Max Cooper has shared a video for “Waves,” the first single taken him his forthcoming album, Emergence— an operatic and ambitious amalgamation between audio-visual show, scientific research project, art installation and IDM record.

Max Cooper:

“Waves are an important idea in much of our understanding of the world around us—and within us.

“They involve the transfer of energy and are the basis of music and sound, which is why included the concept as part of the Emergence story, exploring scientific ideas of how everything comes together from almost nothing.

“Music shares a lot in common with our visual aesthetic preferences, and both are deeply rooted in principles of nature illuminated by science.

“Waves form the basis of light and wireless communications, and our source of energy from the sun which creates almost all plant and animal life.

“Our best understanding of the fundamental nature of reality at the smallest scales is purely waves, apparently. And even the process of neuronal action that produces our awareness relies on waves of charge-flow created by forces which are supposedly mediated by waves – the virtual photon, a massless wave (i.e. light), being the force carrier of the electromagnetic charge which shunts particles around inside your neurones to make you think. And then there’s the more familiar waves that can dump you under and make you swallow some rank sea water!

“There are different ways in which waves can operate, and what constitutes a wave at all, with or without a medium for example. But they all seem to involve energy transfer without needing the transfer of physical mass – like you can see in the video, the mass (each particle, or a charge) moves up and down on a single axis, and the wave, and energy, is propagated through the medium by these point oscillations.”