Max Cooper

A two-thousand-year-old theater turned into an electronic stage

In July 2021, Max Cooper was the first contemporary electronic musician to perform at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, the ancient theater integrated into the Acropolis of Athens. The concert, released as Live at the Acropolis, was not a simple live show: the projections were designed to reveal the stone, history, and acoustics of the venue as part of the work. That idea—using the space as a canvas—runs throughout his entire career.

From computational biology to Mesh

Educated in Belfast and based in London, Cooper came to electronic music from computational biology: he earned his PhD at the University of Nottingham in 2008 and worked as a researcher at University College London before dedicating himself entirely to music. As a DJ, he honed his craft during a ten-year residency at Firefly, a techno event in the Midlands, where his bond with Architecture Social Club was born. Since 2007, he has released EPs on labels such as Traum Schallplatten, Fields, Bedrock, or Last Night On Earth. The album Human (2014) marked his leap to the long-play format; Emergence (2016) inaugurated Mesh, the label he founded that same year to bridge music, science, and visual arts.

Commissions, clubs, and museums

One Hundred Billion Sparks (2018), the Balance 030 mix, and Yearning for the Infinite (2019), the latter a commission from London's Barbican, defined a sound of emotive techno, IDM, and experimental electronics, often in 3D and Dolby Atmos systems. Glassforms (2020), with pianist Bruce Brubaker based on material by Philip Glass, Unspoken Words (2022), and On Being (2025), built from thousands of anonymous quotes from the public, expanded that line. He has remixed Michael Nyman, Nils Frahm, Hot Chip, Au Revoir Simone, Sasha, and Ólafur Arnalds. He has collaborated with Zaha Hadid Architects, Dolby, L-Acoustics, and 4DSOUND, and has exhibited at the Pompidou Metz, the ZKM in Karlsruhe, and the Science Museum in London. Live, he has performed at Glastonbury, Fuji Rock, MUTEK, Amsterdam Dance Event, Awakenings, and Decibel.

Feeling Is Structure

In April 2026, he sold out the Royal Albert Hall with an audiovisual show created for that venue; from that process, Feeling Is Structure was born, released on May 8, 2026, on Mesh: ten pieces that explore how form—in sound, architecture, and biology—conditions emotion. In October 2026, he releases fabric presents Max Cooper, the first title in the fabric series in spatial audio. His worldwide booking is managed by LittleBig. Today, Cooper moves between the club, the concert hall, and the museum, with 3D/AV installations and tours that treat immersion not as an ornament, but as the core of the project.