Max Cooper - On Being (3LP) [Mesh]

Format: 3x12" Pressed on 180-gram heavy vinyl + Triple Gatefold Sleeve.
CAT: MESH0100V

Powerful works of art often emerge from a deep place within the artist, and if they manage to strike the right chord, they resonate with the audience, leaving a lasting impression. But what if that equation were reversed? What if the artist drew their inspiration from the depths of their audience, reflecting back those ideas, emotions, hopes, fears, pains, and aspirations?

Over a two-year journey, audiovisual artist and electronic innovator Max Cooper has inverted the creative process, collecting hundreds of anonymous phrases by posing profound yet open-ended questions like: "What would you like to express that you can't in everyday life?" or "What is it like to exist within your mind?"

The goal: to understand what it truly means to be human today. The result: his new album On Being, set to be released in February 2025, with the first single, “Sun In A Box,” slated for September 4th.

With On Being, Cooper set out to look beyond the synthetic surface of social media to “create a snapshot of our minds today,” as he explains, asking people to anonymously share what they dare not say in public. The result is an emotionally raw, brutally honest kaleidoscope of confessions ranging from suicidal thoughts, unhappy marriages, or profound loneliness, to hundreds of anonymous declarations of love and desire.

“I was interested in the way I relate to people in my creative process, which usually involves one-way communication of emotions and ideas that I then find out whether or not they connect with others,” Cooper says.

“With this project, however, I could start with other people's thoughts and feelings, with what resonates with them, and interpret them in my own way in musical and visual form, and then give something back to them. It's a more collaborative approach to making an album, and much more intense.”

Grief, hope, regret, joy, pain, and love form the basis of each track, leading Cooper’s constantly evolving creative process in an entirely new direction, with deeply intense results.

“Portraying the experience of existing is at the core of what I do musically, but I hadn't realized the impact that other people's words about being would have on me until I started reading the database of thoughts,” he says.

“It was like discovering a secret window into everyone's mind, and finding, amidst the chaos, pleasure, and pain, those experiences we all share at different moments in our lives, with overwhelming emotions and connections that cry out to be explored.”

Despite the whirlwind of fury we often see in society's echoes, On Being reveals that humans still retain an innate need to trust each other and to express collective generosity, something that is much easier from anonymity.

“The phrases carried an enormous weight for me. I interpreted them with my usual musical tools, but as you hear on the record, everything became more extreme as I delved deeper into what everyone had to say,” Cooper adds.

The result is a unique work that demonstrates, without a doubt, not only the power of wordless music to express emotions, but also the power of words to communicate what seemed impossible to say.

On Being will continue to evolve as Cooper gathers more confessions to feed this emotional ecosystem and bring to life new artistic projects and complementary works that will hopefully speak honestly about humanity today—and about who we are and who we can become.