Mastered by Guy at The Exchange

Mastered by Guy at The Exchange
Studio album by Max Tundra
Released 2 September 2002 (2002-09-02)
Genre IDM, indie electronic, glitch[1]
Length 40:59
Label Domino
Max Tundra chronology
Some Best Friend You Turned Out to Be
(2000)		 Mastered by Guy at The Exchange
(2002)		 Parallax Error Beheads You (2008)
Singles from
Mastered by Guy at The Exchange
  1. "Lysine"
    Released: 5 August 2002
  2. "Cabasa"
    Released: 21 April 2003

Mastered by Guy at The Exchange is the second studio album by Ben Jacobs under his stage name of Max Tundra. Released on 2 September 2002 through Domino Records in the United Kingdom and by Tigerbeat6 Records in North America, making it his first album to be distributed in North America. The album was also Max Tundra's first to be released with vocals on nearly all the tracks.

Two singles were released from the album: "Lysine" and "Cabasa". The album failed to chart in both the United Kingdom and the United States, but received high critical acclaim with the music webzine Pitchfork Media referring to the album as a "A massive achievement" and placed it on their list of Top 50 albums of 2002.

Production

Mastered by Guy at The Exchange was the first Max Tundra record to use vocals. In an interview with Pitchfork Media he explained that "The songs are extremely different from those on the first record. When I was writing Some Best Friend, I thought of all sorts of weird and wonderful machines and instruments I could use to make noises, but singing never occurred to me. I had never considered using my voice on any Max Tundra record ever, but hey, I like to keep things varied, so this time round I figured what the hell!"[2] Max Tundra found it difficult to write lyrics as well, saying "I'm getting to grips with writing lyrics, but it is somewhat more difficult than anything I've done before... The lyrics themselves are taking ages to write-- it's something I'm not used to."[2] The other vocalist on the album is Becky Jacobs who is Max Tundra's sister.[2] The album's title is literal; it was mastered by Guy Davie at a studio named The Exchange.

Music

Lyrics

This is Tundra's first album with vocals, and all but one of the tracks have vocals.[3][4] The lyrics on Mastered by Guy at The Exchange have been described as not being rich with subtext.[3] Max Tundra refers to this on "Labial" with "I only sing about things that happen to me/ I never learned to fill my songs with allegory"[4] The BBC noted recurring themes included "unaffected tales of Food Chemistry, bands splitting up, employment history and even an homage to video maker Michel Gondry."[5] while Pitchfork Media noted theme of "girls he's loved or loves, complaints about his day jobs".[3] The lyrics are also littered with musical references.[3] References range from trance music and the band Yes where he sings "Downstair's they're playing trance again / that awful bendy guitar / up through the floor again / It's 9am till I cry / And Time and a Word my friend / Inspires me more than guitars".[3][4] Pitchfork also described the song "Gondry" as a plea to filmmaker and music video director Michel Gondry to direct one for him with lyrics referencing his music videos for "Let Forever Be" and "Around the World".[3][4] Stylus Magazine described the album's first single for "Lysine" as sounding like a nutrition manual with lyrics of "many foods are rich in arginine, concentrate on the ones with more lysine".[6] Max Tundra has also stated that not everything he wrote about actually happened. In an interview with Stylus Magazine, he proclaimed that "half the lyrics on that album are true and half are false, but I’m not gonna tell you which half."[7]

Style

Max Tundra's vocals have been described as "high, mellifluous" and that they resemble Scritti Politti's Green Gartside and Prince.[3][8] The album's music style has been described by Allmusic as a "jumpy collision of found sounds, Squarepusher-type beat thrashes, and jaunty wrestling with "real" instrumentation."[8] In a review from the BBC noted of "songs which shift gears regularly, ending up in places their openings barely hint at".[5] The BBC pointed out "Cabasa" which "starts life as lopsided techno and ends up as a slice of piano driven barrelhouse boogie" and "Hilted" which "mutates from Commodore 64 game soundtrack to sunkissed acoustic guitar pop".[5] The BBC's view was reflected in Stylus Magazine's review the album which stated that "You may have heard the pounding house anthem that "Labial" sounds vaguely like, but the prog flourishes will catch you off guard".[6]

Release and reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[8]
Pitchfork Media(9.3/10)[3]
Playlouder[9]
Stylus Magazine(A)[6]
Tiny Mix Tapes[10]

Mastered by Guy at The Exchange was released in 2002 by Tigerbeat6 in North America and Domino in the United Kingdom.[11][12] The album failed to chart in the United States and was not reviewed by many critics but was received positively by those who did.[8][13] Kingsley Marshall of the online music database Allmusic gave the album four out of five star rating, comparing the album's style to Prince and Squarepusher.[8] The BBC's Peter Marsh wrote positively that Max Tundra has "come up with an album which has more ideas per minute than most of his contemporaries can manage over the course of a career."[5] Chris Dahlen of Pitchfork Media gave the album a very positive review, referring to the album as "A massive achievement" and claiming that there was "so many synths, beeps, beats, glitches, horns, hooks, voices. It shouldn't work. But it does. Perfectly."[3] Pitchfork Media also listed the album as the 12th best album on their list of top 50 albums of 2002,[14] and 52nd on their list of the top 100 albums released between 2000 and 2004.[15] Pitchfork Media also placed the album at number 182 on their list of top 200 albums of the 2000s.[16]

Track listing

All tracks written by Ben Jacobs. 

No. Title Length
1. "Merman"   1:56
2. "MBGATE"   2:27
3. "Lysine"   4:02
4. "Fuerte"   2:07
5. "Pocket"   0:59
6. "Cabasa"   7:12
7. "61over"   1:08
8. "Lights"   1:39
9. "Hilted"   2:50
10. "Acorns"   3:26
11. "Gondry"   3:26
12. "Labial"   6:09

Personnel

Release history

Region Date Label Format Catalog
United Kingdom 2 September 2002 Domino Records LP WIGLP112[17]
CD WIGCD112[17]
United States 4 November 2002 Tigerbeat6 Records CD MEOW062[17]

Notes

  1. ↑ Ross Hoffman, K. "Max Tundra: Styles". Allmusic. Allmusic. Retrieved 1 December 2008.
  2. 1 2 3 LeMay, Matt (1 January 2002). "Interview: Max Tundra". Pitchfork Media. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 25 August 2008.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Dahlen, Chris (20 October 2002). "Mastered by the Guy at the Exchange Pitchfork Media". Pitchfork Media. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Max Tundra. "Lyrics". Max Tundra. Max Tundra. Retrieved 25 August 2008.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Marsh, Peter (20 October 2002). "BBC – Experimental Review". BBC. BBC. Retrieved 25 August 2008.
  6. 1 2 3 Martin, Tyler. "Stylus Review". Stylus Magazine. Stylus Magazine. Retrieved 25 August 2008.
  7. ↑ Mike Powell. "Hi! Max Tundra". Stylus Magazine. Stylus Magazine. Retrieved 25 August 2008.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Marshall, Kingsley. "allmusic (( Mastered By Guy at The Exchange))". Allmusic. Allmusic. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
  9. ↑ Moffat, Iain (3 September 2002). https://web.archive.org/web/20030220060636/http://playlouder.com/review/604maxtundra.html. Archived from the original on 20 February 2003. Retrieved 26 June 2015. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  10. ↑ Tiny Mix Tapes review
  11. ↑ "Domino". Domino Records. Domino Records. Retrieved 25 August 2008.
  12. ↑ "Tigerbeat6". Tigerbeat6. Tigerbeat6. Archived from the original on 28 October 2007. Retrieved 25 August 2008.
  13. ↑ Warwick,, Neil; Jon Kutner; Tony Brown (2004). The complete book of the British charts. Omnibus Press. ISBN 1-84449-058-0.
  14. ↑ Abebe, Nitsuh (1 January 2003). "Top 50 Albums of 2002". Pitchfork Media. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  15. ↑ Dahlen, Chris (7 February 2005). "The Top 100 Albums of 2000–04". Pitchfork Media. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  16. ↑ Pitchfork staff (28 September 2009). "The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s: 200-151". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 1 October 2009.
  17. 1 2 3 "Discography". Max Tundra. Retrieved 25 August 2008.
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