Ben Jacobs

The music that Londoner Ben Jacobs makes is dizzyingly dense, labyrinthine, and hyperactive, while being utterly effervescent, sunny, and obsessed with melody, which led to him being cited as a trailblazing force for an entire new generation of musicians. In 1998, Warp released his debut EP as Max Tundra, Children at Play, based on a demo tape sent to the label. The LP some Best Friend You Turned Out to Be followed in 2000 on Domino. Tundra was conspicuously quiet for the next half-decade, popping out remixes for Franz Ferdinand, Pet Shop Boys, Missy Elliott and The Strokes, before re-emerging in 2008 with his latest LP, Parallax Error Beheads You. It featured his most polished, pop-oriented compositions to date, without sacrificing any of the frenetic giddiness, control-freak complexity, or visionary strangeness of his earlier work.