Max Cohen

DJ Max Cohen has been rocking the decks since he was barely toilet-trained, when he rifled through his parents’ vast and eclectic record collection and started experimenting with the controls on their old walnut-veneered record player. He grew up in a profoundly musical household, his parents being professional musicians who put him into classical piano and jazz guitar lessons from the moment he had enough motor control in his hands to hold a guitar pick. He is nonetheless a completely self-taught DJ, buying all the necessary gear with money saved up from a part-time job as a dishwasher and learning by bringing a new piece of musical technology home, plugging it in, and pushing all the buttons until something happened. The first record he bought was a now-out-of-print EP of Parliament Funkadelic covering Kraftwerk’s “Calculator.” He began playing in local bars and clubs in his hometown of Nowheresville, getting his first break when the DJ called in sick at a local pub where he washed dishes. He soon blew up in Nowheresville and began playing in TrendyStateCapital, after he was discovered by Well-ConnectedScenester of the BigCityPartyPromoter crew. He was taken under the wing of EstablishedVeteranDJ1, who took him on tour to Ibiza, Berlin, Tokyo, Santiago, Miami, and some secret techno resort that common tourists don’t know about. He has since enjoyed immense success, blowing up dancefloors across the globe (OK, OK, mostly around TrendyStateCapital) to sold-out crowds. He has shared the decks with the likes of SuperStarDJ1, EstablishedVeteranDJ2, and HotForTheNextMonth3, all of whom played at his afterparties in the swank uptown loft that his parents are TOTALLY not paying for, he swears. He is also a prolific and respected producer, having released two albums and 10 EPs since he got up this morning. His most recent mega-hit track, “Day Of Wreckening,” has been charted by every single fucking DJ listed on Resident Advisor and Discogs combined, with support from all the leading DJs signed to any label that ever mattered—plus his grandma. Max Cohen's musical style reflects his eclectic influences—from high-modernist integral serialism to jazz-funk fusion to Armenian epic poetry to 80s hair metal—all distilled down to pure, crystalline minimal techno. He’s not limited to minimal techno, instead combining disco, dubstep, clickpop, glitch, and progressive house to create a new sound that the entire staff of Pitchfork has been trying to name for the last year (the senior what-is-this-electronica-crap editor suggested “jigglestep” and then resigned in shame). http://www.djmaxcohen.com