Maxo’s music has a strange, hypnagogic ambiance, full of bottom-heavy beats, gaseous samples, and pitch-shifting vocals. There’s a sense that nothing is ever quite settled. Songs seem to fade in and out of the ether, and Maxo’s elastic timbre can be unrecognizable from track to track. He’s charmingly bewildered by the complexities of life: Control-f a question mark in the lyrics of any of his albums and you’ll get plenty of results. His last two projects, 2023’s Even God Has a Sense of Humor and Debbie’s Son, were interior works that balanced the vulnerable and melancholic with the confident and ecstatic. Despite their hazy sonics, both felt fairly straightforward, capturing the dueling feelings of immortality and abject terror that tend to mark one’s 20s. Mars Is Electric pulls the threads those albums left dangling; it’s his loosest, dreamiest dispatch yet, an enveloping and atmospheric collection that constantly comes together and breaks apart.
Maxo has described making MARS IS ELECTRIC as the first time he approached music without an end goal in mind. He wanted to remain open, following his ideas down whatever tunnel they led. That creative excitement comes through immediately on opener “All of Everything,” where his wordless coos line up like stepping stones over a squiggling mass of synths and clicks. It’s pleasantly indica-scented, drifting aimlessly until Maxo’s whispered verse, hard-panned to the left channel, appears like sweet nothings from a sleepy lover.
It’s a sharp turn away from the clarity he’d been shifting toward, one that signals a deeper self-assurance than on previous records. The album’s first third, full of floating pads and echoing drums, feels like a fog that lifts but never breaks, giving the rest of the songs the bright, hazy glow of an overcast summer day. Rather than his usual crumbling soul and jazz loops, Maxo sources production with a more electronic bent: “Saturday Love” and “Idk” are both inspired by ’90s jungle; frequent collaborator Lastnamedavid channels Andy Stott’s concrete thump on “Matt’s Studio;” and Baird’s programming on “Donahoo’s Chicken” sounds like a ’90s Memphis rap take on Tim Carleton and Darrick Deel’s “Opus 1.”
MARS IS ELECTRIC is a much more textural exploration of Maxo’s style overall. Cuts like “FWM” and “Eyes On Me” from Debbie’s Son hinted at a more airy, expansive vocal style, and he leans further into those ideas here. Syllables stretch languidly over the ends of bars, and phrases hang in mid-air. Even during his tightest flows, like the triplets on the title track or the syncopated bounce on “Matt’s Studio,” his words feel padded with space like glassware packed for a move.
That spaciousness makes Maxo’s evergreen existentialism feel a little lighter, a little less urgent. When faced with cosmic overwhelm, like at the end of “Sweet N Sour” when he yelps, “I can’t come back! I can’t be reborn!”, he sounds more at peace than upset. A few months before the album’s release, Maxo turned 30, an age often touted as a turning point towards more understanding and acceptance of oneself. There’s a clarity of vision to MARS IS ELECTRIC that feels familiar but new, the sound of someone more willing and able to figure out who they are.
