Spa Water is the experimental multimedia project of Brooklyn composer / producer / video artist / keyboardist / improviser Max Feldman. Each Spa Water album and each live show is unlike the rest — noise, pop, jazz, classical, shoegaze, plunderphonics, vaporwave and everything in between. In live performances, Max has brought a whirlpool of freeform sonic shenanigans to venues like Pianos, Berlin, Trans-Pecos, and Wonderville.
THE SPA WATER SAMPLER
B A B O O N I V E R S E: MUSIC FOR INFINITE MONKEYS
A suite of samples spoliated from such sundry sources as classic rock, showtunes, hip hop, and orchestral music, this album loops familiar sounds into endless oblivion to answer the age-old question: what will music be like after humans are gone and a new species of space monkey rules the galaxy?
1. nebula zero
2. bionic surfaces
3. dragon's curse
4. sunken souls
5. false vacuum
6. wandering hogs
7. secrets of hades
NEXT YEAR'S SNOW - NYS147
SPIRIT DISK: lost loops and slippery signals
A suite of intense Midi improvisations and hauntological vocal sampling, Spirit Disk uses synth passages like mantras to welcome the listener into a meditative space, only to break the serenity in eruptions of icy fury.
1. Nothingnessness
2. Caesar's Palace
3. Spirit Event
4. Faraway Beaches
Pedicure RECORDS - PD152
WEAK PLANET: vaporous vibes for the melting of the universe
On this volcanic vision of hell on (and off) earth, mutated samples from 90s/00s rock and metal float through the cosmic vacuum. Glarrh, eldest of the Space Gods, intercepts these stray signals and arrives on the last cut to deliver his fearsome final word on existence as we know it.
1. Why fear God when you can fear The Devil?
2. Sugar in Action
3. He lies in the Valley of Perverts and Morons
4. Length of the Organism
5. Fish in Hell
6. Glarrh, Digestor of Galaxies
SLYME RECORDS - ESLY084
COW PLAN: A mind-melting midi symphony
This is a shamelessly silly blend of synthetic horns, strings, keys, drums, barnyard sound effects, and other unlikely noises. the music changes genre as freely as key signature, celebrating the endless sonic possibilities of MIDI composition.
1. MUGWUMPS
2. PIG COLA ADVISORY BOARD
3. ECTOPLASMIC DRAINAGE TANK
4. LIFE ON THE FARSIDE
5. WASTEWATER TREATMENT INITIATIVE
6. BILL'S CRAP AND SLURRY SUPPLY
7. JUNK AND WATER SHIPMENT
8. SMUT
9. LOCAL SMELTING AND RENDERING CORP
10. MUD FOR LUNCH
11. MUCH IMPROVED PORK PRODUCT
12. CREEPY FORCES
13. TOXIC HOGSLOP
14. BEHOLD! THE NAKED EARTH
Mastered by Myles Byrne-Dunhill.
Pedicure Records – PD138
TUBING: nautical noise
The most collaborative Spa Water album, Tubing was made by Max sending audio files back and forth with experimental producer Myles Byrne-Dunhill AKA Treasure Hunt. The result: what started as normal piano songs become fierce and frothy as a sea storm.
1. just when you thought
2. people have
3. here forever
4. down beneath the waves
5. year of the ghoul
6. god of stone
7. spawn of satan
8. low planes
9. golden vanity
Produced, mixed, Mastered by Myles Byrne-Dunhill.
Slyme Records – ESLY076
CHIMP TEST: where it all began
Cryptic loops made in GarageBand before Max knew what EQing and compression are. amateurish in the extreme.
1. Growing...!
2. Usurper
3. Heaven and Earth
4. Astroenterology
5. The Canna
6. Anubis
7. Viking
8. Soup Cadet
9. House of Apes
Mastered by Myles Byrne-Dunhill.
Pedicure Records – PD119
BRAINSTORM with iL03 / Spa Water / Hot Love Messenger / Altimetry
November 28, 2023 @ Pianos
7:00PM DOORS
8:00PM Altimetry
8:45 PM Hot Love Messenger
9:30 IL03
10:15 Spa Water
cosmic shoplifting with iL03 / Spa Water / Jenny Alien / Lain__D
October 19, 2023 @ Trans-Pecos
7:00PM DOORS
8:00PM IL03
8:45 PM Spa WAter
9:30 Jenny Alien
10:15 Lain__D
June 16, 2023 @ Grassy Noll
Grab your towel and prepare to get steamy as we invite you on a mind-body shvitz from which you may never cool down. Doors at 7:30.
Computer Wedding with Sasha Chimaera / Spa Water / Abbie From Mars / iL03 / Preston Spurlock
July 14, 2023 @ Berlin (The NYC Club Not the German Metropolis)
7:00 Doors
7:30: Sasha Chimaera
8:15: Spa Water
9:00: Abbie From Mars
9:45: iL03
~External validation~
"Tubing is a release harbouring a grotesque chaotic energy. Within the fumes, slurry and grey run-off, however, is a precisely executed musicality that provides an endearing edge to every track. Spa Water seems perfectly at home in unkempt, maximalist instrumentation, wielding detuned melodies and disorienting sounds with little fear." – LISTENCORP
Weak Planet featured on Hominis Canidae.
"Down Beneath The Waves” feels like wandering around a huge shopping mall at Christmas with your pockets full of dried Martian mushroom caps. In this plunderphonics reverberation, the exaggerated, helium melodies and vocals fly out of the shimmering portal of a '50s jazz bar. This sound falls and spreads endlessly, while simultaneously staying in place, and each time it transforms more and more into creepy, intrusive liminal space muzak. At 3:17 the track suddenly starts to crumble, leaving you in an unknown strange room." – Grotesqualizer
"Spa Water continue(s) to test our boundaries with their ultra noisy, sonic extravaganza ‘SMUT’…. Proceed with caution!" – Last Day Deaf
"Sugar in Action" featured on Radioactivity with Abbie From Mars (WFMU, May 21, 2023)
"Frank Zappa meets The Residents, but then joins Foetus with Beethoven on his iPod…. Spa Water… Enjoy responsibly!" – Last Day Deaf (again!)
"Faraway Beaches" featured on The Frow Show with Jesse Jarnow (WFMU, September 12, 2023)
"Down Beneath the Waves" featured on The Frow Show with Jesse Jarnow (WFMU, August 23, 2022)
I mixed and mastered the debut EP by my friend and fellow NYC experimental artist iL03.
She played the EP in its entirety at our Berlin Show.
It sounded great.
Let's talk
i
