When approaching this week’s review, I came across an interesting gambit. On the one hand, I don’t listen to electronic music with any regularity. There’s something about the repetition and textures that grow thin if I listen for more than a few minutes. On the one hand, I get their appeal, but I’m too much of a traditionalist, needing music to return to some familiar complacency by the end. I’m sure that I can enjoy the journey it takes me on, but unless I’m feeling progressed I tend to feel isolated by what’s going on.
With that said, I couldn’t pass up the chance to review Oneohtrix Point Never’s latest. There is something compelling about artist Daniel Lopatin’s music, and it’s especially shined through in his work with co-directors Josh and Benny Safdie. Because of Good Time (2017) and Uncut Gems (2019) – the latter especially – I am able to appreciate the ethereal destruction that his sound can encapsulate, where it sounds like you’re listening to anxiety rush through your veins. Uncut Gems is one of my favorite recent movies and I’ve turned on the score often when I’m wanting to be in a mood someplace between calm and anxious. Lopatin hits it perfectly and I'd be lying if I didn’t say I was curious to see what else he had to offer.
It’s true that he also did work on The Weeknd’s “After Hours,” which is among my favorite 2020 albums. He definitely has something that connects with me, and I became curious to know if this would be the chance where I understood the appeal of electronic music en masse. In theory, this would be my third go-around with him, and I’ve heard that usually is some kind of charm.
“Magic Oneohtrix Point Never” has an appealing origin story. The name is a reference to one of Lopatin’s favorite radio stations, Magic 106.7, which he remembers mishearing as a kid. It’s a detail that stuck with him and is the source for everything that follows on this album. Following his work on “After Hours,” he decided to make an album that explored how he grew as a person, deciding to incorporate a mix of new and old sounds, including online databases that he would infuse to create a new and wholly original sound. It was to be a commentary on his affection for radio as background music, the way it always feels like it’s there even as it exists just outside of periphery.
Because of this, everything that follows is best consumed like a tapestry of a sonic landscape. While Lopatin sings, often through distortion, it is only one tool of his bigger picture. There are four Cross Talk sequences that simultaneously reflect shifts in chapters while grounding the sporadic nature of everything else, constantly ricocheting from one transmission to another. The songs breakdown midway, finding shifts in the mood one minute and presenting long and calming portions another. Anyone wanting cohesion may come away a bit disappointed. Its anarchic tendencies may never fully disrupt the album, but it definitely will throw the listener off guard every 5-10 minutes, right as the numbing has reached its full potential.
In that respect, it’s a compelling idea for a concept album, reflecting as much on Oneohtrix Point Never’s personal growth as the way that sound impacts our subconscious. With that said, my inexperience with this genre maybe played against my overall enjoyment. I like what he has created, but the absence of the familiar sometimes bothered me. I am not one for atmospheric music, and this has it in spades. The best that I can say is that it’s an interesting flip side to Uncut Gems, finding Lopatin looking more for self-actualization than tearing apart his own soul. It’s cathartic in that way, though I can’t say it necessarily stuck with me.
Everything kicks off with “Cross Talk I,” establishing the idea of awakening. Like an alarm going off, this is the metaphorical kick-off where Magic Oneohtrix Point Never starts its beginning. For everyone else, it’s time to get up and start our day, possibly listen to the songs as we commute to work. It continues on “Auto & Allo” before reaching “Long Road Home” where Lopatin lays out everything that the album to come will focus on. As the shortest section of the album, labeled “Drive Time Suite,” there is a forward momentum as Lopatin sings:
Doesn't the sky look like maps to our house?Doesn't the sea look so empty?Even my dreams kissed in digital glossIt's my reality
The world that this album creates isn’t specifically that of a radio, but of the world that everyone lives in. As an abrupt blurt enters the track, a shift to a new sound occurs. Everything is evolving, changing. The lyrics exist like transmissions floating through the sky, barely incomprehensible, unable to be seen by the naked eye. As the swirls of digital strings and synths kick in, the feeling of weather enters the story, making one recognize the journey ahead. It’s a long one, but from above the map is clear. From the ground, one needs to journey along the path to understand the full message.
With “Cross Talk II,” the sounds shift into the “Midday Suite.” As before, it starts with a radio channel posing the theme of what’s to follow. In this case, it asks the question “Have you changed?” while posing the idea that childlike wonder doesn’t prepare one for adulthood. This section is the start of a more creative shift in instrumentation. Even as the vocals hang in the ether, guiding the listener’s subconscious, the sound finds a clash of youthful instrumentation with more adult harmonies, creating something that is at times breathtaking, but more thought-provoking than what’s come before, reflecting enlightenment breaking through as everything fades into the background.
“I Don’t Love Me Anymore” kicks off this section with the most enjoyably strange song on the album. With a calming set of harmonies, at times sounding like an old Wii menu, it finds a fading into a sound, reminiscent of standing on a beach as the white noise picks up, fading to another frequency as it gives way to the next song “Bow Ecco.” Along with “The Whether Channel,” it’s an example of how he plays with atmosphere, swirling instruments that bring in random sounds from the internet to find nature and the digital world clashing. It has a calming aspect, relaxing the viewer into the wonder of life, taking a deep breath before the next shift.
The section ends with the cameo from “No Nightmares,” finding the mature shift from youth into adulthood. The Weeknd’s calming reflection on the title allows for the sense that everything is going to be better. There is nothing in the world that can change their outlook on life. It’s one of the best tracks on the album for how it manages to shift from Lopatin’s high frequency to The Weeknd’s lower-pitch, which manages to echo more clearly to the listener, giving them a sense of personal growth. Having mixed their personal life with the changing tides of weather, Oneohtrix Point Never has done a good job of creating a midday self-reflection.
“Cross Talk III” may be the most enjoyable section just because it symbolizes a change in attitude. Whereas everything before feels lighthearted and full of optimism, this is the dawning. Everything that follows is his most creative stretch, reflecting an approach to old age. Having given up childhood, they have to deal with real things like elevator music and doctor’s offices. Even then, it doesn’t prepare for the most eclectic track on the album.
“Tales from the Trash Stratum” find a xylophone kicking in as the kooky sound begins to play with the densest, most creative sound yet. It’s humorous, making it feel like a garbage can full of ideas set ablaze, reflective of someone either watching TV or having an overactive mind. It’s followed by “Answering Machine” before moving onto “Imago” that uses the title quite cleverly to find Lopatin slowly fading into the metaphysical, making everything that follows more interpretive, reflective of deeper thoughts. He’s dealt with every other kind of emotion on this album but what lies at the end?
That’s where “Cross Talk IV/Radio Lonelys” comes on, reflecting the end of life, or a day, where everything is coming to an end. It’s the reflection of everything that’s come before and accepting the finite potential of life. It’s evident by songs like “Lost But Never Alone” and “Shifting.” By “Wave Idea,” there is the sense that everything is washing away, leaving you alone for another long night’s sleep. “Nothing’s Special” ends with someone yelling out, “I think that’s probably it.”
By this point, everything has coalesced with acceptance. The radio is shut off, waiting to start anew tomorrow. As a collage of sounds, all creating something that simultaneously feels like abrupt shifts of a radio signal while feeling like one cohesive piece, he does an impressive job of taking the listener through different facets of their brain. It’s the rise of self for a new day, the humdrum of youth, and the realities that you only face as you grow older. It may be interpretive, at times having fleeting moments that only last for seconds in fits and starts, but it all reflects aspects of our lives that are always there but seem to be ignored, always at the back of our minds.
This is a compelling commentary on background noise, the way that a radio can be used for comfort. While I don’t personally love it, there’s plenty to like in how it creates a successful exploration of ideas. Not only does it tell a story through sound, but it also reflects an evolution of music, growing complex by the final stretch. It’s an immersive experience that likely will make some feel some profundity in the sound decisions, feeling like they’re in a car, standing under cloudy weather, or waiting in a doctor’s office. So much of this feels like moments blurring together, and that’s a good thing.
If you like electronic music or soundscapes that are atmospheric, there’s a good chance that “Magic Oneohtrix Point Never” will play better for you. It’s nowhere near as manic as Uncut Gems, but it definitely has as many ideas floating through the air, waiting for you to discover them. Lopatin has a gift for making one shift their emotions with nothing more than a kooky orchestration, finding strings, and offbeat percussion blending with random internet blips. It’s a reflection of life through radio, the one constant that is always there waiting to be turned on. Once it’s there, you’ll feel less alone even if you don’t listen carefully.
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