HOWA EP 102 - MAX TUNDRA

hanging out with audiophiles

Max Tundra is Ben Jacobs

A man that was a child that grew up in London.

As pointed out on his bandcamp, he went to the same school as Jude Law and a Chemical Brother, but didn’t know them.

In this disposable content age, there’s an undeniable urge to go for quantity over quality is there not?

The music Ben makes as Max Tundra comes as rarely as a celestial event.

We forget the rising and falling of the sun each day but we don’t forget a total eclipse now do we?

This is how it felt when Mocky and I came across the LP “Mastered by guy at the exchange”.

We were without sun for a while. In an unknown land that felt Most welcoming and yet most peculiar.

It was genuinely new music. Something so rare that still feels fresh all these years later.

Here’s what hyper pop bloke A. G. Cook said of Max Tundra’s legacy:

“‘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.”

Ben Jacobs invented hyper pop

As they say in the UK

FACTS

It’s a good time to be a Max Tundra fan as domino has reissued his first three studio albums to be found HERE

2000s Some Best Friend You Turned Out to Be,

2002’s Mastered by Guy at the Exchange,

and the 2008 masterwork Parallax Error Beheads You.

We get into a lot of his formative years and thankfully he kept so much of his sonic ramblings from that time and they can be found on his band camp page

It’s a real treasure trove.

Here it is

What a legend. If you’ve never heard of him before, I’m so glad I get to make the intro.

He’s a true original and a very nice man

Please welcome on the show

Max Tundra