Over the last 15 years, electronic music producer Max Cooper has been on a slow and steady rise to the top of his game, where he now sits alongside fellow Northern Irish artists Bicep, David Holmes and Hannah Peel among others.
The London-based musician, visual artist and DJ looked set for a promising academic career when he was in his 20s – he has a PhD in computational biology and worked as a researcher.
However, he gave it all up for music in the late 2000s, and 15 years later it's still looking like a good decision. “I really love having my own project where no-one else can tell me what to do, and I can just obsess about something and delve in,” he tells Belfast Live.
