ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER
Replica
SFT01021
Software Label 2011
10 Tracks. 40mins56secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD Spotify: STRM

If Oneohtrix Point Never has only really been getting noticed in the last couple of years, following the release of a double CD, Rifts, collecting his first three albums, back in 2009 on No Fun Productions and last year’s Returnal on Editions Mego, its mastermind, Daniel Lopatin, has quietly been assembling synthetic electronica since his first semi-artisanal release, Betrayed In The Octagon, back in 2007.

With his latest opus, Replica, Lopatin broadens his sonic horizon quite drastically, adding samplers, tape loops and acoustic piano to his extensive use of the Roland Juno 60, an analogue synth he inherited from his father, which has been key to his entire work until now. As a result, Replica is a more ambitious and confident record than its predecessors. OPN’s lush and elegant cinematic soundscapes are still infused with synthetic textures, and constitute much of the basis of the record, but for this project, Lopatin has been finding inspiration in TV advertisements compilations from which he has extracted snippets of vocals, stripped them of their original context and placed them into as series of enigmatic songs which extend from the odd cut-up funk of Sleep Dealer or the sweeping Child Soldier to the reflective and haunting Remember or Nassau, each built around loops of various intensity. Devoid of meaning, these vocal components are just that, simple sounds amongst others, brought in for their unique quality. The result is, in most cases, rather striking, even when these voices are rendered to appear especially synthetic, as is the case on Remember or Explain for instance.

In between these, Lopatin alternates between dreamy constructions (the stunning Andro, which shifts from fluid ambient textures to Afro-tinted groove toward the end, or the Boards Of Canada-esque Power Of Persuasion) to much more introspective pieces (the piano-led title track or the stern ambient formations of Submersible), but these are not fundamentally different from the rest of the album, as Lopatin’s focus remains firmly on creating a narrative based on a succession of cinematic moods. These atmospheric touches take on all sorts of shapes, from the broken loops of Sleep Dealer or the drone-like choir on Remember to the shimmering cascading piano which appears as the rhythmic turmoil of the first half makes way for a much warmer set up in the second or the layers of synthetic strings on Child Soldier.

With this album, Daniel Lopatin has refined his sound by giving it a wider spectrum, and whilst he remains faithful to the overly synthetic aspect of his music, it is the way he accommodates his expanded palette which binds this album together. Acoustic components and samples are given a very similar treatment to that applied to the sprawling synthetic expanses to give the whole album a very coherent flow from start to finish.

4.8/5

Oneohtrix Point Never | Software Label
Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD Spotify: STRM