Max McFerren – Sipps
It’s turning out to be a pretty good year for Max McFerren. In the last nine months he’s delivered a murky chunk of dark, acid-flecked techno on Don’t Be Afraid, a pair of quirky, rave-and-UK garage influenced workouts for Allergy Season’s free Side Effects May Include compilation, and a typically kaleidoscopic, nostalgia-soaked cassette – under the arguably more familiar MCFERRDOGG alias – for 1080p. All bar the Don’t Be Afraid outing are colourful, cute and energetic, fusing his love of vibrant, vintage synthesizer sounds with breaks, samples and beats inspired by early British hardcore, sweaty rave-era house, and all manner of long-dead electronic genres. That all have sounded like nobody else is testament to his growing strength as a producer.
Here, he joins forces with 1080p again, this time delivering the second 12” in their recently minted 12” series. While the Vancouver outfit’s first outing on wax was a vinyl issue of previously cassette-only tracks from Project Pablo’s brilliant I Want To Believe long-player, Sipps contains previously unheard material. It is, in effect, 1080p’s first truly original vinyl release. And, being McFerren, it’s original in every sense of the word.
McFerren never appears to be short on ideas. Listen to his back catalogue, and even the most carefully sculpted and easily defined compositions sound like four or five tracks rolled into one. There’s a cheery eccentricity about what he does, and it always sounds like he’s having fun. There’s nothing po-faced or pretentious about his musical outlook, just the sound of a man playing with machines – primarily, it seems, drum machines, samplers and forgotten digital synthesizers – and having a great time in the process.
Certainly, that’s how Sipps comes across. While there are notable musical trademarks to be found in all four tracks – bold, darting synthesizer motifs, the use of classic/familiar breakbeats, the threat of ragged acid lines appearing at any moment, and a full range of fluorescent aural colours – there’s more than enough variety to fill several 12” singles, let alone one.
The title track is a good case in point. Primarily a wonky acid workout, full of clattering drum machine hits, psychedelic 303 lines and alien melodies, it’s much more complex than that. Sure, there are nods to Chicago acid, hardcore-era British techno and even Rephlex style ‘braindance’, but it doesn’t really sound like any of these things. It’s noisy and dancefloor-friendly, but weirdly joyous in a quirky sort of way.
The same could be said about the EP’s other tracks. Even when doffing a cap to the new age synthesizer sounds so associated with 1080p and other Vancouver labels on “Der Funke”, the New York producer mixes them in with bubbling, mangled electronics, surprisingly swinging drum machine madness, and the kind of chiming melodies that would put a smile on the face of even the most miserable of DJs.
Then there’s “Ya Bad Sister” – a jaunty chunk of dancefloor silliness built around cheap synth sounds, and a hip-house era tweak of a familiar James Brown break – and closing track “Hard To Say”, which successfully mangles hardcore-era breaks, synths, riffs and electronics into something almost unrecognisable. It’s obvious that McFerren’s inspirations are, for the most part, 20 to 30 years old, but his happy-go-lucky creations are undeniably his own.
Matt Anniss
Tracklisting:
A1. Sipps
A2. Der Funke
B1. Ya Bad Sister
B2. Hard To Say