Max Cooper announces new album ‘Feeling Is Structure’

Electronic producer and multidisciplinary artist Max Cooper returns with his new album Feeling Is Structure, released Friday 8 May via the label head’s own imprint Mesh, on digital platforms (Stereo and Dolby Atmos) and as a limited triple-vinyl edition.

Today’s lead single, ‘Pattern Index’, is a love affair with pattern generators, a cacophony of hardware repetitions, modulations and micro structures which eventually cohere into sweeping harmonies and exhilaration. The impact is a result of the journey accompanied by the percussion of Adam Betts. It is set to a visual study of patterns by Katia Schutz and Jack Fisher, an audio-visual collaboration due for release later this month.

Developed from a commission to create a live show for London’s Royal Albert Hall, Feeling Is Structure explores the relationship between physical form and human emotion. Across 10 spatial audio-visual works, Cooper examines how structure in sound, architecture, biology and art, shapes the way we feel.

The album is built on the idea that our inner emotional lives are profoundly connected from our lived environment, Expanding on this idea, Max explains:

“I’m fascinated by architects who can imbue brutalist buildings with humanity, or artists who can paint a block of colour representing their soul.” says Cooper. “We have this remarkable capacity to spill ourselves into the world through form. When I began working on a show for the Royal Albert Hall, that connection between large-scale physical structures and feeling took over — and this album emerged from that process.”

Musically, Feeling Is Structure leans into Cooper’s more intricate and deliberate compositional side. Rather than improvisation, the record focuses on carefully designed systems and processes that build evolving sonic architectures. Precise at the micro level, but deeply emotive in impact.

The project will also be realised as an immersive touring experience, translating the album’s spatial concepts into large-scale audio-visual performance environments, including the show at London’s iconic Royal Albert Hall which sold out in just 48 hours. Supporting Max will be HAAi playing their latest live show.

“Mappings between structures and feelings are important,” Cooper adds. “They connect art and science, and they enrich how we experience the world. Imagine life without music — that’s just one abstract structure we all connect with. There are many more.”

Feeling Is Structure is released Friday 8 May on digital platforms in Stereo and Dolby Atmos, and as a limited triple-vinyl edition via Mesh. Upcoming tour dates listed below, with more TBA.

TOUR DATES (MORE TBA)

30 Jan – Glasgow, SGW3
31 Jan – Milan, La Cannibale Arca. (DJ set)
6 Feb – East Perth, Perth Festival (Sold Out)
7 Feb – Melbourne, Northcote Theatre  (Sold Out)
10 Feb – Shibuya, Daikanyama Unit  (Sold Out)
12 Feb – Seoul, Bluesquare Sol Travel Hall
21 Feb – Bangalore, The Sixth Sense Festival
7 April – London, Royal Albert Hall (Sold Out)
23 April – Lyon, Le Sucre
24 April – Annecy, Le Brise Glace
25 April – Clermont-Ferrand, La Coopérative de Mai
30 April – Olomouc, Olomouc Hussite Church
7 May – Amsterdam, Paradiso
14 May – Basingstoke, The Anvil
15 May – Coventry, Warwick Arts Centre
16 May – Bristol, Bristol Beacon
17 May – Poole, Lighthouse
18 May – Birmingham, Symphony Hall
19 May – Liverpool, Philharmonic Hall
20 May – Edinburgh, Usher Hall
21 May – Gateshead, The Glasshouse ICM
18 June – Dádpuszta, Daad Gathering (Live AV)

1. Max Cooper: Feeling Is Structure Tracklist

   Pattern Index
   Becoming
   The Shape Of Memory
   Splintered Air Between Us
   Obsessive Compulsive Order
   Bass Mosaic
   This Is A Bridge (with Sorcery)
   Four Tones Reflected
   Ebb And Flow
   Chrysalis

About Max Cooper:

Max Cooper is an electronic composer, multi-disciplinary artist, music label founder and former scientist who has carved out a unique space in music and visual art. He holds a PhD in computational biology at the same time as being the first contemporary electronic musician to perform at the ancient Acropolis theatre in Athens and one of the first clutch of musicians to produce in Dolby Atmos.

Cooper has enquired for over 15 years through music, collaborations, and his label Mesh, to explore the intersections between the arts and sciences with installations, performances, immersive experiences, online media, music videos and live events. Anchored throughout is his emotive approach, connecting how ideas and forms feel, in a manner accessible to us all.

“I’ve always had a strong emotive bond with aesthetics, and found at an early age that the purified forms of electronic music carried a lot of weight for me, as did the reductive natural aesthetics of the sciences. That felt connection to both opened up a world I’ve been lost in ever since.”

Pivoting from computational biology to electronic music might not seem like the most natural career transition, but for Cooper the commonalities are obvious: “In both fields, you’re in a sense, free. Free from the limits of living systems, free from the limits of corporeal sound. The only constraints are in your mind.” 

Max Cooper has collaborated with Zaha Hadid Architects, Dolby, L-Acoustics, 4DSOUND, Barbican Centre, W1 Curates, The Babraham Institute and exhibited work at museums including the Pompidou Metz, ZKM Karlsruhe, Museum WaveSeoul and The Science Museum London.