Max Ax is the capture of one possible frame in this ongoing sequence, but it is also Sculpture’s most direct and focused transmission yet.
Sculpture’s music may be compulsively metamorphic but a consistent intent and stylistic confidence connects these eleven compositions. Hayhurst’s signature junk pop gnarl is present, a chewed tape melodic sensibility holding the assembly together while surfing chaos. Tape loop psychedelia, overdriven techno, cassette deck melancholia and disintegrating chamber pop combine with a moire of varispeed electronics and percussion.
The resulting first thought best thought dynamism is sometimes ferocious, sometimes joyous, trashy ecstatic or strange, but always singular.
Sutherland's artwork playfully references recurrent motifs in the duo's work. The opaque corporate/ scientific department with its maze of abandoned zones visualises environment as pattern, threatening containment while inviting exploration. The visual language of product design and commercial exploitation is subverted in absurdist combinations of the organic and synthetic, banal and fantastic, geometric and cartoonish. Cryptic devices for calculation, summoning or nonsense are simultaneously futuristic and medieval. The facility has been compromised in some unknown event and strange code has broken through.
Max Ax marks a first collaboration between LTR Records and Psyché Tropes. Available on deluxe double gatefold 10” zoetrope disc and download. The album is available direct from LTR Records and Psyché Tropes, as well as from select record stores, online and via all streaming services.
Tracklist:
1. Max Ax
2. Blood Sharpie
3. REPO
4. Your Security Code
5. Cross Processor
6. Vent
7. I Entered into a Phase
8. Califonia
9. Chromophoria
10. Wave Scroll
11. End of Inquiry
