperpop duo 100 gecs, released on May 29, 2019 as the only single of their debut studio album, 1000 Gecs.
Hyperpop is a loosely defined electronic music movement and microgenre that predominantly originated in the United Kingdom during the late 2010s. It is characterised by a maximalist or exaggerated take on popular music, and artists within the microgenre typically integrate pop and avant-garde sensibilities while drawing on elements commonly found in electronic, hip hop, and dance music.
