The album art that Max Allison designs for Hausu Mountain, the way-out-there experimental label that he co-founded with Doug Kaplan, often look like the world maps that led players through late-’90s video games: bright, pixelated representations of forests, mountains, ancient ruins and futuristic cities. Zoom in for a closer look, though, and it’s impossible to tell how your digital avatar would make it across these fractured landscapes. On the cover of Juckport, the latest from Allison’s solo project Mukqs, an S-shaped waterway leads to a pool shaded by a single drooping tree. But this oasis is surrounded by a nightmare jumble of tilted buildings, rampant overgrowth, and impossible geometry.
The image serves as a succinct summary of…