PARAMAX (1)

By: Max Glenn
September 25, 2021

We are pleased to present PARAMAX, a three-part series in which talented musician and HILOBROW friend Max Glenn guides our listening to his latest release, Maxtape II. Spotify users, scroll to bottom of each post for a track link.

MAXTAPE II TRACKS: I | II | III.

The first track (“I”) is made up of three sections, which I start and end with soundscapes.

The first section is bookended by a collection of field recordings I made at thrift shops in February 2021. I like how the wire clothes hangers sound when they’re pushed together by crowds of people. I paired these recordings with a chord progression programmed on a Logic synth plugin that made clanking noises associated with whatever notes I put in. This piece progresses in a mechanical way, and is one of the more “focused” moments amongst the album’s collages. I asked my friend Mena Lemos to record on this track as well, and her playing adds a leading melodic layer, a sonic guide, to the track.

This blends into the section of “I” dedicated to Penn Station. I spent a lot of time waiting and exploring Penn Station during the 2021–2021 school year. One day, I made a nearly hour-long recording while I walked from one end of the station to another — passing people clapping, shouting to one another, (badly) playing a recorder, rushing to catch their train on time. This section is my version of a sound-collaged club track, using just one sample (pitched up and double timed, among other manipulations) and my Volca Beats machine. Throughout the album I tested out different ways of producing, both inside and outside the realms of genre. I made this one to dance to, but these weird Penn Station noises keep coming through, disrupting an otherwise clean mix. The outro is found sound from a band playing in Prospect Park by the lake, and I must’ve been spinning around when I recorded them with my stereo mic because the sound bounces from left to right in a disorienting, into-the-rabbit hole kind of way.

In the last section of “I”, I experimented with looping found sounds. I created a climax not only with a drum buildup — and my friend Jack Lewitt’s gorgeous guitar solo — but with crowd sounds repeating and rolling into one another. In the last few months I’ve recorded a lot of crowds, in part because I encounter so few people in the Covid world. I’ve lived in cities all my life, and I think the urban sound of overlapping voices creates a really gorgeous texture, highlighting the timbre of the human voice without focusing on what any particular person is saying. I missed hearing these voices, so I made sure to record them whenever I could.

The end of “I” is a recording from a living room jam session I did with my friend Nate and his roommate Willy a while back. There were many such sessions this winter, just creating to create, recording only when I wanted to capture a moment. That’s what the found-sound element of this project means to me: moments that I wanted to remember and memorialize.

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PARAMAX (1)

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