MAXSHH SHARES "ACHILLES SECOND STAND" MUSIC VIDEO

Posted on July 6th, 2022

Exploding In Sound Records is thrilled to share a new video for Maxshh's "Achilles Second Stand," an album highlight from 2021's Bonus Flowers LP. The solo project of Hadley, MA's own Max Goldstein (Tundrastomper, Fred Cracklin, Rong, Omeed & The Natural Scene) revolves around his boundlessly creativity.

The video finds Maxshh on an eight mile run through his hometown, capturing the scenes from a first person perspective as he takes us on a tour that inspired the song itself. Speaking about the video, Goldstein shared:

"I hatched this idea while writing & recording Bonus Flowers in April 2020 because I did/still do run this exact route several times a week. The lyrics explore the spirituality of reprising this grueling yet glorious ritual over and over, while also cataloging some classic WMA landmarks along the way. The music manifests this routine by utilizing actual footsteps as metronomic percussion (although they were recorded trudging through snow!), and an unwavering, repeated guitar pattern.

Although the video's premise is pretty straightforward--to exhibit this exquisite 8-mile jaunt through Hadley, it took a very long time to render due to technical issues. After trying numerous methods, like GoPro and taping the phone to my breast pocket, I concluded the only way to get (relatively) steady video from my perspective would be to walk. There are worse fates than taking a summer stroll through gorgeous Massachusetts farmland, but the resulting video was ~6 hours long. Each attempt to import the footage took an insufferable amount of time and inevitably crashed my aging computer. So eventually I sidelined the mission, because I couldn't bear to waste any more time and effort on something so seemingly simple--with the parenthetical caveat that if I ever got Covid, I would use my sickly downtime to somehow render this video.

Smash cut to almost exactly 2 years later, I indeed got the bug. The circumstantial similarity was strangely cosmic--despite being nominally about springtime thaw and outdoor beauty, the music was made in the ~original~ quarantine. So it was sympathetically odd to edit this footage of me frolicking while actually stuck sick in my room. Though it was still infuriatingly tedious, it was also comforting to vicariously experience this year's transition to warm weather. I'm also glad that the idea endured because it engenders so much Hadley pride! Coming off a tough winter, it was almost as if I forgot how beautiful this place can be. I truly run this route through all seasons because I love it so much, and now I can share these beautiful views with everyone"