Trying to write about Oneohtrix Point Never’s Age Of feels like throwing synonyms for ‘disconcerting’ at the wall and hoping for the best. The Brooklyn-based electronic composer, Daniel Lopatin, wields inexplicably refracted sound like the keys of a piano, and on his ninth record has perfected his singular brand of electric dread.
The title track is a harrowingly divine voyage through corrupted digital memory, each component meticulously fragmented. ‘Toys 2’ diverges somewhat, as its shimmering keyboards evoke a misremembered version of ‘Beat It’, lacerated by Radiophonic Workshop FX.
Age Of also contains Lopatin’s first true attempts at vocal tracks, draped in a heavily manipulated voice-box. They shirk the shallow lyrical expectations of electronic music to paint a nightmarish cyber despondency worthy of Black Mirror. On ‘Station’ Lopatin’s artificial croon decries a growing informational terror, while lead single ‘Black Snow’ retells an obscure cult’s bizarre prophecy of a chaotic digital entity.
Age Of feels like the music many imagined with the hyper-futurism of the new millennia, its nebulous insanity impossible to describe and essential to experience.
8.5
