Max Million – Monogramma

Max Million – Monogramma – EP Review

Hot off the press!  I’m serious – this is about as fresh as it gets…not just in the incredible sounds on this new EP from Max Million, but I’m talking about timeline itself – the Monogramma EP just came out today!  If you’re a fan of electronic-music, IDM, EDM and the 1.5 million sub-genres in between – there’s a good chance you’re gonna want to sit up straight and pay attention here…you’re gonna want to remember this name.  Max Million is unleashing a beast of combinations in sound over five massively dynamic tracks with startling amounts of variation, depth, skill and flow – Monogramma has every knob on the studio-boards set to impress.

“Stellar” is probably more of a reference to its outerspace-like sound…but from what I hear, it could easily just as much be a reference to quality.  LISTEN to the way these sounds are mixed together!  Whether moving the track along, or keeping it on the down-low for a moment or two – Max Million packs in intense sounds and samples throughout the music at every moment.  The clarity in the work is honestly inspiring…this is exactly what I personally like the electro-music that I listen to sounding like in both the production and style itself.  As far as I’m concerned, “Stellar” sets the bar way up high for the others of the genre in the independent electro-scene to rise-up to – and it’s going to take them some WORK to catch up.  The amount of talent and understanding of the layers of depth in production, and what that can really achieve in a listening experience…it’s all incorporated with a seriously professional and expert hand.  And so it would seem that our hero Max Million is off to an incredible start – the pulse & movement of “Stellar” is versatile, diverse and synthetically-stunning – an amazing opening to a new listening experience for us personally, and a solid welcome-back to anyone that’s heard his past record.

This is exciting though…I’ve got no doubt after the innovation and quality of “Stellar” that what will follow will be of an equally high-caliber.  The title-track “Monogramma” instantly begins to satisfy that curiosity, sounding absolutely deadly like a cobra in a basket just waiting for a moment to strike.  Low-end swells meet clever bright & airy synthetics & glitch-sounds that create a really unique and contrasting soundscape before it evolves even further to expand with choral-vocal synth-sounds, flutes and other smart electronic samples getting swirled right in perfectly into this brew.  The results are massively fantastic…I’m a big fan of anyone out there that has an ear for music like this, but not many do.  Max Million could easily be called Max One In A Million when it comes to his true understanding of texture in electro and how to really make these sounds catch the attention of our ears.  “Monogramma” is a masterstroke of electro-genius…I loved the menace & mischief you can hear in the music…I absolutely adored the amount of sounds used to create the hooks in this song – Max Million’s title-track is every bit of the epic a title-track should truly be.  It’s dark…it comes on slowly…but when “Monogramma” truly unfolds, this entire atmosphere completely holds you inside of it and takes you completely into another world.  BRILLIANT song – a perfect mix of emotion, heavy moods and electro.

Any true fan of originality, unique composition, experimental ideas and real texture in music is going to love this EP as much as I do.  “Oceanic” is an audiophile’s complete dream to listen to; another track that highlights Max Million’s serious gift for production, arrangement and depth of sound.  “Oceanic” is eerily calm at the beginning…like a treasure chest that has just fallen to the sea-floor, and now the debris is settling and the creatures are coming out to see what’s come into their environment.  Okay…maybe that’s just the way that I hear it…but you can’t deny the mythic & mystical sound that “Oceanic” has…and again, the clarity of the instruments, music & samples is just top-shelf perfection.  Right after the two-minute mark when “Oceanic” begins to rise with the swelling tide, the music becomes jaw-droppingly incredible; not just great ideas, but the flawless execution to really get the best out of those ideas and onto a recording.  I thought “Oceanic” and the shifting dynamic between its two main, contrasting forces and the chaotic-beauty that this track develops into through their relationship to each other was phenomenal to listen to.  Three tracks in, and in my opinion, Max Million has gone three-for-three like he could do it all day long, every day – these songs are absolutely stunning.

“An Afterthought” is much more like a fully-explored map of the entire human brain or set of emotions!  I’m not sure how any song of eight-minutes in length or more can qualify as “An Afterthought” – but whatever…I’ll stop picking on Max Million for the title because the music is so damn GOOD!  Every time with this guy!  I love the way that MM creates the environment and really has the sounds spaced out perfectly in ways that really draw you in to listen.  Approaching the 2.5 minute-mark, this track hits the most excellent electro-groove and low-end blending…the surrounding electro builds with precision, intensity and extreme clarity until it all breaks heading towards the halfway point in the song.  The spread-out way that “An Afterthought” moves sonically is an incredible achievement…the emotion in the atmosphere is measurable…and every single second that you hear has clearly been painstakingly assembled to get the absolute most out of it.  Completely impressed with Max Million…”An Afterthought” is another shining example of this magnificent electro-artist at his best.  The layout & flow are brilliant, the accenting sounds and samples are so entirely incredible to listen to…I’ve honestly spent a lot of time just letting these songs take me away in my mind and not written anything at all…I get sucked right into these hypnotic & rhythmically-creative soundscapes that Max Million brings to life.

Letting the album drift like a star into a supernova, “We Eternal” ends the Monogramma EP with a final short burst of texture, haunting atmosphere, clarity and depth in a song that’s just over a minute long.  A final reminder of all the pieces of the puzzle, all the ingredients of the recipe used throughout the record that brought us to its ending; a final sonic-sample from an artist whom I will certainly remember from this day forward, Max Million.  This was a tremendous EP and a stunning achievement in composition – I’ve got a ton of respect for this guy – everything about these songs is 100% perfect and outrageously captivating to listen to; I wouldn’t change a thing about it.  Incredible.

Find out more from his official homepage at:  http://maxmillionmusic.com

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