Oneohtrix Point Never | ||
| Allmusic Biography : The project of Brooklyn-based experimental musician Daniel Lopatin, Oneohtrix (pronounced "one-oh-tricks") Point Never expanded from retro synth reveries to complex works that explored how history, memory, and music intersect. The flowing electronics of OPNs early albums -- which were gathered in the acclaimed 2009 collection Rifts -- suggested Lopatin was an heir to Tangerine Dream. However, he soon proved there was much more to his music with a string of releases that reflected his interest in high art as well as pop culture artifacts like video games, science fiction, anime, and advertising (which Lopatin sampled cleverly on 2011s Replica). After signing to Warp Records, Oneohtrix Point Never only grew more adventurous with albums like 2015s Garden of Delete, an improbable yet moving fusion of metal, trance, R&B;, and Top 40 pop. During this time, Lopatin also became an award-winning film composer and an avid collaborator who was equally comfortable working with Iggy Pop, DJ Earl, and Anohni. As the 2010s drew to a close, OPN hit a creative peak with works that included the post-modern opera Myriad and 2018s multi-layered Age Of, which balanced pop songs and lofty compositions. Growing up as the son of musically inclined Russian emigrants, Lopatin was inspired by the synth sounds of Mahavishnu Orchestra and Stevie Wonder in his fathers record collection, as well as classic video game soundtracks such as Metroid. His early forays into music included the compositions he wrote on his fathers Roland Juno-60 synth as well as the Grainers, a grunge band that he and his longtime collaborator Joel Ford formed in middle school. After being kicked out of the group, Lopatin devoted himself to mastering keyboards and the guitar, and re-formed the Grainers in high school as an electric jazz combo. In college, he performed in a post-punk band and began making noise music as an archival science grad student at Brooklyns Pratt Institute. While playing with the trio Astronaut and working on another solo project, Infinity Window in the mid-2000s, Lopatin began working as Oneohtrix Point Never, adapting the projects name from the Boston radio station Magic 106.7. OPNs 2007 debut Betrayed in the Octagon introduced the projects sci-fi bent, which was emphasized by Lopatins Roland Juno-60 synthesizer and Korg Electribe ES-1 sampler. Cassette-only efforts such as 2008s Transmat Memories paved the way for a prolific 2009, which included a cassette collaboration with Keith Fullerton Whitman as well as two more albums, the reflective Russian Mind and the comparatively bright and accessible Zones Without People. These two albums, along with Betrayed in the Octagon and selected tracks from OPNs cassettes, were released as Rifts late in 2009 by No Fun Productions. Lopatin went further afield on 2010s critically acclaimed Editions Mego release Returnal, incorporating noise as well as more accessible melodies into the album. He also founded the Software label and the duo Games (later renamed Ford & Lopatin) with Ford, who was also a member of Tigercity at the time. In 2011, Oneohtrix Point Never released Replica -- which featured samples from commercials and was also Lopatins first album recorded in a studio -- and worked with visual artist Nate Boyce on Reliquary House, an installation whose music was issued on the 2012 split release with Rene Hell, Music for Reliquary House/In 1980 I Was a Blue Square. The Tim Hecker collaboration Instrumental Tourist also arrived that year. Oneohtrix Point Never moved to Warp for 2013s R Plus Seven, which featured some of Lopatins most fragmented and ambitious tracks to date. That year, Lopatin collaborated with Brian Reitzell on the score to Sofia Coppolas film The Bling Ring and also participated in a collaboration between Warp and the Tate Gallery, composing a piece inspired by Jeremy Dellers The History of the World, which diagrammed the interconnectedness of acid jazz and brass bands. Music from Rifts and R Plus Seven also appeared in 2014s Love Child, an HBO documentary about video game addiction. Oneohtrix Point Nevers many projects that year included Commissions I, a Record Store Day release featuring music written for the Polish Icons project at the Sacrum Profanum festival, among other pieces. That October, Lopatins soundtrack for Koji Morimotos 1995 anime Magnetic Rose received a live world premiere at Manchester, Englands Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics. Oneohtrix Point Never also joined Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden on the July and August dates of their tour, playing half-hour sets of cyberdrone music instead of pieces from his albums. Commissions, Vol. 2 arrived on Record Store Day 2015 and included an excerpt of the Magnetic Rose score as well as "Bullet Hell Abstraction," a two-part piece inspired by Manabu Namikis video game music commissioned by the Red Bull Music Academy. That year also saw the release of Lopatins score for Partisan, director Ariel Kleinmans film about a cult that teaches children to be assassins. In November 2015, the full-length Garden of Delete -- which was inspired by Lopatins time on the road with NIN and Soundgarden as well as his renewed interest in the guitar -- was released. The album peaked at number two on Billboards Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart. Collaborations with Anohni, DJ Earl, and FKA Twigs followed, and Lopatin returned to soundtrack work with his 2017 score for Good Time, a crime thriller directed by longtime friend Josh Safdie and his brother Benny. Recalling the music of John Carpenter and Tangerine Dream -- as well as Lopatins own early work -- and featuring the Iggy Pop collaboration "The Pure and the Damned," Good Time won the Soundtrack Award at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. The following year was another busy one for Lopatin: He contributed to David Byrnes album American Utopia, which was released in March 2018. That May, Oneohtrix Point Never debuted Myriad, a four-part epochal song cycle that combined electronic and classical elements and featured cellist Kelsey Lu and Prurient. Lu and Prurient also contributed to that Junes full-length Age Of. One of OPNs most accessible yet ambitious albums, it spanned folk, black metal, R&B;, and chamber music and included collaborations with Anohni and James Blake. It reached number eight on Billboards Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The album spawned that Julys Station EP, which complemented the Age Of track with music that appeared on A Message from Earth, a 2017 tribute to NASAs Golden Record Project. That November saw the release of Love in the Time of Lexapro, an EP featuring collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto and (Sandy) Alex G as well as pieces from Myriad. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 27 Title: Betrayed in the Octagon Released: 2007-11-20 Tracks: 7 Duration: 34:18 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Woe Is the Transgression I (08:35) 2 Behind the Bank (02:18) 3 Eyeballs (02:51) 4 Betrayed in the Octagon (03:28) 5 Woe Is the Transgression II (10:35) 6 Parallel Minds (03:16) 7 Laser to Laser (03:15) |
| Betrayed in the Octagon : Allmusic album Review : Brooklyn synth wizard Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never toiled long in the trenches of the noise scene before eventually breaking through to international acclaim with his glowing 2009 compilation Rifts. Rifts gathered together the best excerpts from an already lengthy discography of small-release cassettes and other lesser releases, the likes of which Lopatin would continue to spit out even as accolades continued to come his way. Released in 2007, Betrayed in the Octagon was more or less the debut of the project, and focused on arpeggiated tones from vintage synthesizers, cascading through phrases of haunted elegance and more mellow new age reflection. | ||
 | Album: 2 of 27 Title: Transmat Memories Released: 2008 Tracks: 6 Duration: 29:46 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Terminator Lake (05:40) 2 Im Still Alive (01:57) 3 Bad Guy Evacuation (07:47) 4 Transmat Memories (05:34) 5 Undercover Firefighter (04:07) 6 Hyperdawn (04:41) |
 | Album: 3 of 27 Title: A Pact Between Strangers Released: 2008-10 Tracks: 3 Duration: 29:00 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 The Pretender (12:08) 2 A Pact Between Strangers (04:17) 3 When I Get Back From New York (12:34) |
 | Album: 4 of 27 Title: Superjammers Vol.1: Mirage Against The Machine Released: 2009 Tracks: 1 Duration: 57:59 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Superjammers Vol.1: Mirage Against The Machine (57:59) |
 | Album: 5 of 27 Title: Young Beidnahga Released: 2009-02-05 Tracks: 3 Duration: 26:26 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Continous Smooth Jazz Trepanation (13:11) 2 Young Beidnahga (10:45) 3 I Know Its Taking Pictures From Another Plane (Inside Your Sun) (02:30) |
 | Album: 6 of 27 Title: Zones Without People Released: 2009-08 Tracks: 7 Duration: 31:24 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Computer Vision (02:22) 2 Format & Journey Nort (09:45) 3 Zones Without People (03:59) 4 Learning To Control Myself (05:35) 5 Disconnecting Entirely (01:32) 6 Emil Cioran (03:34) 7 Hyperdawn (04:33) |
 | Album: 7 of 27 Title: Scenes With Curved Objects Released: 2009-09 Tracks: 2 Duration: 19:13 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Melancholy Descriptions of Simple 3D Environments (09:29) 2 Side B: Adagio in G minor / Piano Craft Guild (edit) / The Trouble With Being Born / Let It Go (09:44) |
 | Album: 8 of 27 Title: Russian Mind Released: 2009-10 Tracks: 6 Duration: 32:16 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Months (03:10) 2 Physical Memory (10:55) 3 Grief and Repetition (02:40) 4 Russian Mind (05:04) 5 Time Decanted (03:13) 6 Immanence (07:14) |
| Russian Mind : Allmusic album Review : Brooklyn synth wizard Daniel Lopatin toiled long in the trenches of the noise scene before eventually breaking through to international acclaim with his glowing 2009 compilation Rifts. Rifts gathered together the best excerpts from an already lengthy discography of small-release cassettes and other lesser releases, the likes of which Lopatin would continue to spit out even as accolades continued to come his way. One such release was 2009s extremely limited Russian Mind, a collection made up of recordings dating as far back as 2004 and focusing on a washy narrative about a Russian cosmonaut. OPNs glimmering synth tones border at times on cosmic new age, but always resonate with enough consideration and determination to keep them from disappearing into listless hippie anonymity. | ||
 | Album: 9 of 27 Title: Rifts Released: 2009-10-20 Tracks: 33 Duration: 3:08:01 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Woe Is the Transgression I (08:44) 2 Behind the Bank (02:21) 3 Eyeballs (02:58) 4 Betrayed in the Octagon (03:32) 5 Woe Is the Transgression II (10:53) 6 Parallel Minds (03:20) 7 Laser to Laser (03:19) 8 Ships Without Meaning (09:37) 9 Terminator Lake (05:40) 10 Transmat Memories (05:32) 11 A Pact Between Strangers (04:18) 12 When I Get Back From New York (16:46) 1 Computer Vision (02:22) 2 Format & Journey North (09:45) 3 Zones Without People (03:59) 4 Learning to Control Myself (05:35) 5 Disconnecting Entirely (01:32) 6 Emil Cioran (03:34) 7 Hyperdawn (04:33) 8 Lovergirls Precinct (01:35) 9 I Know Its Taking Pictures From Another Plane (Inside Your Sun) (02:30) 10 Blue Drive (09:56) 11 The Trouble With Being Born (04:30) 12 Sand Partina (07:02) 1 Months (03:05) 2 Physical Memory (10:53) 3 Grief and Repetition (02:38) 4 Russian Mind (05:03) 5 Time Decanted (03:09) 6 Immanence (07:17) 7 Melancholy Descriptions of Simple 3D Environments (10:53) 8 Memory Vague (04:47) 9 KGB Nights (06:08) |
| Rifts : Allmusic album Review : A compilation gathered from Daniel Lopatins first three Oneohtrix Point Never albums (2007s Betrayed in the Octagon and 2009s Zones Without People and Russian Mind), Rifts presents a triptych that defined his distinctive approach to drone-based electronic music. As sprawling as this two-and-a-half-hour collection is and as wide-ranging as its tracks are, its also one of the purest examples of Oneohtrix Point Nevers aesthetic, full of drones that feel either weightless or massive, punctuated by synth arpeggios and the occasional found sound or tweaked vocal. Lopatin built quite a world with these three albums, one inspired by the soulful, searching side of science fiction -- many of the song titles here feel like they could be the names of forgotten classics of 70s and 80s sci-fi films and literature -- as well as forebears ranging from Tangerine Dream to Boards of Canada. The warmth of Lopatins analog synths on these tracks rightly drew comparisons to the latter act, and the mix of nostalgic tones and unsettling moods often suggests a more expansive, ambient-leaning version of the duos darkest album, Geogaddi (and had a similar way of letting its shadowy sounds sneak in and mess with listeners emotions on an almost subliminal level). However, Rifts tracks have even more range, spanning the cavernous darkness of "Woe Is the Transgression II," which alternates between feral whoops and passages of shimmering drones layered upon each other like whale calls; suffocating synth workouts like "Transmat Memories"; and fleeting moments of beauty like "Months," which add poignancy to its vastness. Rifts also has a remarkable balance to it; for every epic like "When I Get Back from New York," which builds from blippy arpeggios into more moody and abrasive terrain over the course of 16 minutes, a shorter track like "Laser to Laser" distills OPNs sound into something not exactly pop, but certainly a lot more immediate. Similarly, Lopatin manages to run the emotional gamut with "Grief and Repetition," a funereal melody engulfed in a fog of drones, and "Hyperdawn," which is the track that would play as the credits rolled if Rifts were the score to a sci-fi film with a happy ending. Fittingly, the title tracks of the albums this collection was drawn from are among the defining moments, showcasing Lopatin at his most retro and most striking: "Zones Without People" has an almost sinister feel to its clinical serenity, while "Russian Mind"s dense arpeggios are more than a little paranoid in their intensity and "Betrayed in the Octagon" evokes Blade Runner not just in its pulsing synths but its hazy, half-remembered melancholy. Unabashedly ambitious yet nuanced, Rifts is equally compelling listening whether taken in small chunks or in its entire massive sweep. | ||
 | Album: 10 of 27 Title: Returnal Released: 2010-06-28 Tracks: 8 Duration: 42:02 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Nil Admirari (05:06) 2 Describing Bodies (04:18) 3 Stress Waves (05:42) 4 Returnal (04:42) 5 Pelham Island Road (07:35) 6 Where Does Time Go (06:24) 7 Ouroboros (02:02) 8 Preyouandi (06:10) |
 | Album: 11 of 27 Title: FACT Mix 162: Oneohtrix Point Never Released: 2010-06-28 Tracks: 1 Duration: 56:29 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 FACT Mix 162: Oneohtrix Point Never (56:29) |
 | Album: 12 of 27 Title: Replica Released: 2011-11-07 Tracks: 10 Duration: 40:57 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Andro (03:55) 2 Power of Persuasion (03:29) 3 Sleep Dealer (03:10) 4 Remember (03:19) 5 Replica (04:36) 6 Nassau (04:42) 7 Submersible (03:49) 8 Up (03:57) 9 Child Soldier (03:12) 10 Explain (06:45) |
| Replica : Allmusic album Review : Replica, retro-synth drone maven Daniel Lopatins return as Oneohtrix Point Never following his critically adored, profile-rocketing 2010 album Returnal (and his equally estimable work with Ford & Lopatin), offers repeat customers both familiarity and surprise in roughly equal measure. In the former column, Lopatin still grounds his creations in conspicuously beautiful, buzzing, humming, and twinkling Kosmiche synthscapes; once again, everything feels draped in a syrupy, soft-focus analog glaze. But only one track, the aptly titled "Submersible," sustains itself on warmly drifting, rhythmically unfettered synthetic sound washes alone. Elsewhere, gentle waves of gauziness give way, more or less gradually, to more dynamic elements: on "Remember," an intertwined pair of looped vocal snippets (one speaking the tracks title, the other a muffled, mutilated moan) slowly emerges from the amniotic haze; dappled pace-setter "Andro"s undercurrent of murmuring, garbled sound scraps flips in the final 30 seconds into a stuttered, ritualistic outburst of hand percussion and jungle screeches. By and large, though, rhythm is not merely appended to but fully foregrounded in these compositions, in a way thats essentially new for Oneohtrix -- rarely in the conventional guise of drum tracks and "beats" (though there is a stark, rudimentary one anchoring the first two minutes of "Up," which might be approximately danceable if it werent in 7/8), but often in the form of sampled loops, creating a definite rhythmic structure without (in most cases) the use of "percussion" per se, a much calmer variation of the micro-sampling methods of Akufen and Matthew Herbert. "Power of Persuasion" introduces this approach with a shifting series of classical-sounding (acoustic) piano figures stuck on short-circuit repeat, to placid, gently numbing effect, while the rather less somnolent "Sleep Dealer" lassoes in a wider array of thuds, groans, and whirrs along with a perky keyboard fillip, indecipherable spoken bits, and a satisfied-sounding exhalation to form a pleasantly cheery little jaunt, and the gently erratic "Nassau" adds some rustling, shuffling footsteps that sound a bit like soft-shoe tap dancing. Even the lovely, lulling title track, which combines static buzzes and fluid, meandering melodic tones with no regular rhythmic matrix to speak of, creates a sense of gentle groove and motion in its soft, patient new age piano chords. Apart from his usual battery of analog keyboards (and a considerable amount of actual acoustic piano), Lopatin apparently culled much of the sound for this album from a DVD compilation of TV commercials dating from 1985 to 1993. Though it makes for an intriguing compositional back-story -- and it clearly provided him a rich sound palette from which to draw -- its rare that that source material is specifically evident while listening; at best it functions on a more energetic, subconscious level, making the typically nebulous sonic nostalgia of the chillwave/hypnagogic pop movement -- with which these productions bear some strong commonalities -- more literally (if still somewhat imperceptibly) manifest. | ||
 | Album: 13 of 27 Title: Dog in the Fog Released: 2012-06-12 Tracks: 4 Duration: 13:05 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Replica (Matmos edit) (03:59) 2 Replica (OPN edit) (02:22) 3 Remember (Surgeon remix) (04:38) 4 Nassau (Richard Youngs remix) (02:06) |
 | Album: 14 of 27 Title: Music for Reliquary House / In 1980 I Was a Blue Square Released: 2012-09-18 Tracks: 10 Duration: 41:08 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Stone of Spiritual Understanding (05:07) 2 Midday (03:16) 3 Free Ride (06:54) 4 Cubi X (02:58) 5 The Letter (04:02) 6 Meta Concrete (04:12) 7 Untitled Solo 4 (02:29) 8 The Bridge (03:22) 9 Qi (06:40) 10 Quick Folding Motion (02:08) |
 | Album: 15 of 27 Title: The Fall Into Time Released: 2013-04-23 Tracks: 6 Duration: 43:17 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Blue Drive (09:56) 2 The Trouble With Being Born (04:30) 3 Sand Partina (07:02) 4 Melancholy Descriptions of Simple 3D Environments (10:53) 5 Memory Vague (04:47) 6 KGB Nights (06:08) |
 | Album: 16 of 27 Title: R Plus Seven Released: 2013-09-21 Tracks: 11 Duration: 44:31 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Boring Angel (04:16) 2 Americans (05:18) 3 He She (01:33) 4 Inside World (03:53) 5 Zebra (06:44) 6 Along (05:24) 7 Problem Areas (03:06) 8 Cryo (02:47) 9 Still Life (04:54) 10 Chrome Country (05:29) 11 Gone (01:07) |
| R Plus Seven : Allmusic album Review : Over the course of Oneohtrix Point Nevers discography, Daniel Lopatin managed to sound markedly different from album to album while keeping an overarching aesthetic. His Warp debut, R Plus Seven, often feels like a microcosm of that approach; these shape-shifting songs hold together more because of Lopatins bold sonic palette than any unifying concept. Aside from the opening track, "Boring Angel," he downplays the drones that made up the heart of his earlier work (and Replica, to a lesser extent) in favor of bright, briskly applied tones that, on the surface, seem like the opposite of his usual modus operandi. This fragmentation could be seen as a variation of Replicas choppy recontextualizing, though the results are dizzying rather than hypnotic: "Americans" hops from environmental sounds to zapping synths to cheery strings to choral vocals in what feels like the musical equivalent of a series of smash cuts. Similarly, Lopatin trades one kind of nostalgia for another: instead of evoking (and sampling from) the 70s and early 80s as his earlier work did, the brittle, sometimes cheap MIDI-esque sounds he sprinkles throughout R Plus Seven recall the late 80s and early 90s. The preponderance of choral pads on tracks such as the fittingly named "Still Life" give the album an eerie, uncanny valley-ish undercurrent, while "Along"s mix of piping synth flutes, exotic percussion, and sax sounds like new age and smooth jazz run through a woodchipper. However, thanks to the light-handed arrangements, what could be cheesy or ironic more often than not feels forward-looking. Despite the dots and dashes of sound at any given moment, the album gives an overall impression of sleekness, and its subversive glossiness suggests that its tracks were made from pop songs that were shattered into shards that are as alluring as they are difficult to piece together. Occasionally, Lopatin tones down the hyperactivity a bit, resulting in highlights like "Problem Areas," which is carried by rubbery bass and a stairstepping brass motif, and "Zebra" and "Chrome Country," which both use warm-sounding synths to surprisingly emotional effect (even if the latter song tweaks the choral pad so violently that it sounds like its shrieking). By conventional standards, R Plus Seven isnt a widely appealing crossover for Lopatins new label. Yet in an almost perverse way, the playful spirit of these tracks and their lively sounds make for some of his most accessible work yet. For the most part, the album showcases Oneohtrix Point Nevers restlessness and ambition in flattering ways; if its equal parts mystifying and beautiful, its also a puzzle well worth trying to figure out. | ||
 | Album: 17 of 27 Title: XLR8R Podcast 315: Oneohtrix Point Never Released: 2013-10-01 Tracks: 1 Duration: 1:55:57 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 XLR8R Podcast 315: Oneohtrix Point Never (1:55:57) |
 | Album: 18 of 27 Title: Oneohtrix Point Never Ray-Ban x Boiler Room Released: 2014 Tracks: 1 Duration: 44:31 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Oneohtrix Point Never Ray-Ban x Boiler Room (44:31) |
 | Album: 19 of 27 Title: Commissions I Released: 2014-04-19 Tracks: 3 Duration: 20:20 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Music for Steamed Rocks (07:29) 2 Meet Your Creator (05:33) 3 I Only Have Eyes for You (07:18) |
 | Album: 20 of 27 Title: Commissions II Released: 2015-04-17 Tracks: 3 Duration: 30:09 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Bullet Hell Abstraction I (06:15) 2 Bullet Hell Abstraction III (04:58) 3 Suite From Magnetic Rose (18:56) |
 | Album: 21 of 27 Title: Garden of Delete Released: 2015-11-10 Tracks: 12 Duration: 45:22 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Intro (00:28) 2 Ezra (04:27) 3 ECCOJAMC1 (00:32) 4 Sticky Drama (04:18) 5 SDFK (01:27) 6 Mutant Standard (08:06) 7 Child of Rage (04:52) 8 Animals (03:55) 9 I Bite Through It (03:17) 10 Freaky Eyes (06:31) 11 Lift (04:10) 12 No Good (03:19) |
| Garden of Delete : Allmusic album Review : Oneohtrix Point Nevers Daniel Lopatin is the kind of artist you expect to keep evolving, even if exactly how he evolves on each album is unpredictable. That said, he still throws listeners a few curves on Garden of Delete, an album inspired by his adolescence and his 2014 tour with Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden. Any expectations that this is OPNs "guitar album" are quickly dashed: Lopatins palette is far wider-ranging, incorporating aspects of his previous albums (as well as a nod to his work as Chuck Person on "ECCOJAMC1") and elements of metal, trance, R&B;, and Top 40 pop that, when combined, feel unmistakably like Oneohtrix Point Never. The way he transforms different sounds and eras into something nostalgic yet new has always been one of his greatest strengths. He goes one better on Garden of Delete, imbuing these songs with powerful, wide-ranging emotions. "Animals" lugubrious melody is mournful to the point of uneasiness, while "No Good"s deceptively soothing flow and distorted vocoder make it a self-destructing love song. As dense as R Plus Seven was cleanly sculpted, theres a lot to unpack within Garden of Delete, including its title: a phrase that suggests the meticulous task of editing music as well as the union of creation and destruction (and shortens to G.O.D.), its the perfect mission statement for an album that combines past and present in surprising, and surprisingly organic ways. While "Lift"s crystalline melody is classic OPN, the vocals that dominate the album add to its personal feel -- even if theyre courtesy of the software instrument Chipspeech. Lopatin uses the software to give voice to Ezra, an alien who figured heavily in Garden of Deletes promotional campaign and who lends the album its emotional arc. We first hear his slurred tones on "Intro," but its "Ezra" that offers a proper introduction to the character as well as the albums scope: the tracks rapid shifts between heavily processed alt-metal guitars, stark, glistening synths, dueling vocals, and frenetic arpeggios feel like extraterrestrial mood swings. Shorter songs like "SDFK" and fragmented excursions like "Mutant Standard," which combines a looping melody that morphs from morose to triumphant with vertiginous atmospheres, only add to the feeling that everything on Garden of Delete is teetering on the brink. Lopatin uses his musics porous boundaries brilliantly, whether hes fusing molten R&B; with death metals growls and rapid-fire kick drums on the standout "Sticky Drama," crafting dizzying juxtapositions and edits on "I Bite Through It"s violent melancholy, or naming one of the albums most beautiful ambient pop moments after the child abuse documentary Child of Rage. These fascinating dualities make Garden of Delete some of Lopatins most intellectually engaging music as well as some of his funniest, darkest, and most cathartic. | ||
 | Album: 22 of 27 Title: Good Time: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Released: 2017-08-10 Tracks: 13 Duration: 46:08 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Good Time (06:52) 2 Bail Bonds (02:24) 3 6th Floor (01:16) 4 Hospital Escape / Access‐A‐Ride (04:11) 5 Ray Wakes Up (03:50) 6 Entry to White Castle (02:25) 7 Flashback (03:24) 8 Adventurers (00:59) 9 Romance Apocalypse (02:13) 10 The Acid Hits (03:44) 11 Leaving the Park (05:13) 12 Connie (05:03) 13 The Pure and the Damned (04:29) |
| Good Time: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack : Allmusic album Review : By the time Good Time won the Cannes Film Festivals Best Soundtrack award, Oneohtrix Point Nevers Daniel Lopatin was an in-demand composer thanks to the potent moods within his own albums. For Josh and Benny Safdies thriller about a man who has to beat the clock to get his brother out of prison, Lopatin uses his early work -- as well John Carpenter and Tangerine Dream -- as influences. On albums like Betrayed in the Octagon, Lopatin wasnt just ahead of the curve with these inspirations; he also used them less literally than many of the acts that appeared a few years later. Here, his fascination with the transformative powers of memory and nostalgia ensures Good Time never sounds derivative. The title track gives the lie to its name almost immediately, as the arpeggios that provided the foundations for 70s and 80s sci-fi and horror soundtracks squirm like living things among textures that waver between gritty and ethereal. Later, "Hospital Escape/Access-A-Ride" and "Entry to White Castle" make those rippling synths teeter between poignant and dangerous, while "Romance Apocalypse" and "Leaving the Park" exalt their beauty. Lopatin heightens Good Times impressionistic approach by melding dialogue into the score, reflecting the close relationship of music and action within the film as well as Lopatins creative partnership with the directors. "Bail Bonds" processes Jennifer Jason Leighs voice into something extradimensional, while "Ray Wakes Up"s blend of dialogue and sound effects reaches a masterfully disorienting peak. On the scores longest pieces, Lopatin takes listeners on journeys that rival anything on Oneohtrix Point Nevers other albums. "The Acid Hits" and "Connie" travel from frenzied to mournful, and Iggy Pop adds the perfect amount of world-weary grit to Lopatins ambient tones on "The Pure and the Damned." Its easy to hear why Good Time won an award before the film was even in wide release: The way Oneohtrix Point Nevers score bridges character, setting, and mood offers much more than a passive backdrop. | ||
 | Album: 23 of 27 Title: Good Time... Raw Released: 2017-11-03 Tracks: 19 Duration: 59:29 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Elara to Alley (03:51) 2 Banco Popular (03:25) 3 Dominos (02:44) 4 New World Mall / Rikers Island / Liberty Bonds (06:32) 5 Bail Bonds (02:24) 6 6th Floor (01:16) 7 Hospital Escape / Access‐A‐Ride (04:11) 8 Connies Mode at Annies (00:38) 9 Ray Wakes Up (03:50) 10 Entry to White Castle (02:25) 11 Flashback (03:24) 12 Driving Out of White Castle (01:17) 13 Inside the Park (01:46) 14 Cops Show Up / Acid Dose (02:04) 15 The Acid Hits (03:44) 16 Leaving the Park (05:13) 17 Connie (05:03) 18 The Pure and the Damned (04:29) 19 The Beatdown (Bonus) (01:10) |
 | Album: 24 of 27 Title: Age Of Released: 2018-05-25 Tracks: 13 Duration: 42:32 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Age Of (03:24) 2 Babylon (03:04) 3 Manifold (01:49) 4 The Station (04:19) 5 Toys 2 (04:38) 6 Black Snow (03:40) 7 myriad.industries (01:07) 8 Warning (02:38) 9 We’ll Take It (03:45) 10 Same (02:01) 11 RayCats (03:40) 12 Still Stuff That Doesn’t Happen (04:21) 13 Last Known Image of a Song (04:06) |
| Age Of : Allmusic album Review : From the way Oneohtrix Point Nevers early albums felt like vintage synth oddities to the 90s TV commercial-sampling Replica and the alt-rock-inspired Garden of Delete, Daniel Lopatins music has always recontextualized sounds that seem to define an era. Where he previously confined himself to exploring a single period of time or combining a handful of elements, on Age Of it feels like he recombines the entire history of music in profound -- and surprisingly accessible -- ways. (In retrospect, his background as an archival science grad student makes perfect sense.) On the ninth Oneohtrix Point Never album, Lopatin makes a strong case for the pointlessness of stylistic boundaries. The titles incompleteness reflects the impossibility of keeping an art form as malleable as music within tightly contained genres, and the album itself sounds like an anthology from an alternate timeline. Lopatin immediately begins dismantling preconceptions on "Age Of" by highlighting the similarities the harpsichord -- one of the albums major motifs -- has with Eastern instruments such as the koto and with rapid-fire electronic melodies. From there, things just get more unpredictable, but Lopatin never feels like hes dabbling. This is partly because of his considerable experience with sampling and recombining sounds, and partly because of the skilled collaborators (including Prurient, Anohni, Kelsey Lu, James Blake, and Eli Keszler) who help make this the widest-ranging OPN album yet. Lopatin matches the albums ambition with plenty of emotion, building on the depths he uncovered on Garden of Delete. Even more so than on that album, Age Of features honest-to-goodness songs, and theyre some of the brightest highlights: Lopatins processed vocals take the lead on the poignant android folk ballad "Babylon" and the moody, mutant R&B of "Black Snow" and "The Station" (originally a demo for Usher). He also finds time to riff on OPNs own history on "Manifold," where the plangent synth melody feels like a further mutation of the works collected on Rifts; "Toys 2" dips into R Plus Sevens gooey 80s soundscapes; and "myriad.industries" nods to Myriad, an installation piece that reflected another facet of Lopatins fascination with epochs and other constructs just begging to be defied. Tracks such as these take the album into its more overtly conceptual second half effortlessly. Though the Anohni collaborations "Same" and "Still Stuff That Doesnt Happen" seem to drop listeners into a futuristic opera nearing its climax, the effect is more thrilling than jarring. The same can be said for the album as a whole: as Lopatin scorns arbitrary boundaries, he gives his music exciting new shapes. Even if its point is to defy easy categorization, its not difficult to call an album as multi-layered and fascinating as Age Of a landmark work. | ||
 | Album: 25 of 27 Title: The Station Released: 2018-07-27 Tracks: 4 Duration: 17:55 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 The Station (04:19) 2 Monody (04:15) 3 Blow by Blow (05:28) 4 Trance 1 (03:53) |
 | Album: 26 of 27 Title: Well Take It Released: 2018-07-28 Tracks: 4 Duration: 17:21 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 We’ll Take It (03:45) 2 Monody (04:15) 3 Blow by Blow (05:28) 4 Trance 1 (03:53) |
 | Album: 27 of 27 Title: Love in the Time of Lexapro Released: 2018-11-23 Tracks: 4 Duration: 14:17 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Love In The Time Of Lexapro (04:06) 2 Last Known Image Of A Song (Ryuichi Sakamoto Rework) (04:26) 3 Thank God I’m A Country Girl (02:05) 4 Babylon (03:40) |