Max Tundra
(Domino)
Meticulous Ben Jacobs, listed on marquees as Max Tundra, takes his time making records. He works on just one cut at time, in album order, to carefully layer organic and inorganic sounds. He's perfectly willing to take a break once in a while. If, for instance, he needs a trumpet sound and doesn't know how to play it. He'll get it, just check back in a month or two. The result is often a long gap between Max Tundra records. This one, his third, comes six years after the UK release of Mastered by Guy at the Exchange, Jacobs has admitted in interviews that he worried about dying before finishing, and regularly told his friends where to find the finished tracks should anything happen to him.
So, to say that Parallax Error Beheads You is exquisite, polished like a gem, or insanely complex, is part of the story. The other part is that it is, more so than any previous Max Tundra outing, a pop record. You can hum along, if you like, never mind the spatter-shot drums and deftly interlaced blots of samples. As on his last record, Jacobs does a fair amount of singing here, and in six years, he has gotten unmistakably better at it. In "Lysine" from Mastered by the Guy he sounded like he was playing a pop-soul vocalist. By "Will Get Fooled Again" he handles rapid-fire, reference-laden lyrics with casual ease, the edgy electro-beat blippiness sharing space with pure Death Cab-ish pop. The mortality-themed "Number Our Days," is similarly sweet-voiced and frantic, Jacob's voice billowing in smooth falsetto over pointillist symphonies of staccato synthesizers. For "Nord Lead Three," an ode to the Pet Shop Boys' favorite keyboard, he takes a dead-pan French-electro-punk stance, marshalling lo-fi drums and chaotic no-wave riffs to his aid.
But in all cases, the effort - certainly considerable - disappears into the music. You can listen to these songs again and again and hear different things every time, and you won't mind. Despite the difficulty factor, it won't seem like work at all.
Standout Tracks: "Will Get Fooled Again" "Nord Lead Three" JENNIFER KELLY
