If you like music that pushes surreal buttons, that feels immersive, that conjures up future times or space travel or even fantasy realms while twisting emotional contexts in interesting ways then you will appreciate / love the work of Max Bernstein (they / them) an evocative mind blowing creative. Sadly, Max is an underachiever, only being a highly regarded singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, filmmaker, performer, designer, conceptual artist, a current Clinical Assistant Professor the Sidney Poitier New American Film School as well as well as an associate director for the Geometric Media Lab in the School of Arts Media and Engineering in the Arizona State University Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Max has also collaborated or been part of other musical outfits (too many to mention but you can learn more about their other artistic alter egos in press notey stuff below).
Max's latest "Free Fall", the second single off of their upcoming album "Crossing Atlantic", is top to bottom a fall down the proverbial rabbit hole that ends up in a maze full of closed doors, each one opened and ending up in a different sonic place. Max's blend of sideways post rock and art rock is enticing because it goes to weird sonic places but then steps back. In other words, it feels trippy, psychedelic with out feeling too avant garde as to be inaccessible. There are musical shapes and melodies that even hint at the kind of broad surreal pop explored by artists as popular as The Beatles, Alan Parsons Group, Electric Light Orchestra, Muse and Boards of Canada (at least to me).
I am deeply enamored with all of "Free Fall" and I won't give away certain stunning moments, certain particularly orchestrated breaks and runaways but I have to share this. The amazingly cajole of the pre-chorus "Where is the ground? Where is the ground? Where is the ground?" falls away to the absolutely disarming chorus, "Because yesterday wasn't so... grand! It's a beautiful free fall. You can't always believe all of this", that feels utterly magical in it's mercurial beauty, transformative really, like when like shifts to love, like when a fluttering idea turns to art. Fucking amazing.
Max, you did it once more.
Max Bernstein - Acoustic & Electric Drums, Guitars, Keyboards, Vocals, Various other sounds
Andrew Borkowski - Cellos
Jorge Costa - Electric Bass
John Aaron Troy - Baritone Sax, Tenor Sax, Flutes
Mixing Engineer & Additional Production - Jorge Costa
Mastering Engineer - Mark Fuller Mastering
-Robb Donker Curtius
https://soundcloud.com/maxbernstein
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3EI7KhltVLxNppAiju0Opu
https://maxbernsteinmusic.bandcamp.com/track/zygomaticus-single
https://www.instagram.com/visiblemax/
https://maxbernsteinmusic.com/
Max Bernstein (they/them) was born in Buffalo, NY. They are a lifelong multi-instrumentalist, filmmaker, performer, designer and conceptual artist. They studied experimental film and video production, at the University at Buffalo, and film production and studio art at the University of Colorado at Boulder. They have worked and toured as a technical artist with the media-based theater company Wooster Group, and as a video and sound designer with Michelle Ellsworth, Kaki King, Cindy Kleine, Aynsley Vandenbroucke, Sam Kim, Morgan Gould, Becca Blackwell, and Ondine Geary. In addition, they are one half of the piano harp duo Outlier, a founding member of media art performance group the Flinching Eye Collective, a video artist for Friends Of The Tank, drummer and video designer for the band Eupana, and composer and sound engineer at Tribal Studio. They are currently Clinical Assistant Professor the Sidney Poitier New American Film School as well as as associate director for the Geometric Media Lab in the School of Arts Media and Engineering in the Arizona State University Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://soundcloud.com/maxbernstein
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3EI7KhltVLxNppAiju0Opu
https://maxbernsteinmusic.bandcamp.com/track/zygomaticus-single
https://www.instagram.com/visiblemax/
https://maxbernsteinmusic.com/
Max Bernstein (they/them) was born in Buffalo, NY. They are a lifelong multi-instrumentalist, filmmaker, performer, designer and conceptual artist. They studied experimental film and video production, at the University at Buffalo, and film production and studio art at the University of Colorado at Boulder. They have worked and toured as a technical artist with the media-based theater company Wooster Group, and as a video and sound designer with Michelle Ellsworth, Kaki King, Cindy Kleine, Aynsley Vandenbroucke, Sam Kim, Morgan Gould, Becca Blackwell, and Ondine Geary. In addition, they are one half of the piano harp duo Outlier, a founding member of media art performance group the Flinching Eye Collective, a video artist for Friends Of The Tank, drummer and video designer for the band Eupana, and composer and sound engineer at Tribal Studio. They are currently Clinical Assistant Professor the Sidney Poitier New American Film School as well as as associate director for the Geometric Media Lab in the School of Arts Media and Engineering in the Arizona State University Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.
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