In these analog end of days—when singers don't sing (see: Auto-Tune), drummers don't drum (see: Timbaland's bank account) and kids rush to their local laptop on Tuesdays for the coveted new release—there's a guy in London creating slickly produced electronic symphonies with Reagan-era synths and a Commodore Amiga 500 as a sequencer.
Max Tundra is the alter ego of Ben Jacobs, a guy with clearly too much time on his hands. Given the limited technology, his song creation process is insanely labor-intensive and includes Jacobs hand-coding sounds into his Amiga terminal. The data (inputted as columns of numbers) is then translated to notes on the various synths lying around Jacobs' studio. It's sorta like "War Games," if only Matthew Broderick was more into Kraftwerk than trying to hook up with Ally Sheedy.
Heady production notes aside, Jacobs' latest album, "Parallax Error Beheads You," rivals the best of current laptronica. "The Entertainment" has Jacobs singing about shooting a student art film before expanding into a very trance-y breakdown that would fit on the Sirius/XM channel played at your local gym. (Unlike Tundra's previous releases, the album features much singing, heavy on the falsetto.) The cheerful "Which Song" is somewhere between Stevie Wonder and robot dancing, while "Number Our Day" is a triumphant skills flaunt, with funky guitar licks and blippy shimmers.
We recently spoke with Jacobs, from his London apartment, about his dated social network references (Friendster?) and working with all those ones and zeros.
How did you refine your singing style, which I put at somewhere between Joe Jackson and Jamiroquai?
It's because I sing Mariah Carey's "Vision of Love" at karaoke. It's the technical song she does. I don't know if I can reach that wobbly top note she does, but I get quite high.
What are some of your other karaoke jams?
"Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen; "Mr. Blue Sky" by ELO; "Independent Woman" by Destiny's Child. Those three songs are the Max Tundra sound.
When did you start working with the Commodore Amiga 500?
I got one of those in 1986, when I was 11 or 12, to play games like Tetris and New Zealand Story. But I later used it to run these tracker programs to make music in my bedroom.
Explain the process.
Tracker programs are the least musically intuitive ways to make music. It's basically just data—columns of numbers that refer to pitch, length of notes and volume. When I'm working on song I am literally typing in a load of numbers, like an accountant.
So how do you know which number combo equals which sound?
I've been working with this program since about 1991, so it's just under my skin. Whenever I think of a song, I think of it in terms of this software. But it's just for the sequencing. The notes are played on various synths.
With Pro Tools and the like available, why stick with this totally archaic technology?
There's more modern sequencers on the market, but I don't have a good computer to run it. I own a very basic PC, used for emails and Photoshopping myself into American Apparel adverts. Plus, I don't like the idea of taking a couple months to learn a new tool, and never quite being able to use it as well.
People equate your sound with video games and the 8-bit movement. Are you a gamer?
Not at all. I never, ever play games and I think people waste too much time playing computer games. I'm really kind of bored of this 8-bit chip music scene. It's really same-y now, and there is no mystery to it. If you put on an album by Ariel Pink, you'll think, "How is he making these sounds?" But then if you put on a chip record it will be, "Oh yeah, that's the little sound DJ on the Game Boy." I like to listen to music that is more mysterious than that.
You mention Friendster in a song. Do people still use that site?
[Laughing] When I was writing songs about social networks, they were very new at the time and quite an innovative thing. But now nobody is using Friendster. When it takes you five or six years to do an album, these things happen.
How does a Max Tundra album translate to the club?
I wouldn't say it's cabaret, but with my karaoke background there is a lot of singing, plus gesticulating and some funny dancing going on.
Do you have props?
Hopefully I will be receiving mad props.
