Milwaukee-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, painter, and filmmaker Max Devereaux explores the tactile, physical potential of the turntable on Aguja. Through fragmented vinyl manipulation, layered improvisation, and sonic collage, Devereaux transforms noise and decay into structured chaos, echoing the experimental minimalism of artists like Oval and Alva Noto.
Vinyl fragments become sonic language
Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Max Devereaux is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, painter, and filmmaker. Aguja delves into both the possibilities and constraints of the turntable, as outlined in its accompanying press release. Unlike CD or cassette formats, the turntable offers a tactile intimacy through its tonearm and needle—tools that grant Devereaux immediate, manual control. He manipulates playback speed, interrupts flow, and drops the needle with deliberate randomness, forging a raw, physical dialogue between hand, machine, and sound.
In this process, Devereaux reimagines old vinyl records by distorting, fragmenting, and repurposing them, transforming the turntable into an instrument of rhythm, friction, and disorder. Each track becomes a letter, spelling out Aguja, as sonic slices—scratches, ruptured melodies, stray signals—emerge and dissipate. Layered with guitar, musique concrète, free improvisation, and collage, these pieces evolve into compact sonic investigations, each lasting 3 minutes and 30 seconds.
Though each composition seems splintered and unstable, it is precisely within this audio deconstruction that a method reveals itself. Scrambled frequencies, static bursts, and sonic detritus are not just incidental—they are integral. What may first appear as chaos resolves into a multisensory blur, a dense montage of source material woven into new meaning. The result recalls the early experimental pulse of Oval, Pole, Alva Noto, Frank Bretschneider, and Microstoria—artists who similarly reshaped digital debris into minimalist rhythm and fractured beauty.
Aguja is available on Facade Electronics. [Bandcamp]
