The textures here are gorgeous, soft snow flurries and twinkling icicles, the crackling fruit juice appeal of Fox’s Glacier Mints in hologram format, the pixelated glassy clink of Chaos Emeralds, the sparkling metallic impact of the gleaming Big Key falling from the sky when you defeat Bowser in Super Mario 64; the sound of treasured trinkets now airborne and floating in a speckled cloud of crystalline decay; memories held dear now swirling in the contemporary realities of life.
These are the synth sounds that take flight and conjure exotic nothingness in ‘Waiting’ by Cluj-Napoca-based Romanian musicmaker Max ANXD. Ascending melodies paint intrigue whilst its irregular patterns and seeming randomness summon up an elsewhere yet to be explored, unfolding in the mists before our eyes.
It moves in three parts: firstly the glistening synth of the beginning soon is joined by swathes of thick sound like hurricanes in slow motion or the slow unfolding of an alien landscape as your mind hovers above it; secondly there is a bold crunch of distortion which heralds this new minimalist urgency as the synth, equal parts soft and sharp, stutters in rapid-fire bursts; thirdly, we emerge into a cradle of sound where the hush of vox synth becomes the overriding voice, a finale of soothing synth chilliness, the atmosphere calming itself in choir, re-balancing after the anxious midsection. It is a sonic illustration of the impatience as much as the resolve of an active imagination, the expanse of externality as much as the depths of internality.
- π Hear more tracks from Max ANXD over on SoundCloud.
