Photo: Riley Max | By Cory Cullinan | COMBO member Riley Max’s next single and video comes out. Year 1 is the most raw autobiographical song my youngest daughter has ever released, about her first year of college. It was rough. But she is strong. Now entering her Senior Year (!) with a Joint Concentration* in Music and Art, Film and Visual Studies, she also meticulously created the video’s animation. It’s old-school stop-action animation mixed with live action footage filmed by her sister in Boston and Cambridge, and it tells a poignant and emotional story — with a cliffhanger ending up to interpretation — that makes her father cry every damn time I watch it. I think its message and devastating last line will resonate with many who wonder if we’ve reached our full potential in this world.
“This song means a lot to me, because every time I listen to it I remember how far I’ve come.”
— Riley Max
Doctor Noize Licenses Content To Universal Theme Park
I just signed a licensing contract with NBC Universal for Doctor Noize content to appear at one of their theme parks beside the likes of SpongeBob, Trolls, Minions and Shrek! So that was not an email I expected… but it’s gonna be really, really cool. Very excited about it. Kinda can’t believe it. More details soon, but here’s a hint…
Don’t look now but I think that monster’s farting.
“It is sometimes wise to plug one’s nose when playing my music.” — Doctor Noize
Pockets of Appreciation
Today we wrap production and complete the master of Riley’s new album before she flies back to the East coast for Year 4. It will be released on October 2nd, and it is… magnificent. Soulful. A deeply personal longform work she’s proud of as an artist and I’m proud of as a producer. It’s truly her. We can’t wait to share it with you. In the meantime…
The album’s first single, Pockets, has been getting love all over the place. This makes me happy. Riley’s also done a bunch of recent interviews about Pockets and the album. You can Google these if you’d like to see if she can put a complete sentence together about her music.** But in case she can’t, here are some people who can:
“With its heartfelt writing, gentle production, and emotionally rich perspective, Pockets… is a song about change, but even more, it is a song about finding beauty in what remains.”
— Rotate Magazine
“Pockets is a defining moment for the artist, a deeply personal track touching on gratitude, growing apart from a loved one, navigating anxiety and more… At just 21, Riley Max is already carving out a multidimensional creative path.”
— Daily Waffle, UK
“With its warm, charming folk-pop surfaces, Pockets finds Riley Max at her best, exposing authentic emotions via her splendid voice.”
— Guitar Girl Magazine
“Pockets feels like opening an old drawer and finding little pieces of your past still tucked inside. Riley Max wraps growing apart, anxiety and gratitude in gentle indie-folk warmth, and I especially love the realization at the heart of it: sometimes we don’t understand what a chapter gave us until we’re already standing somewhere new.”
— Music N Gear
On September 10th, I release my joyfully crafted Doctor Noize retrospective album Positive Energy! (The Music of Doctor Noize). And then I, too, will be taking a planned long and winding road*** in a new direction — many new directions, actually — to stand somewhere new. My creative focus is about to change. And, as the above reviewer adeptly observes, I won’t understand what the last chapter gave me either until I arrive at the new one. More on that in Noizeletters to come.
https://corycullinan.substack.com/
CoryCullinan @ Substack .com
Photo: Riley Max
https://1883magazine.com/riley-max-year-one-music-video-harvard/
