Six years ago, Max Tundra (né Be Jacobs) released his second album, Mastered by Guy at the Exchange, and Pitchfork’s Chris Dahlen opened his review with the line “So many synths, beeps, beats, glitches, horns, hooks, voices. It shouldn't work. But it does.” An album later it’s still true and it’s still as difficult to rationalize.

In many ways, Tundra sounds like he could be some college kid laying down beats on GarageBand instead of going to class. He’s got that whiff of amateur spunk that lets him off the hook when his musical stylings get overblown. The funny part is that he’s not an amateur but the product of piano lessons and the desire to play music not written by old dead guys. On the whole, he does fine for himself. Parallax Error Beheads You is digestible electronica that stays far enough from the fringe to have a wider appeal, yet is loopy enough to elicit a respectable amount of squints and winces.

Tundra does a balancing act on the album. Most of the time his tracks are well crafted, densely mixed, stylized tunes. They’re catchy and smooth, bopping around in electronica land.  Which Song is easily the best song on the album; it pulls in the listener and weaves in and out of the verse and chorus flawlessly. Another good track is Number Our Days. Tundra’s voice seems to have morphed, becoming lower and drier, blending well with the instrumentation and creating a dark tinge on an otherwise cheery-sounding album.  

Of course, there’s a glitch to the album. Tundra has a habit of every now and then, slipping into some cheap, cheesy patches that sound like the theme song to a mid 90’s educational program on public television.

This habit makes itself known on the last half of Nord Lead Three, for example. The song starts off alright - Tundra sings an ode to his keyboard, but there’s a section that just leaves the listener feeling a little insecure about the album - is this really good or am I indulging questionable tastes here?

Along those lines, Orphaned feels misguided. It’s a mismatch of sounds, a case where all those “synths, beeps, beats, glitches, horns, hooks, [and] voices” blow their circuits and start firing and sputtering all over the place. 

Fortunately for Tundra, the album is endearingly quirky and most of these infractions can be forgiven in light of the record’s overall intrigue. If not all the tracks are stellar, there is usually some part on each of them that attracts attention and keeps the listener from hitting the skip button. Whether it’s Tundra’s voice (which makes Chris Martin sound like a baritone), the periodic splash of real instrumentation, or the many technological/pop cultural references, it’s kind of hard to look away.

Release date: 13/10/08
Artist website: www.maxtundra.com
Label: Domino

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