Max Tundra interview – “I like to be the approachable face of electronic pop”

With his first three albums reissued by Domino, surely it’s time for number four

Max Tundra – or Ben Jacobs if you prefer – and I are ruminating over our last encounter.  Certainly, to this writer it feels like a matter of a months – the pandemic has certainly taken its toll on our perception of time – since we bumped into each other at the long gone Astoria, the venue which used to occupy a sizeable chunk of the corner of Oxford Street and the north end of Charing Cross Road in London’s West End.

It would have been around the time of the London-based producer’s debut album, Some Best Friend You Turned Out To Be, we venture, and he replies “well, that was 2000, which is 22 years ago.”  Wow – well, time flies when you’re having fun.

We bemoan the passing of the Astoria, undeniably one of the jewels in the capital’s concert going crown, which was demolished along with the LA2, Metro and The End nightclub, all to make way for Crossrail and the Elizabeth line.

“I guess they have to destroy every reason to visit somewhere,” he laughs at the apparently warped logic, “in order to install a new train station to get there.”

Fate has brought us together again, because his longtime record label home Domino, have decided to reissue his three seminal albums – Some Best Friend You Turned Out to Be from 2000, the particularly wonderfully titled Mastered by Guy at the Exchange (2002) and Parallax Error Beheads You from 2008, along with a digital remix mixtape entitled Remixtape.  It’s a wise move too.  Having emerged during the turbo charged years of electronica, with albums and new subdivisions flying left, right and centre, the albums were noticed and cherished by a hardcore of fans, most of whom have been diehards ever since. 

What the benefit of hindsight – and the addition of Remixtape – has made clear is the sizeable influence these albums have had on a wide range of music, from the now standard glitchtronic sound of edgy melodies on the edge of malfunctioning, to the dayglo sounds of early computer games that have reformed themselves in the shape of PC Music. It’s not insignificant that PC Music label founder A.G. Cook and arguably the scene’s biggest names Kero Kero Bonito were both more than happy to line up and present their takes on classic Tundra tracks.

Speaking from his living room over Zoom, the ever modest Jacobs seems genuinely moved by the outpouring of love and creativity that the Remixtape project elicited.   

He rightly gushes with praise for Kero Kero Bonito’s ‘MBGATE’ from Mastered…, which sees the trio creating a disco loop from the original track but also taking hilarious inspiration from the LP title and penning a song all about Guy From The Exchange himself. 

“The remix they (KKB) did is absolutely phenomenal – the original is two minutes long and there’s a chopped up set of samples that resembles a disco beat and they’ve basically taken that section and turned it into a pop song that they wrote.  Now it’s a song about Guy at the Exchange and mastering records.  I love that reference and it’s a really fun track.  I couldn’t believe it when I heard it – to go to the trouble of writing lyrics for it any everything it’s really heartwarming.”

Given that shared love of gritty, old fashioned computer tones he has with the PC Music scene, we venture that he must be – or at least been – a computer games fan.  Wrong!

“I  don’t play computer games at all, apart from Tetris occasionally – and Wordle,”  “Back in the day, in the golden age of computing with the Bit 20s and the Amigas, when everyone was playing those games, I would switch it on and boot up the music software.  I think I’ve always thought that playing computer games is a use of time that could be used doing something more productive really. I know that a lot of people get some kind of release from playing them, and it can be quite therapeutic for them.  But for me after 20 minutes I’d be thinking ‘oh, I could have done that drum pattern I need to do for that remix.  Or done the washing up.

“So no, I’ve never been much of a gamer.  But I’ve always been drawn to those 8 bit sounds, the sound of the Commodore 64.  It has been an influence on my sound even if I’ve not played the games.  That hypermelodic stuff has always been trilling around in the background.”

“Because the music on these records is so old, I just wanted to give it a contemporary refreshment, and chose a set of musicians who are making big exciting music today.  I just wanted to see where the reference points were for them and if any of them connected with what I’m doing.  Obviously with a remix or a cover version there’s a path back to the original, but they’ve made the songs sound so new and fresh, that was very exciting to me.  I’ve done hundreds of remixes for other artists on my Bandcamp page but it’s not very often that I’ve had my own stuff remixed.  I’m usually quite protective about my own stuff, I don’t know why, perhaps I’m just a control freak .  But because the songs are so old now I thought I would relinquish that control and see what other people could do with them.  It’s a real honour.”

Among the other highlights are the cover of ‘Will Get Fooled Again’ by Katie Dey – “she’s an Australian music producer, I really loved an album she put out on Bandcamp  – she’s gone for this really intricately programmed version of ‘Will Get Fooled Again’ – she’s basically completely reconstructed the whole thing, right down to recreating these really intricate drum patterns and time changes.  It just sounds amazing, she’s really made it her own.”  Then there’s the Julie Holter overhail of ‘Lysine’ which is “like a big, glistening, empty room” says Jacobs.

“It’s very bizarre but it’s jawdropping, I couldn’t believe it when I heard it.  When we mastered the remixes this is the one that really shook the room – you wouldn’t imagine it had all this booty shaking bass in but it’s got this throbbing vibe that goes through it.  Completely inspired.”

The whole experience of revisiting albums made as far back as 22 years ago, and in the white heat of youth and a rapidly evolving music scene, has been a fascinating one.

“It’s funny, I can remember what my life was like for the making of each one,” he says, “22 years is a long time and I was a completely different person then.  Just the feeling of finishing each one and going into the record company with it – probably on cassette – and sitting there with Laurence (Bell, founder of Domino) listening to it.  It’s every young musician’s dream to put a record out, isn’t it?

“And then for the label to deem them worthy of reissue as well, was super exciting as well.  It’s just nice to look back on those records and see where music has ended up, possibly as a result of some of them.”

Domino was a very different beats back then, was it not?  “They had a lot of US bands like Pavement and stuff, I think my first album was just before the Franz Ferdinand album.  It was before a lot of the UK indie stuff like Arctic Monkeys.  They certainly weren’t this mega force that they are today.”

How did he hook up with them?  The time honoured demo in a Jiffy bag, no less.

“My first single came out on Warp, which was a result of sending in a demo tape.  Domino received the tape at the same time and they were courting me as well.  They basically said: ‘if it doesn’t work out with Warp then we’ll do the album.’  And they did.”

Domino has been his home ever since, perhaps allowing him the freedom to be himself more easily than one of the scene’s more dance-slanted labels steeped in an obsession with genre and fitting in.  They certainly got his sense of humour, not only in the wit-laden music, but also with those amazing titles.

“A lot of what I do is a reaction against the way a lot of electronic music is quite po-faced, a geezer with a laptop not engaging with the audience.  Those songs with those titles that are just a string of letters and numbers.  You know –  ‘Hexidecimal Text’!!  You could call a track ‘Hexidecimal Text’ or you could call it ‘Gum Chimes’ (referring to the opening track of ‘Parallax Error Beheads You (reissue)’.  I like to be the approachable face of electronic pop.”

As for assembling reissue package, it has had one other effect on Jacobs.  Because although he’s been busy doing “hundreds” of remixes, including ones for Pet Shop Boys and Frank Ferdinand, and production work including the improbable return – after a gap of 18 years – of loveable pop brats Daphne & Celeste, his own fourth album remains far from completion.

“There’s quite a lot going on from day to day, what with parenthood – I’ve got a little boy now who is five.  My priority is making sure he has a really amazing day every day but once he’s gone to bed I might do 10 minutes of music.  Or watch something on Netflix, because very often if you’re exhausted then it’s very hard to be inspired.

“But the process has kind of reminded me that I’d better start getting on with my fourth album,” he laughs, “I’m such a slow worker.  Some people like Aphex Twin have vaults of 500 unreleased tracks, but with me there are no spare tracks knocking about.  It’s not like I can even go ‘here are 12 tracks you never heard before.”

But it is in the pipeline, we ask hesitantly?

“It’s taking shape,” he confirms. “but it’s still a way off, if I’m honest.”

Ben Willmott