Max Wood lives in New York, where he makes his experimental, hiphop, electronic, noise music under the name Applied Communications. We talked with him in mid 2005 about his then new album, Uhhh Sort Of, which was released on June 7th on Discos Mariscos Records. 

Alright let’s start from the beginning. Go ahead and introduce yourself as you’d like to be known in the records.

Um… I don’t know. I guess I could give a nonsense response and say I’d like to be known as a windowsill or a television or something. A whale trainer? I don’t know — hopefully good things will happen and people will make up what they want re: what I do. As far as an introduction goes, my name is Valentae and I make beats out of sweatshirts.

How do you describe your sweatshirt beats to those unfamiliar? Is it difficult?

Yeah, it’s difficult to an extent. I try really hard to avoid pretense and obnoxiousness, and describing oneself leads into that way too often. Especially in describing my stuff, I guess. I know my music has reference points, and I know that it’s definitely describable, but I’d like it to be something fresher so speaking in those terms scares me to a certain extent as well.

Yeah I’ve read a few sources that have compared you to Atom and His Package. I can sorta see what they’re getting at, but it just seems like a really lazy comparison. You are obviously creating a hugely different style of music. What are some of the things you try to incorporate into your songs? Is there a usual starting point?

Thanks a lot, dude. The Atom and His Package comparison seriously really annoys me sometimes. I’m trying to be as directly personal as possible without losing what makes the sentiment I’m expressing personally special. The ideas that define a feeling or situation as important to me, and I assume most other people, typically seem completely indescribable whereas communicating the idea that actually feels special or important would just be a simple case of explanation. So I try to work through my feelings toward a specific idea and then get in touch with what was compelling me to actually identify that idea in the first place. Then I record it.

Tell us about your new record Uhhh, Sort Of. It seems to have an even more experimental sound than your previous album Africa Baby Yeah Yeah Yeah. What did you try to do differently this time around? What are your thoughts on the end result?

Africa Baby, Yeah Yeah Yeah is kind of an embarrassing record for me. Save for two or three songs, it embodies the phrase “not paying attention” more than anything else I could have assembled at the time. Both records are kind of a mess, but Africa Baby had nothing meaningful behind it — at least nothing responsibly meaningful. Certain emotions and ideas informed certain songs, but not in a way that was constructive for myself or the audience. Everything on Uhhh Sort Of was a definite thought process, and I’m actually really proud of it. I don’t know if that sounds obnoxious, stating that I’m proud of my own work, but I really am. A lot went into it, as opposed to the directionless beatshifting and nonsense rapping of the other record. If it sounds more experimental, that could probably best be attributed to me trying to communicate ideas on this record rather than just focus on constructing “songs”.

That leads perfectly into my next question. Do you ever find a conflict between trying to create something artistically gratifying and something catchy or accessible? On the same note, have you been able to tap into an audience that shares the same idea towards music?

Oh yeah. I’m in that place right now, actually. People are being so nice about Uhhh Sort Of and a lot of rad people in rad positions are offering their hands. A lot of people are sending me things in the mail, writing articles, asking me to play their venues, writing really positive reviews, and buying back catalog items. It’s so nice, and it’s actually frighteningly overwhelming. I was all-smiles at first, but now I’m just scared. Before the Uhhh Sort Of “buzz” or whatever started delicately and sensually eating my face, I had just started work on a new record. Now I’m in a position where I’m reading blogs and seeing random people I’ve never met writing that my new video is a piece of shit and that I’ve just been “faking it” until I could get to a point of apparent success. And, well, that really bothers me. I feel like I’m at a place where if I mind my Ps and Qs I could get what I wanted out of doing music/art when I first started putting stuff out commercially and promoting my shows: enough recognition and money backing me up that I could comfortably be artistic and also have a group of people that would respond to it somehow. A total dream, and definitely NOT 100% attainable, but I feel like right now I might be on a platform that I could use to get somewhere sort of like that. Which is unbelievable. Now, I’m looking at the music I’ve been making and the reaction I’m getting to my video, and I’m really hesitant. At the same time, altering my form to my audience (or any audience, I guess) is just such bullshit and I am completely unwilling to do it. So lately I’ve just been waiting until I totally drown in an idea before putting it down. Otherwise, unfortunately, I spend to much time thinking about whether or not those people on the internet will like it. As far an audience goes, it’s unreasonable to expect a consistent group of listeners, but the people that have been responding to Uhhh Sort Of seem to be as close to being on the same page as I could possibly hope for (which is why I’m so scared of losing them, although I know I’m going to have to just get over it).

How are your live shows? How often and where do you usually find yourself on stage?

Sometimes my live shows are really crazy and whimsical, and sometimes they have a really loud, tribal, basic, and scary feel to them. Last night I tried to walk the line between them, and it went pretty poorly. We turned the stage into a giant inflatable playground coming out of an 81 sq. foot milk bath. There was an elephant with a steering wheel for a nose, trees, a giraffe, a giant crab, and I think a few dolphins. There was also a swimming pool somewhere and a slide going into the fifteen gallons of milk. Normally I’d use that as a platform for just rapping over beats and playing some lighter material, but I decided to think less about this time and just do what I felt, which was playing some new stuff and some Uhhh Sort Of stuff that was all pretty personal and instrument-oriented in the context of this carnival of weird childlike zaniness. And I completely fucked it all up. Predictably, everything broke individually throughout the first three songs. Predictably, I was too distracted by the floating milk circus to remember all of the words to some songs. And predictably, in the middle of all of this I realized that it had been an awful idea and I had no way to turn around and do it differently. Usually the live shows go pretty well, though. This one was just a giant frowner for me. I’ve only been playing at most two-three shows a month since summer 2004, but that’s about to start changing in a major way. Lots of touring is going to be happening in the United States throughout the summer, and then Europe and Japan are getting hit up in the early fall. Right now I’m just doing semi-small shows in major cities until the record comes out in June.

Links
www.appliedcommunications.net
www.discosmariscos.com