Radical Face

“It’s time to turn the page,” Cooper says about his new record. “I’ve always worked on all kinds of music, and have no loyalty towards genre or instrumentation. I just stopped releasing my less acoustic work over the years, or hid it within side-projects. I think I’m done with that now.”

Part of his decision was practical.

“The modern musician has a lot of jobs these days. Especially when you make everything yourself like I do. If I’m not careful, the music part will fall to the wayside and all my time will go to managing things.”

He then goes on to explain that he doesn’t believe the division is necessary anymore.

“When I first started releasing music around 2002, people were a lot touchier about genres. So my solution was to divide my songs into projects based on the instruments used. But people seem far more flexible with their musical tastes now.”

Insert his newest album, “Mixtape.” Instead of approaching the album with a particular sound in mind, he approached it the way he used to make mixtapes for friends in high school.

“The whole point of a mixtape was variety. You got to share all the extremes of your musical taste instead of hammering one particular genre over and over.”

The result is his most playful release to date, and he intends on making it into a series.

“It’s made the studio feel like a real playground again,” Cooper says. “The result may not be for everyone, but personally, I’ve missed having so much freedom."