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Warped rock
Maxïmo Park’s neo new wave
BY TONY WARE
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Related Links
Maxïmo Park's official Web site Warped Tour's official Web site
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Last month, Maxïmo Park — a British post-punk band who take their name from a park in Havana where old men play dominoes and talk politics and their style from the new wave of regionally conscious nostalgists like Bloc Party, Futureheads, and Kaiser Chiefs — were short-listed for the Mercury Prize, which will be awarded September 6. They were one of the few surprises among the 12 nominees (who include Coldplay, Bloc Party, and current favorites Kaiser Chiefs): though their sound fits in well enough with today’s trends, the band are outsiders on a classic outsider label. Discovered by Warp Records’ Steve Beckett, who stumbled on their self-produced red-vinyl seven-inch "The Coast Is Always Changing"/"The Night I Lost My Head" at London’s Rough Trade record shop, Maxïmo Park found themselves signed to a label best known for cutting-edge DJs, not angular guitar-driven post-punk. But Simon Halliday, head of Warp North America, insists their signing was simply part of the experimental electronic label’s continuing search for precocious, prolific artists, regardless of genre. "Sometimes it’s easier to do ‘difficult’ stuff because you can shrug your shoulders and say it’s underground," Halliday explains over the phone from Warp’s NYC offices. "Maxïmo Park have a fluidity and funkiness that allows the group to stand out and stand up to any scrutiny. And the initiative they’ve shown is a real Warp trait." Indeed, having already toured the US once, Maxïmo Park are headed back to team up with the Bravery. (The Bravery are scheduled for October 13 at Avalon, but it’s not yet confirmed that Maxïmo Park will be opening that date.) And on the 2004 single that caught Warp’s attention, they had the words "Popular music that isn’t popular yet" etched into the vinyl. "Our aim is to just write great pop songs and try to play them to as many people as possible," explains lead singer Paul Smith over the phone from Newcastle. "It’s pretty straightforward, but that doesn’t mean the music has to be: pop music can encompass everything from Joy Division to Sam Cook." This isn’t Warp’s first rock act. The Sheffield label has worked with Pulp and Broadcast, and Halliday, who likes to say there are only two kinds of music, "good and bad," can list half a dozen non-electronic acts he’d love to have signed: Badly Drawn Boy, the Rapture, Radiohead, PJ Harvey. But Maxïmo Park are the most straightforwardly rock/pop band on a label that earned its stripes with what Halliday refers to as "classic Warp artists: Aphex Twin, Autechre, Squarepusher, Prefuse73." And those stripes haven’t changed. "It’s not about whether it’s electronic or not — we certainly didn’t have a meeting in a dark room to declare we’d outgrown dance music, as you’ll see on future releases." Warp gave Maxïmo Park room to chart their own course, and the band took advantage by releasing a series of singles featuring dramatic depictions of convulsing figures that bring to mind the bleak and oblique æsthetic of Peter Saville, who’s best known for his work on Joy Division/New Order album art. The band’s full-length debut, A Certain Trigger, which has a similar image on its cover, is full of sinewy riffs, staccato guitars, jittery tempo shifts, and austere yet melodic arrangements that make the most of the occasional guitar squall or keyboard texture. "You know that I would love to see you next year/I hope that I’m still alive next year," Smith sings in "Apply Some Pressure," the band’s first US single, setting an archly British tone for the disc. The influences are obvious (Wire, Modern Lovers, Talking Heads, the Jam) and obscure (Glasgow’s defunct Life Without Buildings), but never gratuitous. "In the end our goal is similar to a lot of artists," Smith reflects. "We want to convey energy, but not just one type of energy. Instead of just wheeling out songs, we want to demand both ourselves and our audience to feel anger, humor, frustration — as long as they walk away with their ears ringing from more than just volume."
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